Team-building and community service in the Wisconsin’s Northwoods have been tradition for the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh women’s volleyball team the past 28 years.
As summer winds down and before its season gets under way, the volleyball team spends a weekend at Camp Black Hawk, a Girl Scout camp in Elton, Wis., near Antigo. Team members have time to bond with each other, build trust and more importantly, help take down the camp for winter.
“At that point (of the season) we’ve been practicing for about a week,” said Head Coach Brian “Lumpy” Schaefer. “This gives them a chance to know each other.”
At camp, the team does a variety of work that could take the camp caretaker weeks to complete. During last month’s camp, the volleyball players removed mattresses and frames and mosquito netting from the platform tents and hauled them to a lodge for winter storage. They also took out sections of pier and brought rowboats, paddles, sailboats, paddle boards and wooden chairs to inside storage.
The team headed north on Thursday, Aug. 25 in a 15-passenger van and returned to Oshkosh on Sunday. Schaefer said a few of them–new to the camp experience–“think they’re going to be up there battling bears.”
He said the players’ end up loving the experience and remember it as a highlight of their time on the team.
The tradition started during the term of former longtime women’s volleyball coach, Marty Petersen, who decided her teams could benefit from community service and bonding at the camp that she had once been a counselor at. The tradition has continued even after Petersen left the coaching ranks in 2004. Schaefer said Petersen still enjoys attending camp with the team (she was part of the activities last month) and getting to know the current members.
Assistant Coach Jon Ellmann said he liked seeing players interacting with each other on a more personal level.
“The camp activity gets freshmen and sophomores together and everybody gets to know everybody outside the gym,” he said. “Their personalities really come out so that’s really valuable.”
He said team members were “working their tails off” to get a task done “and nobody was complaining.”
Sophomore setter Morgan Windau said it’s a fun tradition and a “very unplanned” weekend – different from the routine of practices and meetings and classes at UW Oshkosh.
“At the camp, no one is on phones,” she said. “It’s just a given. We just stay off of them and find things to do.”
Windau, who is majoring in elementary education, said she believes team chemistry improves after camp. She noted there are six freshmen on the 18-member team this season.
Senior captain Laura Trochinski, a defensive specialist on the back row, said she loves being at Camp Black Hawk.
“I love being outside–especially when preseason is two weeks long,” she said. “We’re in the gym 2-3 times per day. It’s just long and it’s nice to experience something new.”
There is a scary scavenger hunt and ghost stories, that are Schaefer’s specialty.
A “trust walk” is done to help members know they can depend on one another.
Trochinski, a native of Berlin, said teammates were directed down a stairs and across a bridge over water – all at night and while blindfolded. With only voice commands captains led the entire team back to the starting point.
More bonding occurred into the wee hours.
“At night, coaches sleep in a different building,” she said. “That’s our time to talk and play games and get to know each other.”
Camp Black Hawk sits on 375 acres and serves as the state’s primary resident Girl Scout camp for Juniors, Cadettes, Seniors and Ambassadors.
The camp has a high ropes course, climbing wall, archery range and horse-riding as well as two lakes for swimming, boating and fishing. Other activities revolve around nature trails, an arts and crafts house and a nature center.
The women’s volleyball team took advantage of its outdoor recreation features and even scheduled a practice over the weekend at nearby White Lake High School. For each meal at the camp lodge, there was a designated cooking crew, set-up crew and clean-up crew composed of team members.
Ellmann said it was great to be part of something that elicited positive responses from former players when they saw social media posts about the weekend.
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