Claudia Coco is a member of A5 Volleyball Club in Atlanta, GA. Coco, an AAU Volleyball member for four years, and her team are on a mission to take home the 16u AAU Volleyball National Title this year. She’s giving AAU exclusive access throughout their journey to win the title through this tournament blog.

Well it’s a big week!  We left for AAU Volleyball National Championships, which is extremely exciting.  Here is a quick update on me before I start talking about my team and our training.  I made my first big life decision and committed to the University of Tennessee recently.  I am so happy and so grateful for this opportunity to do what I love at the next level.  I wouldn’t have accomplished this without the help of my teammates, my many coaches, and my family. I just love everything about Tennessee.  I want to be a sports broadcast journalism major and the JEM school is outstanding there.  Head coach Rob Patrick and his coaching staff have built an amazing program with incredible athletes.  It is absolutely THE perfect fit for me and I couldn’t be happier. I’m proud to become a part of such a well-respected program and the  Lady Vol family.  Now onto my awesome team and our progress in preparing for AAU Volleyball Nationals.

The last couple of weeks coming into AAU’s have been super intense at practice. Our training has been vigorous and extremely difficult, but if it wasn’t like that we wouldn’t be ready to go fight for a national title. All these months of training have prepared us for this tournament. As time for AAUs has gotten closer we’ve become more and more anxious anticipating what’s to come. Now let’s not mistake the feelings of anxiousness for nervousness.  Jackie asked us today “Troop, what are we feeling? How are we feeling? Are you guys nervous?” In perfect unison the team answers, “No, not all.”  We aren’t nervous because this is what we have prepared for 1000 times for in practice.  We want this.