Sidelines
Vakasausau’s dream
keeps her awakeSHE can't sleep. The adrenaline won't stop. Her brain won't stop, and neither will her heart, and these feelings, and this love. It races through her mind, it pumps through her bloodstream, it comes out through the jitters in her skin.
In the daytime she loves it, she can use it, she can throw herself fully into this passion, and find as much joy in return.
But there are no distractions in the night, when time stops and anticipation runs rampant. This is when she thinks of the next practice, or the last one, or every last detail, large and small. Great moments that have happened, great moments to come, all of the intensity and excitement and possibilities buzzing through her wide-awake dreams. This is her August obsession, and deep into the night, she feels it. Deep into the night, it won't let her go.
"It consumes me," Hawaii senior setter Margaret Vakasausau said. "It's eating me alive!"
Volleyball is. It's in her. Like music, like literature, like art, it's in her, it's in, and it's got to come out.
Volleyball. Volleyball, the game of emotion and momentum and chemistry and will. The game Vakasausau's personality is perfect for. We saw that last season, when she became a leader and then a starter. We saw that early, when UH was reeling and stumbling out of the blocks, when Vakasausau grabbed that team and told the Wahine that they would be winners. Hawaii listened, and believed, and for the rest of the season Margaret was the woman in the center of the storm.
"It was amazing to have that adrenaline," she said. The ride of her life. "I've never felt that way before."
She feels it still. She feels it now. It continues to surprise her, never fading, never waning, this feeling of adrenaline and emotion and leadership and love. It only grows, and everyone sees it, and heading into her senior season Vakasausau is still very much in the center of the storm.
"They've grown to trust me, slowly," she said of her teammates, who somehow listen to her, who go with her, who play for her. The bond has fortified over the summer, she said, they've followed her into camp.
It's spreading, this zone, this contagious sense of urgency and unquenchable desire. Melody Eckmier, Lauren Duggins, Nohea Tano will be even better, Vakasausau said. And when she has to defend Lily Kahumoku and Kim Willoughby, "they scare me to death." But the difference in this team, Vakasausau said, is that all 15 of them have it in their hearts, all 15 of them are digging and diving in a euphoric frenzy every day for a piece of that feeling, for a chunk of that court.
And Margaret is the maestro, conducting music. When it works, together, out there, they are a symphony.
She tried to describe it that magical night last Aug. 31, the night of the unlikely comeback against Kansas State, the night Vakasausau drove the Wahine to victory and stepped into the lineup for good. She tried to put it into words then, this gift of the game, that experience of bringing them all together, of winning and will and fists and dives and smiles and eyes and fire and hugs. Of being at one with the moment, and taking everyone along with her. Of the wonder of volleyball.
"I feel it," she said that night. "I feel it in my stomach and in my heart."
She remembers, and the description still stands. "Yeah, it's alive in me, that's why," she said. "It really is. And sometimes it's out of control. But the coaches watch me on that. It's something that you can't touch, at all. It's intangible.
"It's ... it is alive in me. And it's really grown. Scary. Bizarro Margaret."
Late at night it engulfs her, and she lies awake. She can't wait to play. The season can't come soon enough. The feeling can't come soon enough. There is something inside of her. It is growing, and it is alive.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com