Grundy Center Volleyball coach Lori Willis recently had her team take a step away from the grind of the game during a practice for what she says is an important aspect of personal development.
“We just worked on learning each other’s love languages,” Willis says. “There’s five different ones and we’re all different. I love by acts of service and words of affirmation. So most of the time you’re gonna see me be positive, giving everybody encouragement, telling them what they’re doing a good job with. And so we talked about different ways that we can love on each other in practice as a team.”
Willis says these types of activities are critical not only for developing teamwork, but also social skills that help the student-athletes develop personally as they prepare for their lives after high school.
“We also took it to our family. What would that look like at home with our parents and our siblings, you know, grandparents and how we can love them with words of affirmation, acts of service, gifts, quality time and physical touch. And once you kind of know, and I also explained to them too, once you know that about yourselves, it really is like, it’s an eye opener, and it helps you honestly pair up with other people who are like-minded. It also makes you very aware of how other people love. And then you can make a conscious effort to reach them in a way that they need to be reached.”
The Spartans (18-10, 3-1 NICL-W) will return to action in next week’s conference tournament.
