CHRVA Outdoor Club Directors Primer

1.0 Background Information 2

2.0 How to start a USAV Outdoor Volleyball Club 2

Planning your Program 2

How to Register your Outdoor Club 3

Process required to Sanction an Event 4

3.0 Managing an event 4

4.0 Maintaining records and submitting results 5

5.0 Tips and Suggestions 5

6.0 Player Information 6

USAV / CHRVA Membership 6

7.0 Traditional Program Options 6

Training 6

Competition 7

Tournaments 7

8.0 Limited Season Alternatives 7

9.0 Summary 8

10.0 Additional Resources 8

1.0 Background Information

http://avp.com/news/theres-a-new-kid-in-town-41-teams-and-counting-the-fastest-growing-sport-in-ncaa-history/

There is a new kid on the NCAA playground and in just under three seasons it has qualified to be considered to hold an NCAA National Championship. Women’s beach volleyball has officially become the fastest growing NCAA emerging sport ever. In its inaugural year(2012) there were just 16 teams, last year we saw 29 participate and this spring in its third season 41 different universities will have funded women’s beach volleyball teams, and there seems to be no signs that this growth will stop anytime soon.The growth hasn’t just been seen at the college level. According to the AVCA nearly 500,000 13-25 year old females have taken up the sport since 2007. Clubs and high schools around the country have already begun to add beach volleyball programs with Arizona becoming the first high school in 2012.Sand volleyball has become an appealing sport to add to the varsity roster for a number of reasons. One factor being overhead cost: there isn’t much equipment or large rosters and some indoor athletes will cross over keeping scholarship cost down. It is also appealing to a lot of schools because it increases female sport participation- to help with title 9 restriction.

http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/inclusion/emerging-sports-sand-volleyball

Information Related to adding the sport.

Mid Atlantic Volleyball (MAV) and the Fairfax Volleyball Club (FVC) have been long standing CHRVA partners and the first in the region to invest in outdoor juniors programs. In 2012 MAV agreed to host the USA Beach HP Tryouts. The programs was very successful with 44 participants and several selections to A2 and A3 national programs. CHRVA also selected and sent 4 teams to the Beach HP Championship (BHPC). No Panic Volleyball provided a camp for team selections and others to train and prepare. However, only a few were able to attend and train. Feedback from Regional Team parents was good and bad. The kids had fun, and it was a great experience, but they could have done a lot better with more training. The competition was more experienced, and better trained overall. So in 2013, the region worked with partners to develop “The Regional HP Beach Program”. The program was designed to nurture and develop players though extensive training opportunities and the competitive game experience. The Region worked with partners to expand clinics, camps, and tournaments. 23 CHRVA juniors represented the region at the 2013 BPHC, the third largest behind California and Florida. Our players were competitive and had a positive experience. From lessons learned in 2013, the 2014 program further expanding the number of opportunities and partners. 2 of our players were selected to play NVAA sand volleyball. Our juniors placed in the top 4 in national competition, and won adult BB, A, AA, and even open divisions in major tournaments in New York, Florida, North Carolina, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Beach. We also experimented with the few ideas to test the interest level. We found high interest in a longer outdoor season if we could work around high school programs by running Sunday training and tournaments. This was proven by over 52 teams participating in Virginia beach at the ECSC in late August, high junior co-ed participation, training attendance thorough October into November. Several players love the game and chose to compete outdoors year-round. They joined remote year-round programs in North Carolina which competes with other programs in Florida, Georgia, and Ohio. We hope to further expand opportunities in 2015 with the advent of several new clubs initiating programs in Arlington, Annandale, Annapolis, Baltimore, Brandywine, and other Delaware locations. We can learn from regions with more experience like Florida and California. We have worked with both and hope to bring their success to our region.

  • To expand the season, we recommend starting outdoor programs in April
  • Players may purchase outdoor-only memberships starting in April
  • Players may officially be rostered in an indoor and a beach club
  • We hope to have clubs start outdoor training in April to prepare players for the HP Beach tryouts
  • We are working with partners and other regions to expand opportunities
  • We have a limited number of weekends in between mid-June and early August. To prevent schedule conflicts, we hope to see clubs add new events in April, May, June, weekends. Weekday “short-format” events in July, Sunday events in August and September, and some creative programs for players to play off-season travel events.

