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As we sit to write this post, we find ourselves in the uncomfortable position of using an acronym without being 100 percent sure what it stands for. Best we can tell, "DD" refers to "Dear Daughter" or "Darling Daughter," and is used on forums like VolleyTalk whenever a person references her or his own child. (If we're mistaken, don't hesitate to correct us.)



We're also not in the habit of lecturing the volleyball community because, well, you don't really need one and who the heck are we to give one anyhow. So please view this as nothing more than a pep talk to ourselves and to you on a simple way each of us can help build the sport of volleyball in the state of Wisconsin: Try to avoid DD Syndrome.



So what is DD Syndrome? The temptation to only follow our own dear daughters and sons. It is, of course, only natural to care most about the ones we've watched bumping volleyballs practically since birth, driven to countless tournaments and otherwise fed and raised for the last however-many years. And, yes, whenever there's anything written about one of my kids' teams, the first thing I do is see if my DD or DS (that would be Dear Son, not Defensive Specialist) is mentioned by name. And that ain't gonna change anytime soon.



For us personally, however, to go beyond just that is where this sport really starts to get fun. There's nothing like walking into the gym while your team is sitting or reffing and actually getting excited, stand-on-your-feet excited, about a match between two schools or club teams for which you have no personal rooting interest.



That happened to us over the weekend and in a personal effort to battle DD syndrome, we'd like to name two teams we saw at the Thomas More Milwaukee Lutheran Joust and one team we read about at the Prairie Invitational that we would go out of our way to watch at the first available opportunity: 



1. Madison Edgewood Yeah, we're still sorta proud of the fact that we predicted this team would finish much higher than their 13th seed. And it's not because we're related to any of them, either. It's because we've had occasion over the years to wander courtside during breaks and see several of these outstanding athletes, such as junior setter Olivia Dittmann and junior outside/middle Paige Kuypers, on various Capital Volleyball Academy teams.



2. Divine Savior Holy Angels In Cheese & Volleyball's division one sectional eight preview, we predicted the Dashers would make some noise this season and they're already doing so. Only a 15-point tiebreaker loss to a very strong Kettle Moraine Lutheran team kept them from the gold semis on Saturday. And players like junior setter/opposite Amanda Dettmann and junior outside Kathleen Brennan are flat-out fun to watch, even if neither are our DDs (and they're not).



3. Union Grove The first sentence of the Racine Journal-Times article says it all: "This looks to be a breakout year for the Union Grove High School girls volleyball team." It goes on to detail their championship at this weekend's Prairie Invitational. We wish we'd been there to see sisters Kaitlyn Wilks, a senior middle, and Kassidy Jo Wilks, a sophomore setter, as well as junior libero Melanie Tornoe and junior middle Ciara Kohlhagen. Congrats on a great victory.



So which non-DD impressed you the most this past weekend at whatever tournament you were at? Share here, share on the forum, share at Cheese & Volleyball, just share. The more we talk up positive achievements, whether they're our own dear sons or dear daughters' achievements or not,  the more volleyball will grow in Wisconsin. Thanks. Let's chat again next Monday.