'Miracle Season' screening emphasizes Spartan family

GRUNDY CENTER –  There was something special about seeing volleyball on the big screen for current and former Grundy Center volleyball players.
 
But the recently-released film 'The Miracle Season' is about so much more than volleyball, and Spartan head coach Lori Willis thinks that a lot of the film's values were reflected by those in attendance at a special Saturday matinee screening for current and former Grundy Center volleyball players at the Center Theatre.
 
"I really want Grundy Center volleyball to be about family," Willis said. "Family doesn't graduate, it just ages and then there's always new ones born. There were some alumni here with their kids today, and that's what it's all about. … If you're going to be a successful volleyball program, the team has to be about family."
 
The film focuses on the real-life story of the Iowa City West volleyball team playing on after the death of their setter Caroline Found, who died in a moped accident in 2011. The movie also addresses the subsequent passing of Found's mother, Ellyn, to pancreatic cancer, and the bond that forms between the team and Ernie, Ellyn's widower and Caroline's father.
 
"Of course, Hollywood changes a few things," Willis said. "But really the whole situation stays true to what that community, what that family, what that team went through."
 
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