Below are the highlights from the OVR Club Director's Meeting, held on August 7, 2005, at Westerville South HS. Please direct any comments or questions to Tom Kohl (kohl@ovr.org).

1. Specific tryout dates/Specific commitment date for Juniors/10-day waiting period to sign contract

2. Recruiting rules

3. Seeding/Point/Ranking System/Bid Tournament

4. Tournaments

5. Entry procedures

6. Cost

7. Allow coed teams for 10s, 12s and 13s?

8. College coaches coaching club (mostly an NCAA and compliance officer issue)

  • Club scholarships, can not be based on athletism, NCAA and Individual state rules pertaining to use of "scholarships" for players
  • OVR website that has information on Individual state and NCAA rules
  • Public notice of sanctions???

9. Tryouts for and additional HP teams

10. Next meeting date:

Background to this meeting

Announcements prior to the meeting may be helpful to complete the context...

There will be a meeting for club directors on August 7 at Westerville South High School. The meeting will begin at 9AM and conclude by 5PM. If you are unable to attend, please send a representative for your club.

[29 Jul 2005 8:24 AM]    We currently have 43 individuals representing 38 clubs that have said they will attend the August 7 Club Directors meetings at Westerville South High School. Al Herbert and Art Faura from the OVR staff have also committed to attending this meeting.

  1. Renaissance-Cleveland VBC
  2. Lineshot Volleyball Club
  3. Premier VC
  4. Southern Ohio Volleyball Club
  5. Toledo Volleyball Club
  6. Lakota Sports Academy
  7. Team Z Volleyball Club
  8. Matchpoint Volleyball
  9. Greeen County Volleyball Club
  10. Maverick Volleyball Club
  11. Queen City Crush VBC
  12. Kaepa Buckeye VBC
  13. West Side Bobcats
  14. Trailblazers VBC
  15. Marion Volleyball Club
  16. Sen-San Volleyball Club
  17. Southwest Spikers
  18. Portage VBC
  19. Blackswamp VC
  20. Quicksilver VBC
  21. NKYVC
  22. Westland VBC
  23. Great Lakes Volleyball Club
  24. Spirit Volleyball Club
  25. Northwest Ohio Volleyball Club
  26. Bean City Volleyball Club
  27. Glass City VC
  28. Lithopolis Jr. Netters VBC
  29. Central Ohio VC
  30. Cleveland Volleyball Company
  31. Clippard VBC
  32. Blazers VC
  33. Wooster Elite VBC
  34. Grizzly Volleyball Club
  35. Brown County Volleyball Club
  36. North Columbus Volleyball Club
  37. Team Atlantis VC
  38. Oiler Attack VC

Comments that have been submitted appear below.

I admit the response has overwhelmed me. I need help. What is the best way to make this a productive session?

Tom Kohl
OVR Juniors' Tournament Director
kohl@ovr.org

Agenda

The purpose of the Club Directors' meeting, August 7, is to discuss concerns that have been brought to the attention of the Ohio Valley Region's Directors and staff and suggest solutions to be presented to the OVR Board Meeting the following week.

The following concerns have been identified and are ranked in order of importance based on input from the attending Club Directors or their representatives.

  1. Specific tryout dates/Specific commitment date for Juniors
  2. Recruiting rules
  3. Seeding/Point/Ranking System
  4. Bid Tournament
  5. Tournaments (all types)
  6. Tournament entry procedures
  7. Cost of OVR events
  8. Tryouts for and additional HP teams
  9. Boys and girls coed teams for 10s, 12, 13s
  10. NCAA rules concerning use of college coaches and "scholarships" to junior players

Rules of the meeting

  1. Raise hands to be acknowledged by the moderator.
  2. First time a person speaks to the group, they are to state their name and club affiliation.
  3. Don't interrupt another person while they are speaking except to ask for clarification.
  4. Be concise. Do not repeat what others have said. Brevity is good.
  5. Speak your own opinion, rather than throwing out blanket statements.
  6. Be respectful and polite. Varying points of view are welcomed and honored.

