oldsklvb

You must be or have been a politician. Interesting how you answer my post and twist your responses to accomodate your view. Regarding your polling - it doesn't seem like people that have been involved in vb for many years see a decline or loss of vb players due to the uniform. You "might" ask the same question on the wrestling board? Has it ever occurred to you to do so? "I do think you are missing some players that would play otherwise but since your daughter is not one of those you probably don't care." Amazing how you bring it around to me not caring or others that have expressed their educated well founded views on this sport. By the way, baseball and football pants are skin tight as well. Should we look at changing those?

Coacht, interesting thread you started. Do you have the same concern for boys wrestling? Would you have the same concern if we had swim teams in our schools as many do around the country? Is there a "need" for the wrestling uniforms or swimsuits? Both sports could wear alternative clothing such as you are advocating. Do you feel like a lot of boys don't go out for the wrestling team because of their uniform or if we had swim teams would there be kids who wouldn't go out for the sport due to wearing a swim suit? You asked a few girls and now it seems like you are ready to deem that spandex is keeping some "potential" athletes from competing. If it does, is it really due to the spandex or might there be some other reasons. If they are using spandex as the excuse then they were probably never serious to begin with don't you think? Whew...that's a lot of questions.

Playing for your school is special and should always be seen that way...I don't read the posts as saying Club is the only way to advance. I think what a lot of people are saying is that Club has it's merits and is a great way for the girls to enhance and improve on skills. As far as your list of coaches that could not be touched by club coaches, Berry coaches in club, not sure why Neely, Campbell or the AC coaches wouldn't want to except for the fact that they like the time off or have other personal reasons. There are good club coaches and bad club coaches, no different than at the schools. Staying in the gym for six months working on skills doesn't do much good if you don't have a coach who can teach and then teach during the matches. How would you learn different offenses or defenses. What about becoming more focused/competitive during matches that are tight and competitive. Girls that play club get the benefit of both, especially in match play where they learn to win in difficult situations. It's no different than most sports these days. It's time to accept this and move into the 21st century with brats in hand. Club isn't the only way to a college scholarship but it sure helps if you want exosure to dozens of schools as opposed to maybe only a few. It all depends on what your daughter wants and where her abilities can take her. I haven't heard of Bryan College, I'm sure it's a fine school but what if your daughter didn't want to go to a small school or wanted more choices. Club can afford this where school play makes it more difficult due to the overlap of seasons. Bratmav, you must be over 40 and remember the good ol' days when you didn't have club/travel teams and kids had a great time playing several sports. Sounds pretty good to me as well but club/travel does serve some purposes and look how many girls have benefited from this. You have been a busy boy with six posts in one afternoon!

Wise beyond your years seta4life...your assesment is right on and eventually Tn might catch up to someone like KIVA in the Louisville area. "They Louisville teams aren't better, they are different" Nice spin on this BratMav but your arguement seems to compare to TSSAA's revelation that they know what's best for the athlete. If the girls want to play year round and improve on the game they love, why should you or TSSAA have an issue with this. Also, the Ky teams are better since they receive better coaching at the club level. The KIVA program is a benchmark on how club programs can work to the benefit of the girls in developing skills over the years. Yeah, I know they start at a young age but there's a reason Ron Kordes coaches the younger teams and not his older girls. When you look at the size of the two areas, L'ville & N'ville, the ability/quality of the teams to our neighbors from the north is quite a bit higher, generally speaking. There has to be some reason(s) for this.

Germantown has won twice since 1990 (if we use Brat's starting point) and hasn't made any other finals since 1990. Good program but you have to wonder if this is a similar situation where they compete in a weaker region and the road to state is a bit easier. Last years team was very good especially Laura Thompson.

Sullivan East was runner up and I gave Baylor the nod since they won two state championships. Same with SS, two runner ups don't beat out 2 championships. Both schools have done well but are in a very tough division with the likes of Brentwood and Germantown, between the two schools they have won every state championship since 1997. East Ridge beat Brentwood in the 1997 AAA finals.

This is a great post especially if you look at the teams that have had success since 1996 once they had all three divisions. Comparing the top vb schools is of course subjective but let's look at the numbers for the schools that have made it to the finals in each of their divisions from 1997-2005 (for consistency sake with 3 divisions). Here is my ranking based on the number of times they have made the finals and then the tie breaker is 1st vs. 2nd place. Brentwood has had an amazing run when you look at the numbers and then other teams are a bit of a surprise as well. 1-Brentwood (7) 2-Father Ryan (5) 3-Page (4) 4-Anderson County (4), three second place finishes 5-Harpeth Hall (3), 2 championships and 1 second 6-Briarcrest (3) 7-GPS (3) 8-East Ridge (2) championship in A/AA and AAA 9-Germantown (2) 10-Baylor (2) Interesting how my ranking is very close to BratMav's with the exception of Page and Baylor. You can debate whether or not if championships mean more than second place or even making the state tournament but it's hard to quantify what a top vb school is so I thought the numbers would be a good starting point. These schools all have or had very good programs in place and it will be interesting to see how this year plays out in all of the divisions.

This type of split seems to have often but I'm surprised it has happened so soon in the Chatt area. I don't believe the area can support two clubs at this point and be successful (if you gauge success on tournament wins such as regionals). Other areas go through this as clubs grow and more and more girls participate at a high level. Louisville went through this when MAVA split from KIVA and same with Atlanta and A5 and the Atl Jrs. Normally this happens when you have so many girls that the age divisions become overcrowded and you have very good players that don't make the first team so they move on to other clubs where they will be on the first team and get playing time. The Dig to Win situation sounds political and that's a real shame for the girls in that area because now they will be forced to make a decision between two clubs and dilute the talent they have in the area.

Nice catch GLJ on bratMavman's attempt to extoll the successes of East Tn over Middle Tn. And to think that the poor girls in Mid Tn don't get any better as the year goes on since they play club. Oh wait, I forgot, AC has been in the finals since the dawn of time, 98.2% of their girls get vb scholarships (AND THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE TO PLAY CLUB). All of this from a district/region/section that has the toughest competition in the state and they seem to come out of it every year despite having to travel to tournaments for several hours and play once they arrive. I'm sold....AC is THE top program in the state!!

becool is on point. If you have spent any time around club volleyball, you notice the vast difference in Louisville club volleyball and Nashville/Tn club volleyball. It's not even close. The top teams in each age division for KIVA generally play "Open" in club tournaments, whereas the best you would see from a Tn club is in the "Club" division. All you have to do is look at KIVA and see where the director of the club spends his time. With the young teams! He consistently coaches the 14's and from what I have heard from KIVA parents is that all of KIVA's coaches instruct in the same consistent way. Look at their website and check out the credentials...it's pretty impressive compared to what Impact can produce. I'm not knocking Impact but the difference is vast and this is with an area (Louisville) that is 50th in population whereas Nashville is ranked 39th. Shows that numbers aren't the whole story but coaching has a great deal to do with the level of player that KIVA is producing.

Interesting that Presentation will be at this tournament and not the Brentwood tournament. Brentwood didn't pull any of the Ky teams, which I find rather interesting. Are the Ky teams tired of winning the BIVT?