New club team

[TeeterTot]

High school ball is over for now.  Can we turn to club ball for a post?

Does anyone have the backstory on the new club in Franklin, Sports Performance?  I keep hearing bits and pieces about the director but not sure what to believe.

[SummaryJudgment]

If what you're hearing about the director is salacious. Then it is not true. That relates to another person within the SP historical tree. DD, the director of Tennessee Performance is not associated with anything personally or professionally negative. He coached the Sports Performance 161s.

Tennessee Performance is directly affiliated with Sports Performance. This is, from my understanding, their third southern branch. Southern Performance out of Birmingham, will start their third season. Atlanta Performance is starting year two. And now Tennessee Performance is about to kick off their inaugural season. They will play out of the Field House. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. Alliance took a hit in the younger ages with some talented girls leaving for TP. Not so much in the older age groups. I would imagine this new club will have a serious impact on Club West, however.

Edited October 26, 2017 by SummaryJudgment

[clifford20]

it will be interesting to see if we can sustain 3 clubs.  I don't see it happening.  I think competition is always good though.  It overall drives down cost and better customer experience.  It will all come down to which club has the best coaches.   I wish the talent wasn't so spread out though...there isn't enough talented players in the mid state.  Thus it makes for pretty average club teams (when compared nationally) .   It's rare that any of the Nashville area clubs can really compete nationally.  Last year the 14's had a top 6 finish in Orlando, but that is not typical.    There were way less younger kids trying out at Alliance this year.  That will ebb and flow from year to year.

[Osage]

I don't think the success ceiling on mid-state club volleyball is a matter of athletes, it's coaches. Louisville, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Columbus, Austin... all these areas are drawing from about the same population as Middle Tennessee, or less, yet are much more successful fielding nationally competitive teams. Volleyball is culture in those areas. The difference is coaching, and in particular, getting quality instruction for athletes starting at a very young age.

Furthermore, it takes years to train a coach to be relevant at the National level. Middle Tennessee is probably a decade or more from having enough coaching depth to maximize its success on the national club volleyball stage.

[clifford20]

100% agree with this.  More so at the middle school level.  Our middle school volleyball is absolutely terrible.  And most of the high school coaches are below average at best.   When I say there isn't enough talented players, I mean volleyball talented.  There is plenty of talent, they just aren't starting volleyball early enough.  There are a ton more college level players coming out of our state though.  Just not enough depth behind that.  The fact we have 2 kids in the Olympic development teams is incredible.

[SummaryJudgment]

And I agree with all your posts above. It's about training, coaching, and competition within the age groups. The problem I've seen is that Nashville can compete against similar sized clubs in the younger age groups. Sometimes even with the big dogs like A5. But as they get older the lack of quality training, quality coaching, and having to fight to keep a spot on a team affects things greatly. 

It will fun to watch what impact TPV has on the dynamics here. Can they deliver on their training and team selection processes? Time will tell. The immediate benefit is that it is making the other clubs work harder than ever. Everyone wins in that scenario. It will also force some natural selection finally. CW had to combine their 17s and 18s as well as their 15s and 16s. Plus they lost some key people to TPV. So the wheels are already in motion.

I look forward to watching how it all plays out on the travel courts this upcoming season.

[TeeterTot]

I have yet to see a complete list of coaches at TPV.  From what i hear, please correct me if I’m wrong, TPV is still looking to fill coaching spots.  They’ve had a lot of success out of their original site in Chicago but none of their regional teams have been very competitive.  

CW was hurt the most.  Alliance essentially lost one age group but that was easily the weakest age group Alliance had last year.  Not sure how/if this did anything to Ethos.  

[clifford20]

I can't believe they haven't filled all coaching positions (if in fact that is true).  No way would I commit to a club who I didn't have any idea who was coaching.  They will never be able to replicate what they have up north.  Just completely different market, number of athletes and most of all--former volleyball players.  Volleyball in the mid west is just taken so much more seriously. 

To agree with Summary's point.....At alliance there is such a gap from 1 and 2 teams that the competition isn't great within the club.  Not to say that a 2 won't beat a 1, but the gap in talent is very noticeable, especially offensively.  The depth in setting is not good either.   

[TeeterTot]

When digging thru the google machine last night for a list of TPV coaches i came across this disturbing article.   Creepy considering all of the sexual allegations across the country in the media currently.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.tennessean.com/amp/514751001

If TPV is banned from USA Volleyball and AAU, what kind of competition will the club play?

[Osage]

Strictly speaking, Sports Performance wasn't banned from USA Volleyball... only the Club Director was. As a result, he was the leading force behind the creation of the JVA, which eventually merged its end of year season championship with AAU. AAU, for its part, has had its own issues with sexual abuse allegations. Sports Performance (and its incarnations throughout the country) are safe, there is no risk they'll be banned from play.

In a related note, I was kinda wondering what the top TPV team schedules were going to be, but these are not posted (not publicly, anyway). It will be interesting to see how those teams fare against the top teams from other clubs. On the one hand, it is in TPV's best interests to set expectations low for this first year. After all, their model is to be successful over the long-term, after the cumulative effects of many years of intense training. On the other hand, they have this page on their website, comparing Sports Performance 2017 results against Club West, Alliance, and K2, and making the case that Sports Performance is better than all of them. Which is pretty much indisputable, but Chicago >>> Tennessee in volleyball. Thing is, they don't really specify that it's the Chicago club they are talking about here. So if I am a naive volleyball parent looking for a club in Middle Tennessee, which is probably their target audience, I'm thinking, "Hey, these guys are better than everybody else." That sets some impossibly high expectations.

[Osage]

Back to the original question, what's the back story? A couple years ago, the owner (or just operator?) of the Franklin Fieldhouse, being a businessman, was in the market for a tenant. He generated some interest from Munciana, one of the premier volleyball clubs in the country, and started issuing press releases to the effect that Munciana would be launching a satellite organization based out of the Fieldhouse. Curiously, those stories were also accompanied by wonderment from Munciana about the costs of club volleyball, and how expensive it was here, and their new program would be keeping costs way below that of competing organizations.

In parallel, he also went to the press with lots of stories about how A-Game was going to have to close down. Shrewd on his part, timing these releases to create the impression that he is in the midst of building the only nationally competitive volleyball community in town. But then both stories quietly went away. To be fair, A-Game is still in some sort of limbo, but it doesn't seem to be slowing Alliance or Upward Stars down any.

A year later, basically the same scenario played out, only this time with Sports Performance. Hence this. By the way, TP is every bit as expensive as every other club in town.

[clifford20]

So I have thought about club expenses a lot.   The rough cost for Alliance is $3800 for a national level 1 team (I think)  (not including travel, food etc).  I have no idea how much Munciana, SP etc are, however I am not sure how much less the dues could be and still run a top organization.  Coaches have to be paid, there needs to be a full time director-who can make a good living.  The facilities are expensive.  So I ask, what could be different?  We are not basketball, so I don't see a scenario like grassroots aau basketball teams are sponsored and kids play for free.   Unless the club owns their own facility--I am not sure how that expense could be reduced--even then there are major expenses to owning a building.  I would rather pay more money and practice at A game, then to pay a bit less and practice at the Fieldhouse.  In the end though--I will go where the best coaching is 1st, and facility second.  Also, not to mention the club that get's the athlete the most exposure--which is massively important.  Bad tournament do no one good. What do you think?