2.0 How to start a USAV Outdoor Volleyball Club

This section will provide you a summary of how to register and start a USAV compliant outdoor volleyball program.

Planning your Program

  • What services do you want to offer under your outdoor program?

o  Training – Clinics and Camps

o  Tournaments

o  Juniors programs

  What age groups and experience levels do you want to cater to?

o  Adult programs

o  Outdoor Club Teams

  • What type of facilities will meet the requirements for you to offer the services you plan on providing?
  • How many courts will you need?
  • How will you adjust the net height and court size to meet your needs?
  • Will you need any safety equipment for your facilities?
  • Do you have coaching staff trained to coach outdoor volleyball?
  • Are your coaches USAV members and have current Background Investigations (BI)?
  • What other equipment do you need to run a program?

How to Register your Outdoor Club

  • On the CHRVA website, you will find an Outdoor Club Designation Form. Please fill out the form and submit it to the Registrar
  • Go to http://www.chrva.org/page/show/297872-outdoor-volleyball-in-the-chesapeake-region
  • Find the link to the Beach Club Designation Form
  • Please download, read both pages, complete and sign the form

  Rosters are not required for initial submittal (NOTE *** rosters are only required if you plan to have a club team that competes as a team against other USAV clubs – this is uncommon at this time)

  1. Forward Completed Form To:

Barb Cline, CHRVA Registrar

6738 Ford Road Frederick, MD 21702

  1. If you do not hear back, or receive a confirmation of receipt within a week, please email and confirm the message with your application was received.
  2. The Region reserves the right to confirm information, request additional information and ask your questions about your club and programs.
  3. The Region can choose to accept or decline your designation based on the information provided, or if a club is found to be operating outside of the Region’s compliance policies.
  4. Assuming acceptance, any event your organization plans to hold, an Event Sanctioning Form should be submitted for each event and location

9.  If the Region agrees to Sanction the event, notification will be provided, and a Certificate of Insurance can be obtained to post at the facility or in your binder for most outdoor facilities.

Process required to Sanction an Event

All USAV sanctioned events require all participants to be current USAV members. Outdoor / Beach seasonal memberships are available at a lower price for seasonal participants only. All others should purchase a full, annual-membership that covers both indoor and outdoor seasons. Players may participate and be members of an indoor club and an outdoor club. Players are not locked to the membership of their indoor club unless they choose to do so. Club membership is not required to participate in most outdoor tournaments. Other memberships may be required for players if the event is not USAV sanctioned. Some require sanctioning authority membership for coaches and club staff also. USAV require player memberships are validated by the event host organization for any USAV sanctioned event.

  1. Please request an Event Sanctioning Request Form
  2. Please complete an Event Sanctioning form for each tournament, camp, or clinic you plan to hold.
  3. Please submit the competed form the to Registrar
  4. Assuming acceptance, please request a Certificate of Insurance for the event you are hosting
  5. The Insurance Certificate should be posted or maintained in your Binder.

3.0 Managing an event

  • Event Registration
  • Site Pre-inspection and Preparation

o  Please be sure to verify the play area is safe and does not have visible debris that may cause injury

o  Raking the courts prior to play is recommended

  • Check-in process

o  Please be sure to verify participant membership if not done during registration

o  Please be sure to collect USAV Medical Release Forms for each participant

o  Follow your Event Check-in process, division and court assignment

o  Hand out Division/pool, Set/match points tracking sheets, a Rule Summary Page, clipboard and scoreboard for each net

  • It is recommended to keep a cooler with water and cups for players, a First Aid kit, ice, and bags if a player gets injured.
  • Having an onsite trailer / PT is recommended.
  • Review Outdoor Rules and points of conflict prior to play
  • TD or Referee must be available to manage any conflicts or disputes
  • To maintain NCAA compliance, any prizes for juniors intending to play collegiate volleyball players may only accept up to the value of their entry fee and expenses.

4.0 Maintaining records and submitting results

  • Event Results should summarized and maintained. Keep the original score sheets and tracking for a minimum of 30 days after the event
  • Event Results may be requested for event seeding and to identify players to be invited to Championships or Regional or High Performance Invitational Events.

