When volleyball players opt to play overseas especially in Italy and Brazil, it’s not only about who you play for but also which foreign volleyball player(s) you can play with. Your teammates and support system are very important when playing at such a high level for such a long season. Back in the day when only two foreign volleyball players were allowed per team, ideally playing with a fellow national volleyball team member was usually your first choice, and secondly playing with a top national team volleyball player from another country, preferably a top ranked country with players who spoke your language was a second choice. Trust me it doesn’t always happen, I’ve been on teams where I had to speak Italian because it was the only language everybody had in common, including the volleyball coach. This makes you bilingual very quickly.
Olympian volleyball player Logan Tom, should be well-versed in many languages by now. The rules have changed and now multiple foreign (European Union) volleyball players are allowed to play per team in Italy. So think about how much great world class volleyball experience an international volleyball player receives.
On the Jesi women’s volleyball team Logan played with six “non-Italian” and six Italian professional volleyball players including Poland’s National team setter Magdalena Sliwa, Italy’s 2-time Olympian Elisa Togut, Italy’s National team member Eleonora Lo Bianco, Chinese libero Wu Dan, and Czech national team member Marcel Ritschelova. This is an incredible opportunity to improve your game and to learn the secrets of international volleyball from some of the best coaches and players while scouting the tendencies of your international competition, it doesn’t get any better than that for those volleyball players who want to play the best volleyball in the world..
On the Chieri volleyball team Logan played with USA and (soon to be) 4-time Summer Olympic volleyball player and teammate, Danielle Scott as well as two Bulgarians and one Brazilian. The coach was long time veteran Giovanni Guidetti. They say if you can stay around long enough, eventually you get to coach everybody. I’m just sayin’…
For the 2005-2006 season Logan opted to play in Switzerland specifically on the Volero team in Zurich. Volero did very well that year but not well enough to keep Logan in Switzerland.
The best international pro volleyball players are always looking to challenge themselves to become better. Logan is no exception to the rule. Moving to warmer territory Logan transferred back to a Latin influenced country this time choosing to play in the Spanish league on the Tenerife team. T But once again, the lull of the Tenerife island wasn’t strong enough to keep Logan there for more than one year so she decided to go to the far reaches of the earth to play in Russia.
Not just play in Russia but play on one of the historically predominant Russian volleyball club dynasties, the Dynamo team. Ironically Logan’s old team Spar Tenerife Marichal recently beat Dinamo Moscow 3:1 (19:25, 25:19, 25:23, 25:17). Who would’ve thought? Logan is scheduled to play the 2007-2008 season, her second season on the Moscow based Dynamo women’s volleyball team. Logan is currently on the US National Olympic volleyball team and will represent the United States in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.
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