Art Faura, Al Herbert, Tom Kohl, and Bob Price will be in attendance and act as moderators. Their role is to LISTEN to your input, explain current OVR rules and procedures and take notes. Gretchen Niebling (Lineshot Volleyball Club) and Michelle Hill (Toledo Volleyball Club) have offered to help insure orderly and productive discussions.

Procedure

  1. Introductions 9:00 AM
  2. Agenda review. Suggest any changes to the agenda.
  3. Time allotted to each topic to be decided by the group.
  4. Morning session: Discussion and solutions presented
  5. Lunch on own (60-90 minutes?)
  6. Afternoon session: Discussion and solutions presented for remaining topics.
  7. Adjournment 5:00 PM

Comments Submitted As of July 29

The following are topics with comments pertaining to the August 7 meeting. Please save additional comments for the Club Directors' meeting.

  1. Specific tryout dates/ Specific commitment date for Juniors

    Comment 1: Club level only teams having tryouts in October/November in accordance with current rules. Offers could be made, but no commitments allowed until one specific day. One signing day for all. This allows the girls ample time to tryout for various teams and allows clubs to stagger their tryouts to avoid overlapping. Much more organized and gives the smaller clubs more opportunity to attrack girls. Signing day recommended would be December 1.

    Comment 2: I have a strong feeling about the length of tryouts going on by clubs. Clubs in our area are having kids tryout for 3 hours and then come back for another 3 hours or 2 hours, etc., all in one day to monopolize the kids time from trying out at other places. I think that we need a limit on the amount of time that a club can run each age division of tryouts. This should help eliminate the kids in the gym (or the parents forcing them) to tryout for so many clubs in a short time frame. I think that we are putting too much on the kids physically at this time. I would like to see a 3 or 4 hour maximum for each age-group per club.

    Comment 3: Set sanction fees for tryouts: I don't think any club should be able to go above $15.00 for a player to tryout in their club if the tryout is sanctioned. And no "at the door" another price. This is an abuse of money. There should be a $15.00 region maximum price and that is it if you want them sanctioned and all clubs should have sanctioned tryouts if they want the insurance. if we are sanctioning these events as a region, then we should be controlling them a bit more as well.

    Comment 4: The 10 day waiting period is too long when the clubs in an area all have their tryouts on the same day or within a day of each other. I would like to see the rule revised the read 3 days after the completion of the tryouts in an area If there are kids that live on the border between areas and the tryouts are not completed, they could be granted an extension. The reality is that if you are a club that follows the rules, and does not call kids until the 10 days have passed, you end up getting screwed by the clubs that call and badger the kids to make a decision. And when Suzy has decided to play for another club, does not notify you and 10 days have passed, you call and find out she is playing for another club, you lose not only her, but the player who would have gotten her spot-because she was already offered a spot by the other club. Kids/Parents do not need 10 days to make a decision. We constantly talk about protecting the athlete-well, I am here to tell you that the clubs need to be protected by some of these players. Actually, I would be okay with the 10 days for any players for club teams, but not for Open teams.

    Comment 5: Try-out limitations (OH rules state once season is done you can participate in any activity you want) I have spoken to the OHSAA compliance person to discuss our clinics/try-outs and Ohio athlete's participation in the clinics in Oct-Nov and also try-outs. OHSAA clearly states that once an athlete completes their season on the team they play for they are free to participate without any eligibility restrictions in any organized activity for that sport. Meaning if an athlete on Seton's JV is finished on October 24th they can come to my clinics and they can participate in a try-out. My question is why would the OVR impose their own rule on athletes in Ohio regarding when they can try-out or not try-out? Furthermore, if I want to run a try-out earlier as a club for any athlete that is eligible the Region should not have anything to say about that nor impose sanctions on a club for running a "legal" try-out. The OVR is limiting the majority of athletes to the OH state tournament rule. We all know the majority of athletes that are on the remaining few teams in the state tourney in November are already "recruited/invited" leaving the rest of the athletes waiting. I recommend that OVR follows the OHSAA rules which clearly state once an athlete is finished they can do whatever they want and that if clubs want to run early try-outs for those who are finished they should be able to attend. It is the athlete/parents/clubs responsibility to monitor violations NOT the OVR.

