Libero

By Dwayne Hauck

Libero is the sport story of an unlikely volleyball hero, and his struggles to fit in at school. Our young hero leaves a life of privilege, and prestige when his country is thrown into war. His family split up between relatives and refugee camps, until he and his father make their way to America.
Everything is strange in their new home, especially the customs of the other students in school. Our hero is happy in his simple life of anonymity at the school where his Father is the custodian. One small slip and his plans to go completely unnoticed in school is destroyed.
Nothing will ever be the same when he comes running out of the shadows and into the glare of high school athletics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781105087080

Book preview

Libero

Libero

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Table of Content, LIBERO a story about an unlikely volleyball hero, and his struggles to fit in.

Chapter 1, The new world.  Page 3-4.  A father, Richard, and son, Chris, leave a war torn country and family behind to start a new life in Canada, where they are challenged by a new culture.

Chapter 2.  The game.  Page 5-7.  The hard working son and father develop a bond, and an unusual game that defines their relationship.

Chapter 3.  Tryouts.  Page 8-12.  Chris unintentionally lets himself be noticed while doing his homework in the gym during volleyball tryouts.

Chapter 4.  Practice.  Page 13-17.  Pressed into practicing by an ambitious Coach, Chris struggles to fit in and understand the game, often with humorous outcomes.

Chapter 5.  Shadow.  Page 18-23.  Chris forges an friendship with the teams star player, Smash.

Chapter 6.  Liberos.  Page 24-34.  The team is announced, and Chris surprisingly makes the cut only to find out there is a large cost involved.

Chapter 7.  If the shoe fits. Page 35-44.    In his efforts to make money Chris takes on a part time job, at a new friends, Holly, father’s, Frank, shoe store.  On his own initiative He recycles damaged running shoes, giving them a new life and status.

Chapter 8.  Great strides.  Page 45-51.  An unexpected opportunity to take part in a running clinic, opens a new world for Chris and his Father.

Chapter 9. Game on. Page 52-55.  Chris take part in his first volleyball game, and finds success into the first half of the season.

Chapter 10.  The race. Page 56-61.  Chris and Holly run a 10K race with their Fathers.  With surprising results.

Chapter 11.  The senior team.  Page 62-69.  Injuries force Chris and Smash to move up to the senior Team.  A move not welcomed by their old or new teammates.

Chapter 12. Playoffs.  Page. 70-79. After many struggles the team makes the playoffs only to encounter greater resentment from the older boys.

Chapter 13.  Game match and season.  Page 80.  The year comes to an end, with unlikely friendships to last a lifetime

Epilogue.  Page 81-82.  Where are they now?

Chapter 1. The new world

Chris sat and watched his father glide across the hardwood floor with speed and grace.  He couldn’t help but feel pride for the athlete who would have made it to the Olympics if it hadn’t been for revolutions and war.  Pride that his father had managed to finish University, and qualify as a Mechanical Engineering Professor, but mostly he felt sad as he watched his father push the broom up and down the gym floor.  None of the kids sprinting on the hardwood even seemed to notice the thin short janitor even though he moved quicker than many of them, even while pushing the broom.  He was invisible, just like his son.

It hadn’t always been like this, they had been people of status back home.  Father was a local hero and was the fastest runner in his nation.  All Chris knew was that in the revolution they were the wrong colour or religion or something, and that it wasn’t safe for them to stay in the country any longer.  His Mother and little Sister had escaped to a neighbouring country early in the war to live with relatives, it had been seven long years since Chris had seen them. He and his Father were lucky to escape with their lives, and after two years in a border camp they had been granted refugee status to come to this country, the one his Father called his, New world. 

Nothing had been easy for them, the language was all backwards and the words could mean so many different things.  The food was strange, and often had very little taste.  The people were all so much taller, and so much wider.  Father had found a job as a janitor in the community school, and was planning to go back to school to re qualify as an engineer once he learned the language.  It had been five years of saving every penny, and they were still at no closer to having enough money to send for Mother and Sister. 

All Chris had to remember them by were old pictures of Mother and Sister, and a new one that an Aid worker had sent them six months ago.  As he looked at his sister in the picture he wondered what they would call her when she came over.  No one had been able to pronounce his name and very few even tried.  The closest name that sounded even a little like his was Chris, so he had turned into a Chris.  In his monthly letter to Mother and Sister he told them that Mother would probably become a Sara, but Sister had no name that sounded anything like her real name.  Chris told her that she may want to be Emma as that was a very popular name.  Father had the same problem and had chosen the name of a great and noble English King to be his new name, Richard the lion hearted.  Even to this day they couldn’t understand why everyone called him Bob and they even sewed Bob onto his work shirt.  Five years and everything was still so strange.

Chapter 2.  The game

Every day after school Chris would come into the gym to do his homework as his Father finished his days work.  They had to stay until everyone else had left the building, which on games nights could be after nine o’clock.  The teachers at first had always been amazed that Chris had his homework done before anyone else, and always days ahead of the due date.  But what else was there for him to do in the gym but homework, he was always too young or too small to play sports.  The closest thing he got to sport was the five kilometre run he made with his Father to school and home every day.  His Father still loved to run, but in their new city the only sports that counted were football, baseball, basketball, and volleyball.  Father would joke with Chris and say in his broken English that they would have called the city Ballville, but some place in Ohio in the United States of America has that name.

Chris had sat on the same spot in the bleachers for five years and was sure that the wooden plank would have the imprint of his butt on it forever.   School so far this year had gone smoothly for him and he had survived football and basketball season without anyone noticing him.  Football and baseball were his favourite sports as they practiced outside rather than in the gym. 

But it was a new season and volleyball tryouts were always chaotic with kids running lines and balls bouncing everywhere.   It seemed like no one could control where the balls flew, or else that they took great pleasure in getting them stuck in the ceiling lights, the basketball hoops, and in the bleachers.  Volleyball was Chris’s least favourite season as it meant at least thirty extra minutes a day after practice   retrieving balls.  Fathers’ engineering background had come in handy as he had fashioned a ball retriever from an old golf ball retriever that saved them from throwing balls up to knock balls down, never an exact science.  Father would extend his pole contraption high enough to reach the roof and use it to push the balls out of spots they had been jammed into. Chris would have fun when the balls dropped from the ceiling by putting his arms together, the way he had seen the volleyball teams do, and try to hammer the ball right back to the roof.  Every successful hit on the high gym ceiling