Club Play expands in Middle Tennessee

[PHargis]

Here we are a little past midpoint of the club season and some important tournaments in the next two or three week at Williamson Select and Impact will allow those playing in Middleand High School to see how the competition has developed in MiddleTennessee and the reportr card looks to be very good. Middle Tennessee has numerous VB organizations in Middle this summer and those who have been active have expanded their clubs to where each age group, 12-18, has numerous players and able to fill up, if called on, and the schools wanting to fill their rosters up. Already, next years play looks to be full of would be players and other parts of the state seem to be growing at the same rate or better. Looking at rosters of high schools and the information gathered concerning Middle schools in Upper EasternTennessee sees a lot of schools having Freshman, JV and Varsity teams fillled up in most schools with JV playdays being held thru the season. the same around Knoxville and while no numbers are available around Memphis, earlier in the year substantiated the numbers were high in club. Tournament School Play around Jackson was particularly brisk with the largest High School Volleyball tournament held around Alamo in the fall being full of schools looking to enter. Reclasssification of districts in the UC should make that areasheat ho as far as school play and the redistricting around Goodpasture, Greenbrier and the schools in that area make play and learning the sport very brisk. Chattanooga, while always a hot area as far as play is concerned, is found to be very brisk and far as the maturity of players is concerned. Schools seem to be still interested in having their tournaments with some more being added and only very few not having one this year. Some schools have decided to combine their efforts as the number of schools requesting participation have increased and is better handled with splitting up the efforts of two coaches at two locations. It's obvious some of these tournaments are extremely large. This thread is being written in hoping others will share what they see, as far as the sport is concerned and am particularly interested in the Chattanooga area and in the area around District 13 who has not yet decided to find a way for those inteested to play. Tht area, especially around the Martin, Tennessee area, has been looking for the Schools in the area to start offering Girls the chance to play. While Clarksville seems tobe an area of interest, Only Terry Teeter at Rosswview seems to have taken the right steps to keepthings moving. Coach Kyle at Columbia and his wife have done things to help Middle School play in the area and Club Play with the Monarch's and play is developing in that area but still a little slow. iIt is obvious that Middle School Play is expanding in both Club and School play only being slowed down by too many players in grades 6 and 7 and not enough play to keep the interest. Sixth and 7the grade play in club is expanding at a very brisk rate and its OBVIOUS MIDDLE SCHOOLS MIGHT NOT BE FILLING THE INTEREST of students in that area. Since most Middle Schools have only 8 matches and a Tournament and allows little play of many players, Club play might be outstripping the ability to play significantly in some schools but schools will be able to recognize it. It is obvious that MSSAA District play will have a much higher level of play than it has had and likely an elevation of interest in all parts of the State a large partr of it being club and Many colleges/universities having clinics and volleyball team playdays especially in the month of July. Volleyball is still HOT.