Volleyball Faceoff
July 14, 2015
The leadership of school-sponsored sports found itself face to face with “the enemy” recently.
The 96th Annual Summer Meeting of the National Federation of State High School Associations overlapped dates and shared hotels, restaurants and sidewalks with the USA Volleyball 2015 Girls Junior National Championships during late June and early July in New Orleans.
This mega-tournament drew fields of 24 to 72 teams in each of 30 divisions, with each of the approximately 1,000 teams paying from $650 to $900, providing an attractive payday for USAV. In addition, this was a dreaded “stay and play” tournament that required teams to book rooms at the designated hotels that provided kickbacks to the organizers.
USAV raked in the dollars which the parents I spoke to seemed only mildly distressed to pay because they had bought into the fantasy that this sort of extravagance is necessary to help their daughter reach the “next level.”
Next level? Some of these parents couldn’t even find the next court for their daughter’s match among the 80 courts on which competition was held, and missed parts of matches they had paid hundreds of dollars in club and travel expenses to attend. This was about quantity of teams, much more than quality of experience.
And what, after all, is the next level for a girl playing on an “Under 13 Team” ... Under 14?
If the “next level” means college volleyball, then parents haven’t been told of the lottery-like odds they face. Making any college team that offers any financial aid based on volleyball skill is a mere fantasy for almost every girl and it’s a futile strategy for those parents to fund their daughter’s college education.
In sharp contrast, I’m reassured that we’ve got it right in school-based volleyball, where the focus is on scholarship in high school, not athletic scholarships to college; on learning in many practices more than competing in many tournaments; on local events, not national travel; where MHSAA tournaments are free to enter, and matches are conducted one at a time on the arena’s one and only court, with the school’s student section cheering the team on.
The 96th Annual Summer Meeting of the National Federation of State High School Associations overlapped dates and shared hotels, restaurants and sidewalks with the USA Volleyball 2015 Girls Junior National Championships during late June and early July in New Orleans.
This mega-tournament drew fields of 24 to 72 teams in each of 30 divisions, with each of the approximately 1,000 teams paying from $650 to $900, providing an attractive payday for USAV. In addition, this was a dreaded “stay and play” tournament that required teams to book rooms at the designated hotels that provided kickbacks to the organizers.
USAV raked in the dollars which the parents I spoke to seemed only mildly distressed to pay because they had bought into the fantasy that this sort of extravagance is necessary to help their daughter reach the “next level.”
Next level? Some of these parents couldn’t even find the next court for their daughter’s match among the 80 courts on which competition was held, and missed parts of matches they had paid hundreds of dollars in club and travel expenses to attend. This was about quantity of teams, much more than quality of experience.
And what, after all, is the next level for a girl playing on an “Under 13 Team” ... Under 14?
If the “next level” means college volleyball, then parents haven’t been told of the lottery-like odds they face. Making any college team that offers any financial aid based on volleyball skill is a mere fantasy for almost every girl and it’s a futile strategy for those parents to fund their daughter’s college education.
In sharp contrast, I’m reassured that we’ve got it right in school-based volleyball, where the focus is on scholarship in high school, not athletic scholarships to college; on learning in many practices more than competing in many tournaments; on local events, not national travel; where MHSAA tournaments are free to enter, and matches are conducted one at a time on the arena’s one and only court, with the school’s student section cheering the team on.
A Dedicated Downtime
November 7, 2014
Those who administer, coach or play school sports have become familiar with the phrase “downtime” to describe that period just before a season when coaches are not allowed to assemble players for activities that look too much like practice being conducted before the earliest practice of the season is allowed by rule.
In school sports, therefore, we often consider the downtime as a time to do less as teams – less than during the season, and even less than what is allowed teams during most of the offseason. If student-athletes are going to prepare for the upcoming season, they do so more as individuals than as organized teams during the brief preseason downtime.
In this we might look to the arts and literature for assistance; for it is in the downtime – the time away, on one’s own – that many artists, writers and other creative types have found their inspiration for excellence.
In Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, author Mason Currey describes the working habits of 160 creative thinkers. A common theme is the time these people demanded to be away from others to walk, sit and ponder. To wonder. To work through obstacles that seemed to be blocking their progress.
This is an imperfect analogy for student-athletes and school coaches, but it’s still instructive. In fact, a disconnected downtime – one without television, texting, tweeting and team drills, but with time and space to earnestly assess strengths and address weaknesses – might be central to an effective prescription for the upcoming season.