  2. Bid tournament

    Comment 1: If the field is limited-then the process for accepting teams need to be better-this takes us into the discussion of the "points" system-and the weight given to in region/out of region events.

    Comment 2: Minimum number of tournaments a team must compete in within the region to qualify for the bid tournament. The justification is always that teams must go where the competition is-and that is fine, but if you are taking advantage of the fact that OVR gets numerous bids to Nationals, then IMHO, you have an obligation to play in region for at least a few tournaments. There is enough competion within Ohio to have some really strong Power Challenges IF the better teams and clubs participate. If clubs/teams do not want to play in region, that is fine-then those clubs and teams should use the National Qualifier process to get to Nationals.

    Comment 3: Timing of the bid. It would be nice if we could schedule our bid tournament AFTER all of the National Qualifiers. I know this is a logistical problem with deadlines, etc. but several states are able to do it. Getting the teams out of the bid that have already qualified at a National qualifier would be nice.

    Comment 4: Bid Tournament (Limitations of 25 teams) This past season the limitations were the top 25 teams in OVR seeding and my feelings are that some of the next 10 were better than some of the top 25 based on the kind of schedule that was kept. What about a play-in for teams 22-34 in the seeding- an additional 12 teams get the chance to get to the bid tourney (3 pools of 4-finish 1st or 2nd and you go to the bid tourney) making the total for the bid tourney 28 teams (7 pools of 4)

  3. Seeding/Point/Ranking system

    Comment 1: I think the seeding system should only be used for IN-REGION events. No more out of region events getting points. Is all subjective. Who cares where a team went to compete. This is not needed to seed against each other in our region. It makes no sense to use out of region points to seed against our own region teams. If you want a seed then you must play in-region head to head in something to gain points. This increases the region participation and also makes the most logical sense (like other regions). Also, don't ever let the clubs just get together and seed the Bid tournament. It needs to be something concrete from our own system of seeding.

    Comment 2: I know one of our concerns was the point system. It seemed like you could buy your way to a higher seed. For example, someone could have not won a game( or scored a single point) at one of the Open qualifiers and received almost the same points as a team coming in 2nd place at an 8 team tournament.(which is what most of the more local tournaments in our region are.)

    Comment 3: I think consideration needs to be given for the previous year's finishes (most teams do not change that dramatically and that should be a gauge to start the seeding process)How big or the number of teams should not be the only consideration of number of points (example we play in the SPRI elite series in Chicago which usually has 10-12 of the top nationally ranked teams at that event-we finish 5/12 and get 7 points) Quality of the teams participating should be considered as well. Realistically we all play the same amount of matches at any event.

    Here is our beef-this game costs a lot of money to play and if I have to pay for an event I want my teams playing as high a level as possible from start to finish not just the last day-we go to Chicago because the tourney is 200.00 our hotel is 59.00 and it is a 2 day blistering event and one of the cheapest tournaments for the quality we could possibly attend. If we go to the Dayton Pres Day even though it was stronger this year we wait for good competition until the last day and pay a lot of money and still have a hotel room charge-the ONLY reason we would go is because you can get a lot of points for the region. This is in direct conflict with our philosophy to "dumb down" our schedule. I am not talking about winning anything and I am not saying that the teams are not good enough I am saying we want to know when we play a team we have a good chance of them beating us and we are going to fight for every match. That is how we try to build our schedule. We play up or we play big-now we have to modify our schedules because we finish well at our events but we don't get many points for them.

  4. Recruiting rules

    Comment 1: Club recruiting rules are the nemesis of club volleyball. It will always happen. However, I think we can come up with something to help in this area. Maybe a great discussion or something at least.

    Comment 2: It is absolutely impossible to regulate the recruiting rules. And there is no real teeth in the enforcement. I think that a player's obligation/committment to a club should end at the end of JO's. If there is no enforcement of the recruiting violations and no ramifications, coaches/clubs that recruit will continue to do so. I have copies of emails from players from Premier that were sent to one of our players last year blatantly recruiting this player for their club. I talked to Jodi about it and she said, "you can't control what these kids do" I agree, you can't. So, why bother. I think it would be more fair and more above board to just release players at the end of the club season. The problem is that what one percieves as polite conversation between one club person and an athlete from another club -is perceived as blatant recruiting by another person. And parents/players do not want to turn in the clubs for fear of burning bridges. Obviously, we do not want kids to be badgered by anyone, their club or another club.

