I'm Gabe Gardner, "Goose" to guys on the team, a member of the USA men's indoor volleyball team and proud to be the one chronicling our march towards the Beijing Olympic Games.

My hope is that this blog will give you some real inside information on our team as we move towards the games, and during the Beijing Olympics. I want you to feel what it's like to be an Olympic volleyball player while it's actually happening to us. By all means, feel free to respond with any questions or suggestions for future entries.

But allow me to start off with a brief history of our team for those of you joining us for the first time. Our team has been ranked by the FIVB (International Federation of Volleyball) 3^rd in the world following our most recent season. That ranking is based on our finishes in major international competitions. Some examples are we placed 4^th at the last Olympics in Athens, 4^th at the most recent World Cup in 2007, and won our Zone tournament (against teams such as Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Canada) to qualify for Beijing in January 2008. We also celebrated a bronze medal in World League 2007. This was the first time we medaled in World League in over 15 years, so it was a nice accomplishment for our group.

While we are satisfied to be going to the Olympics after a successful 2007 season, as our head coach Hugh McCutcheon would say, "there is still a lot of meat left on the bone". In other words we are working hard as a group since May to improve and ultimately give our selves the best shot to medal in the Olympics. To be honest, this group has been working together for the better part of 8 years together.

Are you guys going to medal at the Olympics? This is the immediate question anyone not familiar with our team asks. My answer: there sure are a lot of really good teams in the world, but we all believe we can medal. And we are doing everything we can to reinforce that belief every day in the gym.

World League is a FIVB international "money" tournament where 16 teams in the world compete in four pools, with the best 4 from each pool, the host (this year Brazil), and a wild card, qualifying for a final round of six (in Rio de Jainero, Brazil). Our pool has Finland, Bulgaria, and Spain. You can follow our matches live on http://www.fivb.com/ and click on the World League banner.

When I say money, I get to one of the big motivating factors for us doing well this summer in World League. Honestly, World League is in a bad spot for us time wise in preparation for the Olympics. It basically runs from now, every weekend (and yes that's every Wednesday through Sunday including traveling) through the week right before we leave for Beijing the 3^rd of August. Not a ton of time to recover before going to the biggest tournament in our lives, and it's a ton of traveling (yup, in coach class).

But as one team mate would say, it is a great time to make some "paper"....and actually gel as a team on the court (I added that in for you coach). FIVB puts prize money into World League at well over a million dollars, with the winning team splitting a cool million. That translates out to roughly $50,000 per player and staff for winning it all....not bad for 2 months of work. On top of that, each weekend we are immediately awarded $800 cash for a win, and $400 for a loss per player following the match (I hope the IRS is not reading nor thieves with the ability to heist a volleyball bus).

We just kicked off World League 2008 this last weekend in Espoo Finland with a cool $1600. Unfortunately for me my wife had already spent it before I arrived back in the USA Sunday. But point is we started our pool 2-0 with a 3-1 win the first night, and 3-0 the second. All in all we took care of business in Finland.

What else are we doing on all these long road trips to remote places? Well, first and foremost we are trying to figure out exactly where we are. I can truly say that most of us never really got that satisfying feeling in Finland. Not only was it light from 4am to 11pm, but coming from southern California where we train in Anaheim, the weather seemed 2^nd rate--a beautiful place, but lots of rain. I know, you're thinking we are spoiled.

We were lucky enough to have an easy flight and a nice hotel where we could connect to the internet and take each others money at the poker table. This is what we do with our spare time. Internet, games, and some actually get some reading done.

Watching video on our opponent, having short practices in the match gym and then playing the matches is the business of the trip....taking each others money is the fun part of the trip.

A lot of guys on the team play WOW (if you don't know what this is, imagine an online fairytale with guys enchanting each other) on their off time, but a great number play in our nightly Texas Hold'em tournaments. I will say that I was fortunate enough to walk away with some other teammate's prize money (no, not all!) from our wins in Finland. I might have actually played better poker than I did volleyball last weekend...yikes!

Chicago is where we leave for tomorrow, to play both Friday and Saturday night in Hoffman Estates against a much better Bulgarian team. This team took 3^rd just ahead of us at World cup and will be in our pool at the Olympics. It's a great weekend to really test ourselves on the court, and after the matches on our "bluffing" skills. I hope all of you are interested enough to follow our matches online through the FIVB website and at http://www.usavolleyball.org/. Also, keep an eye on the TV because all of our domestic matches will be televised on ESPNU.