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2015 Club Volleyball In knoxville


bigbluevolley
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I took a look at all the teams web sites so far. Looks like K2 Volleyball Club is much more popular than the other 2. KVA is next and then PR. I remember when PR was really doing well.

 

All 3 clubs are having tournaments in and around Sevierville/Gatlinburg area. The attendance so far via AES web site isn't even close. PR and K2 are having one on the same weekend in January. The way it looks now PR needs to cancel. They will lose money unless the venue isn't charging anything. KVA is having one in February that is just about empty too. The one that K2 is having in January is pretty full. I wonder if the location of the PR and KVA is bad.

 

It's too bad that the clubs couldn't combine and make one big club. It really hurts the area when you have the talent spread so thin. I asked around about the possibility of this happening in the future. Everyone laughed and said that would never happen. Most of them said that the only way there is one club in this area is if the others close down. I had a number of parents tell me that there was one person that could make it happen but he wasn't interested. Maybe the old catholic coach could help the process.

 

What do you think??

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I agree with both of you. A well run club will explode in this market, but it takes seeing what not to do before you can see what a great club can do. In Louisville and Nashville the same type of growing pains occurred.

 

The first thing that has to happen is someone with REAL money has to get involved. This is already being discussed. It will take approximately 2 million to build a facility that will service both basketball and volleyball. This model works great in the big volleyball markets. None of the three clubs have any cash. They are struggling, financially, to keep a float.

 

Second, the money people will provide a business person to operate the financial side who will handle the budget and who will operate the club and facility. This can't be a parent, or a coach, and none of the three clubs have access to this type of business experience.

 

Third, the money/business people will have to have access to the volleyball/basketball community to recruit and TRAIN real coaches who are committed to providing a great experience for he athletes, with no AGENDA other than providing quality services for fair prices. A well run business.

 

Not only will it happen in two to three years, it has started. These people are business savy, have the money, and well respected in both the volleyball and basketball communities. It will be fun to watch.

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ScottRoss. This sounds well and good. The problem is this is Knoxville not Chicago. This isn't a "big volleyball market". The people that know volleyball in this town are already aligned with a club. The people that are not aligned with someone are so for a reason. They don't know much. You can have all the money in the world but if the coaches aren't there then good luck. K2 has the market share of talent. The parents and players in this town are VERY loyal. You better bring in Karch Kiraly if you wanna start something that's going to work.

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BBV, why do you and others always assume that a volleyball coach that isn't aligned with a club is not a good coach and doesn't have any knowledge if the game. This is way off base. Some coaches in this town do.not coach club for various reasons. And there a lots of club coaches at all clubs in Knoxville who stink. I know many of them well, as I'm sure you do too. They are not good. There are some.that are though. Just as there are some good ones who do not coach club. Please don't be deceived by great marketing, as Scott mentioned earlier, done by certain clubs in town.

 

And with that, Merry Christmas to all.

Edited by HardAngle
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I agree, although new to this board, respectfully there are some top flight people in East Tenn not associated with any club. Big Blue, I reread your post and I cannot agree. The Knoxville market is the perfect market to start a top flight club. Your post is why.

 

Leave Phoenix out because they don't factor into the conversation.

 

KVA lacks the funding, business experience, or truthfully the desire to exist more than another season or two. K2 is better, but they are more hype than quality. Parents are loyal because they don't really have anything to compare it to.

 

A combined Volleyball basketball facility in Knoxville will explode. Look at Louisville? Also, a club like this will recruit coaches who can take some of the high school jobs, and work with, not against, the high school teams to help the player. It will establish a real

 

It will happen...sooner than you think.

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Let me answer questions posed to me. btw. this is in no way arguing. this is exactly what this board should be about. Getting different prospectives and ideas to help grow the volleyball community in Knoxville. So I am thankful to everyone on here that post.

 

Hardangle. I am not saying that all those not associated with a club stink. I am saying that I can count on LESS than one hand the number of coaches out there that are good and not associated. Coach Jones and Coach Garland for sure. They could really help the clubs in the area, but for some reason they choose not to.

 

ScottR..Knoxville is by no means close to the Louisville volleyball level. The dynamics of this town is not even close. Let me explain (if you will). For female sports this is a basketball town first and for most. The LEGENDARY Pat Summit has made it that way. Go to the UT girls Basketball games and see what I mean. I wear orange and baby blue for a reason and it's not UT volleyball. The talent level for volleyball in this town is no where near Louisville. The pool of players is no where near Louisville. Unless you get the K2 people to join up with the new people coming in, it will always be an uphill struggle. I personally think that should happen. You might have a lot of girls playing but they will not be able to compete at a high level unless you combine. From what I understand KVA was started because the director got mad at K2 for not putting his daughter on a 1 team. What a terrible reason to start a new club. So now that new club flounders. They have diluted the volleyball teams in the area and they (KVA) can't compete in power tournaments.

 

Now I have a question for you Ross. Why do you say that KVA lacks the desire to exist for more than another year or two?

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BBV, I am surprised you left the Anderson County coaches off of the list. I don't know any of them except Coach Randi, (who I think is an amazing club coach and great person) also there are people who come thru UTs mens program that don't work with a club, but who are quality volleyball people.

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I have watched these threads from time to time and would grab the keyboard to start typing and back away because I didn't want to show disgust.  Mostly on how some people on here have bashed Dave and think they know what has happened in the past.  I think some of you should be ashamed at how you have mentioned certain people by name and such.

 

KVA was mostly formed (partly because his daughter got totally lied to and disrespected by J) because a lot of us parents were fed up with K2.  They started trying to be like sport performance from Chicago.  Players would ride a separate bus, with a separate fee, stay in separate rooms, with a separate fee, parents were not allowed to talk to their daughters during the weekend or even bring them water, and all of this with a coach or two that I wont go into detail about at all, but I would not allow any female member of my family to be near alone.

 

There were a lot of us parents that felt like the "family" part of our time was being taken away. Maybe we were not as serious as some.  I don't know.  But if K2 was doing everything right, there wouldn't have been so many people leave.  My daughter was always on a "1" team except for the last year.  She was recruited hard by a couple of good D2 schools but chose to go where she would have a better college experience and not worry about playing.  We left K2 not because of being on a "1" team or playing time (she was a star player most of the time).  We left because of losing the family side of it, questionable people brought in to coach, and piss poor money management.  Oh yea, and the crappiest facility known to man.  The girls were literally freezing to death during the winter in that igloo!  And it was quite a drive for a lot of us.

 

I don't think there will ever be just one club nor do I think there should be.  Different people have different ideas on how to run their business and coach our daughters.  I was upset when Chris talked about starting K2.  I felt like we were going to water down the talent between SMJVC, PR, and K2, but it worked for a few years.  Then they went away from what they started, and that is why another club formed.  Not from just one man, but a lot of players and parents that wanted to get back to the roots.  That doesn't make them right and me wrong or visa versa, just different ideals.  Knoxville is way too small to ever be a power house on the national stage.  Every now and then a team of like minded players will come along (like K2's 15s) that are really good and make it far.  But that gets harder and harder to do when you start playing against 17s and 18s that are all over 6 feet tall.

 

Sorry to ramble so much, but a lot is coming out.  Sorry.

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