  5. Boys' and Girls' Coed teams.

    Comment 1: I think that to increase the boys volleyball in this region it would be good to have coed teams until the age of like 13s. This will get young boys interested and create more kids playing. Maybe 12s or 13s?

  6. Tournaments

    Comment 1: Tournaments should be considered independent tournaments if they are being run at different sites and on different weekends. Since the OVR does not allow multiple sites for tournaments within a division then this should be the rule. Each one is considered a different tournament. For example, if a player competes in one tournament one day, they can compete in the other tournament on a different day since they are two separate events.

    Also, with tournaments comes invites: I think we need to have good, solid invitationals. Dayton and Premier have both established solid invites but yet they are being constrained to a set entry fee, format, etc. I would like to see Invites be able to have a bit more flexibility in both areas in order to attract out of region teams to our region for them.

    Comment 2: Invites/Challenges should be invitational-everyone can enter but selection is based on invitation that a coaches committee could be responsible for. Last year's national finishes, regional finishes, bid finishes could be a part of the criteria-no team is going to get significantly worse than the year before so it is a safe criteria. Secondly, most of the top teams have already played in 2-3 events by March and those are the kinds of teams that should be in the regional challenges/invites in the first place if you are going for the top teams-if not this is a moot point. You all always ask us why we don't play and I guarantee we all say the same thing the competition for the price is not there.

    Selection subjectivity is always going to be in place regardless and I would rather have coaches who have seen the teams or understand the levels have input into what teams are invited-because as a whole, the tournament will be better for it-will some teams be left out yes but the majority chosen will insure we have a quality event. Secondly, the majority of these challenges and invite events fill before teams even had a chance to consider them-many were over booked and if they are then that is where a selection process is most valuable- entry deadline is in place and the number of teams limited and you choose from the pool that entered and notify the day after deadline who is in or not or an invitational. Also, I know the venue dictates where you can hold them-it is no secret that between greater cincinnati and greater dayton area you have 5 of the top 8 clubs in the region in all age divisions (teamz, classics, nkyvc, dayton jr, team atlantis, younger ages cincy vbc) and a host of other strong clubs like cincy vbc, swthunderbirds) If you host the events in these areas we will all play in them. The majority rule again. (that means that tvc, premier travel not the rest of us) It should be about what we can do to make these events the highest level. With that being said you can also host other challenges to accommodate all the other clubs interested in these events (so when you publish these you state the 2 locations that will host the challenge if selected -invitation goes to site A and non-invitational goes to Site B so everyone has a tourney to play in but a selection process is used to identify who goes to which group.

  7. Tournament Entry procedures

    Comment 1: I think we did a good job with the new tournament entry procedures this year and making sure that everyone knew the rules of taking spots, etc. However, lets make it a priority this year to make sure that everyone knows the rules so there is less confusion.

  8. HP team

    Comment 1: Yes! More teams. We are one of the largest regions in the country and we are only choosing one team per division? We need two in each. We need to give more kids opportunities in this area. I thought the tryout process was well run, but returning kids should not be automatically chosen. We need better evaluating and more coaches working. A discussion of to do this would be good I think. Also, we need good, solid coaching. I know that CAP is a USA volleyball requirement, but we have some terrific college coaches that would be a great experience for the kids to work with. Get them on college campuses and work with college coaches, not just club coaches.

  9. Cost of OVR events

    Comment 1: The CCC events are too expensive-I don't know what to tell you maybe you can have clubs volunteer to set-up and breakdown as part of keeping the costs down perhaps you already do that.

  10. NCAA

    Comment 1: Discussion on NCAA rules about giving scholarships to club players.

    Comment 2: Discussion on NCAA rules about 50 mile radius for club coaches.-These two items would require some advance work-asking the NCAA compliance department for their rulings and a layman's interpretation of those rules.

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