Tawa’s Daily Dots: Club volleyball favorites and fixes
Daily Dots (May 4, 2021): Club or high school volleyball factoids, notions and ideas to impress your friends (or not)
• I am no fan of “Star Wars,” but the day compels me to say it, so I will. “May the fourth be with you.”
Today, for your entertainment, I asked coaches and directors to share their favorite thing about club volleyball and the one thing they’d do to fix it. I asked those on my email list about two hours ago and, so far, have received 13 responses about faves and 19 suggestions on fixes, if that tells you anything.
In this Dot and below, we present five favorites and five fixes for you to consider. We may include more faves and fixes in future Dots articles.
Let’s start with five faves, including this:
“The excitement of the three-team pool on Day 3 with bids on the line.” – Cari Klein, Sunshine VBC
• “When a player does something for the first time in a game after you have gone insane trying to get her to do it in practice and she smiles because she recognizes it.” – Marc Swindle, AZ Revolution
• “The experience of helping young ladies from different schools, communities and backgrounds become better people through the thrilling game of volleyball.” – Howard Garcia, Elevation VBC
• “The people that become family. – Tonia Tauke, Nebraska ONE, and CJ Sherman, JJVA
• “Watching a young athlete change, grow, and mature in her years in the sport. Watching a young athlete create lifelong friendships! Watching a young athlete find and then so openly share her passion for the sport!” – Scott Jackson, MN Select (Scott cheated and included three, when I specifically asked only for one)
• We posed the “fixes” question as this, “If I could fix one thing about club volleyball, I would…”
There was the usual stuff about eliminating Stay to Play, shortening the season, lessening the travel requirements, improving club tryouts and the like. The five fixes below are a little bit more unusual, starting with this one:
“Require continuing education for coaches. Not just for safe sport and health stuff, but mental health and volleyball skills and drills education.” – Aaron Payne, AZ Storm
• “I’d make it illegal to land on the center line. Too many injuries occur at a young age that affect these players throughout their careers, and there’s also no reason to play that close to the net. At the higher level the sets get further and further off as blocks get bigger, so let’s help them transition toward that and keep them safe.” – Curtis Yoder, Tstreet
• “Take out the pressure of the next season and allow the athletes to focus on their current season and teammates at full capacity.” – Shelly Tucker, Madfrog
• “Get rid of the double-contact rule on second contact. I know this is controversial, and it’s been discussed being removed from the collegiate game first. This removes any subjectivity out of the referees hands.” – Joe Lind, TAV Houston
• “I would fix the food at the tournaments and make it really yummy!” – Cari Klein, Sunshine VBC
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