5.0 Tips and Suggestions

  • Please be sure to maintain Emergency Contact Information for local services, police, etc.
  • At the beach, check-in with lifeguards and alert them if there are any issues, or emergencies.
  • We recommend providing each net a Rules Summary on their clipboards
  • Younger players may need additional assistance to referee or work their pool.
  • Be sure to explain and variances from indoor, and USAV beach rules (i.e. Old School variances, court size, net, serve-receive, etc.)
  • You may want to consider clear, and less-discretionary rules for younger juniors, and maybe for all juniors (i.e. Serve / Hand Receive, Oversets, Tips & Dinks, Net contact). If not, parents can disrupt play and all may suffer less than positive experience.

6.0 Player Information

USAV / CHRVA Membership

  • Indoor USAV memberships are full annual memberships and cover USAV / CHRVA sanctioned outdoor volleyball events (Training and Tournaments). A USAV Medical Release Form is required for each sanctioned event. If a player does not have a full indoor membership, an outdoor membership at a lower price is available but covers only the outdoor season (April-October).
  • USAV / CHRVA memberships are applicable and required for National USAV events too.
  • UAV / CHRVA Summer / Outdoor memberships may be acquired online on the CHRVA website. See Registration information…
  • A Single-Event membership is also an option but not recommended if you plan to play more than one event.

7.0 Traditional Program Options

Training

The information below are suggestions and do not cover every scenario. Please be sure to consider the age, skill, and condition of your players. Outdoor training is subject to more environmental variance than indoor, and player safety must be considered as the highest priority!

For very young players (8 – 11), one-hour sessions are suggested. You may lose their attention and focus in longer sessions. Remember to take lots of water breaks and consider the impact of temperature on your players.

90-minute sessions are optimal for players (12-15), or older players with beginner or intermediate skills. The intensity of a well-run clinic programs, and movement in sand will tire most players in 90 minutes. Remember to take lots of water breaks and consider the impact of temperature on your players. It is good to have access to an outdoor shower or something players can use to cool off.

2-3 hour sessions should be limited to advanced, players from 15 to Adult ages. This is only possible for a select group of well-conditioned players who hope to compete in full-day or multi-day events. Some form or pre-requisite conditioning may be a best!

  • Clinics – Defined as a singular event to train players from an hour to one day
  • Progressive-series of clinics – A “Comprehensive Training Program” with several sessions, progressive in nature, designed to teach a specific set of skills and objectives in each session in a specific sequence or order. Typically 4-week or 8-weeks for each series.
  • Camps – A “Comprehensive Training Program” which is run over several consecutive days. We recommend each session within the program is limited to less than 2-hours.

Competition

Tournaments

o  Short-Format - 1 set in Pool-play followed by single-set, single elimination playoff. This format works well for weekday events, young players, or seniors.

o  Full Day Format – 2-sets in Pool-play followed by single or double elimination playoffs (best of 3 sets or 2-sets with point-differential / point percentage tie-breakers)

o  Single or Double-Elimination Format – These systems are used is several pro series – However, wait-times for matches can be an issue for double-elimination formats.

o  Leagues – A seasonal tournament held over several days or weeks

o  Intra-team Ladder System – Competition within a training group. Players are ranked and seeded within the group. A Player may challenge another up to 2 ranks above or below them. As player win or loose, their seed or ranking changes based on their win or loss.

8.0 Limited Season Alternatives

It is important to note that locally we have a very limited season constrained by the weather, and by indoor club and High School Volleyball for juniors. The period between schools getting out, and indoor national championships and High School programs limit most player to the month of July. So every organization tries to schedule their events during that period saturating the Regional Schedule. New events cannot be added during that period without affecting events have been run for years! To address this issue, and protect our partner organizations, the Region will limit the number of sanctioned tournaments per club to a total of (3) that will be protected under Historical Priority Dates (HPD). Sanctioning request for additional tournaments may be requested and will be granted or declined by the Region based on historical priority; location and proximity to a competing events; size; and division. Our goal is to allow each tournament to be as successful as possible. If the event draws from the same pool of players, competing events would dilute each other!