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Colton Cowell shall be reunited with three former College of Hawaii teammates on his subsequent skilled volleyball gig. It’s one thing that he has stored beneath wraps for just a few months.
“We had a earlier dialogue the place I actually couldn’t disclose any kind of info apart from I had confirmed to play this upcoming season with a workforce,” Cowell, a King Kekaulike Excessive College graduate and nationwide champion with UH, mentioned final week. “So, now, I can formally verify that I’ve signed with SVG Luneburg,
a workforce within the Bundesliga, the primary league of Germany for the 2022-2023 season.
“And excitingly sufficient for the followers and supporters on the market, I shall be taking part in with Joe Worsley, Gage Worsley, Dalton Solbrig, all former College of Hawaii gamers.”
Jordan Ewert, a former Stanford standout and a membership teammate of the Worsleys, can even be on the SVG Luneburg roster.
“We could have a major presence by way of Individuals on this international league,” Cowell mentioned.
He’s set to depart in August for Germany “and I’ll seemingly not return till February by early April, so it’ll be a full seven-to-nine-month season relying on how the workforce performs.”
He performed a fast skilled debut season in India from late January to early March, however that is undoubtedly a step up into one of many high males’s indoor professional leagues on the earth.
“For me personally, I’m ecstatic,” Cowell mentioned. “To play with a few of my greatest buddies is a blessing, to play professionally is a blessing. I’m doing what I like with folks that I like and care about and I’ve a deep, profound respect for.
“I do know that I’ll expertise vital progress and improvement as an athlete. I’m merely excited. I loved my time in India and now getting a chance to compete for seven to 9 months, I’m simply excited to see what my potential progress and improvement appears to be like like over the course of the subsequent few seasons.”
His contract is for one yr, a call he made after speaking to former UH teammates.
“I’d say the German league is a top-five league on the earth, but it surely merely simply leaves my alternatives open,” Cowell mentioned.
Cowell thinks again to his days at King Kekaulike and has to pinch himself generally.
“It’s been a dream come true,” he mentioned. “I acknowledge that this chance doesn’t come by probability. It got here as a result of I used to be prepared to place the effort and time into bettering myself every day and I’m very grateful for the method and what this course of has taught me.
“I’m able to strategy this subsequent alternative with a brand new sense of objective, being that it will now be what I’m making a dwelling off of. On the finish of the day, it’s a particular story. I’m very grateful for the truth that I had such a kind of a humble starting, that I get to characterize the group of Maui and that I get to assist develop the game throughout the islands. … Finally I really feel a profound sense of gratitude. … I don’t suppose I’d change something.”
He had main surgical procedure on his proper shoulder on June 15, 2021 — it’s a date that instantly rolls off his tongue.
He provides full credit score to his orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Burt E. Moritz IV — “He modified my life,” Cowell mentioned.
Moritz carried out a full rotator cuff restore of his supraspinatus, a full superior labrum restore, a biceps realignment, and a bone spur elimination by a shoulder arthroscopy, a minimally invasive process moderately than totally opening up the shoulder surgically.
“The shoulder feels glorious,” Cowell mentioned. “It’s a blessing to reside my life pain-free and for my very own psychological and bodily well-being. To get up each single morning with out ache, with a transparent thoughts, with a transparent sense of path of what I need to accomplish every day, it’s one thing that I’ll by no means once more take as a right. … I’ve by no means felt stronger. I’ve by no means felt extra assured in my capability to play the game that I like.”
Cowell is presently in his third season of teaching with Outrigger Canoe Membership — he’s the pinnacle coach of the OCC 17-under boys who’re presently competing on the AAU Boys Volleyball Championships in Orlando, Fla.
After that occasion ends Friday, Cowell and the OCC gamers will journey to Las Vegas for the USA Volleyball Nationals, the place he, UH head coach Charlie Wade and UH assistant coach Kupono Fey, one other former teammate of Cowell’s, will coach a 16-17 hybrid OCC workforce.
“I believe for me, I believe it permits me to articulate, it’s proven enchancment in my capability to articulate what I see occurring within the recreation,” Cowell mentioned. “As a result of once you’re teaching, every particular person interprets issues otherwise and my aim is to in the end have a collective response from the group that orients us able the place we will win matches, we will develop and develop as a workforce, and we will develop and develop as younger males.
“As a result of on the finish of the day I need to be a coach who actually, actually expresses a want that develops character within the younger males which are representing the state of Hawaii on the courtroom.”
Cowell added that he has discovered issues from being a coach that can assist him in his taking part in profession. He has been working along with his present 17s group for practically two seasons — a lot of them are from state champion Punahou.
“I really feel that as a coach I’ve developed a major quantity of persistence,” Cowell mentioned. “Though I’ll let you know one factor, it’s much more aggravating teaching than it’s taking part in. After I’m teaching, I perceive how I’d do issues, I perceive what I believe I need to be completed, however in the end every particular person is completely different and with this group specifically — the Outrigger 17s that I’ve been working with — there’s a major quantity of expertise all through our roster and it’s now simply kind of sprucing the finer particulars of the sport, refining these expertise to the place our degree of execution could be at its highest.”
* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.
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