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
- Limitations on when tryouts can start – NKYVC Suggest to abide by the rules of the state from which kids are being drawn from. OVR conflicting with other regions tryout dates. May lose kids to other regions.
- No restriction on when to start, spread out longer tryout dates
- Waiting until last high school play date (current procedure.)
- centralized tryout by geographic location for each age group. Clubs would then pick from the same pool of athletes.
- Open tryout period, with a specific signing date(Dec?)
- Maximum fee for tryout
- earlier tryout dates for 10s and 12s
- 10s through 14s can have tryouts anytime after November 1
- 15s through 18s can have tryouts the Sunday after the conclusion of their state's championship
- 10s through 18s players can participate in tryouts after the conclusion of their school team’s season (as applicable.) CYO and Michigan players will be an exception.
- Restrict tryouts to one 3-4 hour tryout per club.
- Restrict tryouts to one 3-4 hour tryout per club per weekend
- 10 days is good because some clubs have multiple tryouts prohibiting kids from trying out for other clubs.
- Longer sign up period will result in more recruiting.
- Some clubs don’t hold tryouts, they issue invitations only.
- Hold kids and parents to same standards as clubs when signing contracts.
- Should allow kids that know for sure to sign contract before 10 days.
- Concensus not to make the commitment time frame longer than it already is (10 days.) Could open up more recruiting violations.
2. Recruiting rules
- OVR contract season should be Nov 1 through July 31st instead of Nov 1 to October 31 of the next year.
- Parents and kids cannot recruit other players from other clubs.
- No contact during high school season
- Parents and kids will never send recruiting violations in writing.
- Background checks for tryouts.
- Enforcing violators, not being done. Lack of OVR credibility.
- Check web site for consistency in background checks.
- Could coaching contract be structured for contracts to be Dec to Nov instead of Nov to Oct.
- Limited membership for tryout evaluators (1 day, 30 days.)
- Consensus: July 31 deadline, 60% in favor.
3. Seeding/Point/Ranking System/Bid Tournament
- If you want to represent our region you must play within the region, at least one common tournament.
- region should not dictate to clubs when and where they should play.
- sliding scale floats during season (points per tournament).
- sliding scale not good because of not knowing where you stand at any time during the season, because a tournament's value is constantly changing. Can there be a separate system for open teams?
- Inequity in current point value system for odd number of teams in a tournaments
- not fair for teams to get a lot of points for finishing middle of the pack in out of region tournament.
- Should last place be 0 or 1 for any and all tournaments. Based at 1 for lowest Yes 50% No 20%
- playing up factor should be brought back
- Teams can “buy” their way into the rankings by playing at large out of region tournaments only.
- Bid qualifying tournaments.
- Can bid tournament be later. According to Mike Chandler, April 26 2006 is the deadline. If we use our Regional Championship as our bid qualifier, then May 8, 2006 would be the deadline. id tournament later instead of Regional Championships, yes almost 90%.
- All open teams should be able to play in bid regardless. yes70 %no 10%
- Play in for #20-#40 teams on Friday night.
4. Tournaments
- Teams not showing up for tournaments and not calling. Keep their money and penalize by giving 1 or no points in rankings.
- Clubs signing up for multiple spots early and backing out at last minute.
- Other than entry fee, what should be penalty for teams backing out or no shows.
- Four team tournament, one team did not show, so points did not count (fair?)
- Tournament points for 3 team tournament
5. Entry procedures
- Entry forms, possible to make an editable PDF format.
- Entry forms/rosters on line. Must make roster changes at coaches' meeting and sign the roster that the tournament director has.
- Teams from the same club playing in the same pool. Stick with the rankings regarless,50%yes , 50% no.
6. Cost
- Large special tournaments, allow higher entry fee.
- Pre published formats for all tournaments.
- Allow 14 and under to be player or coached ref, will reduce costs.
- Brian pulling officials from tournaments after they had contracted with tournament directors.
- Kids should not be up refs in any tournament.
- Junior officials (17-18) should be allowed to ref up to 14 club or at least 13s.
7. Allow coed teams for 10s, 12s and 13s?
- On the court no more than 2 boys at a time. Not at 13s.
- Have the boys play up in age.
- What will parents say?
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
- Tabled because of possible new USAV structure
10. Next meeting date:
- July 30, 2006
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.
- Renaissance-Cleveland VBC
- Lineshot Volleyball Club
- Premier VC
- Southern Ohio Volleyball Club
- Toledo Volleyball Club
- Lakota Sports Academy
- Team Z Volleyball Club
- Matchpoint Volleyball
- Greeen County Volleyball Club
- Maverick Volleyball Club
- Queen City Crush VBC
- Kaepa Buckeye VBC
- West Side Bobcats
- Trailblazers VBC
- Marion Volleyball Club
- Sen-San Volleyball Club
- Southwest Spikers
- Portage VBC
- Blackswamp VC
- Quicksilver VBC
- NKYVC
- Westland VBC
- Great Lakes Volleyball Club
- Spirit Volleyball Club
- Northwest Ohio Volleyball Club
- Bean City Volleyball Club
- Glass City VC
- Lithopolis Jr. Netters VBC
- Central Ohio VC
- Cleveland Volleyball Company
- Clippard VBC
- Blazers VC
- Wooster Elite VBC
- Grizzly Volleyball Club
- Brown County Volleyball Club
- North Columbus Volleyball Club
- Team Atlantis VC
- 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.
- Specific tryout dates/Specific commitment date for Juniors
- Recruiting rules
- Seeding/Point/Ranking System
- Bid Tournament
- Tournaments (all types)
- Tournament entry procedures
- Cost of OVR events
- Tryouts for and additional HP teams
- Boys and girls coed teams for 10s, 12, 13s
- NCAA rules concerning use of college coaches and "scholarships" to junior players
Rules of the meeting
- Raise hands to be acknowledged by the moderator.
- First time a person speaks to the group, they are to state their name and club affiliation.
- Don't interrupt another person while they are speaking except to ask for clarification.
- Be concise. Do not repeat what others have said. Brevity is good.
- Speak your own opinion, rather than throwing out blanket statements.
- 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
- Introductions 9:00 AM
- Agenda review. Suggest any changes to the agenda.
- Time allotted to each topic to be decided by the group.
- Morning session: Discussion and solutions presented
- Lunch on own (60-90 minutes?)
- Afternoon session: Discussion and solutions presented for remaining topics.
- 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.
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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.
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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)
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.