Oscar Kahu and Josh Taylor believe team will learn from brief playoff appearance
The Huskies men’s volleyball team is saying goodbye to Oscar Kahu and Josh Taylor, as the two players are wrapping up their time at George Brown.
To Kahu and Taylor, volleyball is a team sport like no other. With such an emphasis on team play, it’s fortunate that the two volleyballers have been playing together for over 6 years, dating back to Grade 8 in Courcelette Public School.
“This is my first year actually playing past the club or high school level, so it was really fun to get back into the competition,” said Kahu. “I earned a spot in the lineup right away so that just made it way more fun.”
While Taylor and he go back a long time, Kahu said that being on the team was an opportunity make some new friends.
Taylor is a second-year student pursuing his game-programming diploma, and currently has an internship as a game-programmer with Relish Game Studios. The office is located in Kensington Market, and their primary focus is to make their games for kids. Taylor has been fortunate to be a part of the volleyball team for the past two years while Kahu is in the one-year marketing financial services post-grad program.
Kahu explained that the reason he decided to attend George Brown is because he was considering a slightly different career path than the commerce degree he earned when he was at McMaster University. He wanted to explore what kind of options were there for him, and he now finds financial services relatively exciting.
When Kahu and Taylor first joined the team their goal was to win provincials. They had no idea what the real talent level was on the team but they both joined to win. As they both explained, it is never fun to lose a game, especially close ones.
“We were trying to find our identity at the beginning of the year, and our coach Josh Nichol laid out at the first tryout, our standards as athletes, and how we have to represent ourselves at George Brown as student-athletes.” said Kahu.
“There are going to be ups and down in the season regardless, but for us it was about trying to develop the right habits, even if it was helping each other out, or bringing a positive attitude to our practices,” said Taylor.
Taylor added that even though they lost their playoff qualifying game against Sheridan College, he believes that only made the team stronger and more prepared for long term success due to the experience they got in the playoffs, even if it was for just one game.
“Before the game started it was clear that we were very excited, ready to play and pretty amped, even during our warm-ups, you could tell that was one of our best ones,” said Taylor. “But after the game, we felt pretty defeated. It just felt bad losing, but we learned a lot from that loss.”
