This week the top junior teams of all the land will be playing in Atlanta at the USAV Junior National Tournament.  I look forward to spending the weekend in Atlanta to watch the top teams compete.  But if you can’t make it to Atlanta this weekend, the gold medal matches will be streamed live online.  Very cool.  Here is the link to watch the matches: Continue Reading

My vacation from my permanent vacation was perfect.  Now I need a vacation from my vacation.  Reflecting back on the weekend while flying home makes me think about my second life.  Although I’ve been around volleyball for over 21 years, it has become my “second life” after my “first life”. Continue Reading

Some may say my life is a permanent vacation, and in many ways I agree. Not a typical vacation: oceanside, magnificent waves crashing, an ocean breeze, a cool beverage and the warm sun. More like fluorescent lights, a cold gym, girls screaming and ear piercing whistles. I coach. I coach volleyball and do what I love. My permanent vacation. Continue Reading

A sweet mustache from back in the day!

Here is my picture of the week. Do you know who this is?

Scroll over the picture to learn who is this fine looking gentleman.

Ever play against the “old team”? The team of men or women far older than your team, far slower than your team, that could not jump as high as your team, or hit as hard as your team, but always seemed to beat your team? I thought “Bigger, Faster, Stronger” was the way to victory. Why do the young teams often not win? What is the ideal equilibrium between youth and age, strength and experience? Continue Reading

Today, I listened to an audio recording of USA Volleyball’s Head Coach Hugh McCutcheon’s Q & A presentation at last December’s AVCA Convention in Kansas City.  A question raised to Hugh was, “How does the world perceive the success of USA Volleyball when it does not have a professional league?”.  Hugh’s response was based on the United States’ culture of “fighting until the end”, competitive advantages, and coaching methodologies.  Of which I agree, but these are small pieces of a larger puzzle.  An Open Source puzzle. Continue Reading

There are 329 Division I Women’s Volleyball programs.  Not all are fully funded.  Conservatively, there are 8 scholarships per school (those with full funding versus those without full funding).  This comes out to 2,632 available scholarships over a four year period.  Divide this number by four which means there are only 658 available scholarships per year.  Divide this 658 number by four (roughly, the number of positions – setters, OHs, MHs, RH/liberos) = 164.5 scholarships per position per year. Continue Reading

Remember the days when fluorescent was in (although it seems to be coming back around again)?  Karch Kiraly’s trademark attire was a pink Speedo hat. Continue Reading

By Mechelle Voepel
ESPN.com

Spend time talking with the top coaches, players and officials in women’s college volleyball and you realize they all wonder about the same things.

What would it take for volleyball to make a bigger leap into sports spectators’ consciousness? What steps must be taken to help in that growth? Continue Reading

A time to be reminded of past resolutions, an opportunity to renew those resolutions, and an opportunity to make new ones.

1.  Lead a healthier lifestyle, both mentally and physically. Continue Reading

- John Kessel, USA Volleyball Director of Membership Development and Disabled Programs

The Best Gifts for a Volleyball Player

Around the world, not just in America, parents ask me what gifts they can give their child to help them improve in volleyball. Some of them want take their child to the next level, while others want to help their child who was disappointingly cut from their first or next level of a volleyball program. I think the best gifts for a volleyball player are these: (1) the gift of Play, (2) the gift of Continue Reading

Create a Personal Board of Directors

Mentorship is often touted as one of the primary means of furthering your career. But traditional one-on-one mentoring relationships may be a thing of the past. In today’s quickly changing world, you need a personal board of directors — a group of people you consult regularly to get advice and feedback. Continue Reading

This past week in Kansas City at the AVCA Convention and Final Four was thoroughly enjoyable.  It was 24 hours of volleyball.  Blissful.

Even though volleyball is one of the most popular sports in the world, we, in the United States, are fortunate it has not blown-up yet (it will).  It provides us the accessibility for legends Continue Reading

Today is the day of my first presentation at the AVCA Convention here in cold Kansas City, MO.  The presentation starts at 4:30 (CST) in Room KCCC 2503AB.  The topic is AVCA Convention 101: What Every First-Time Attendee Needs to Know.  My intention is to make this the best convention experience for you.

Even if you have attended the convention before, it wouldn’t hurt to have your input for the new-comers as well as make them feel welcome on this initially overwhelming experience. (I believe I already have a couple returning conventioneers in the crowd to heckle me).

Come meet the newest members of the AVCA Convention!

The most wonderful time of the volleyball year! After a great weekend of sweet sixteen and elite eight matches, it leads to the AVCA Convention, held in Kansas City this year, and the Final Four matches.  The year of volleyball parody is evident with only one of the top four seeds making it into the Final Four.  Should we be surprised it’s Penn State?  We should stop doubting Russ Rose and his ability to coach and recruit, but Continue Reading

It’s bad enough the NCAA posts lousy pictures of players, but Indiana decided to feature this picture of their own Ashley Benson on the news story of their win over Miami last night.

Is this supposed to be an intense pose?

6 months after the catastrophic BP Oil rig explosion and the worst oil spill in history, the world has already forgotten that dreadful incident.  On November 20th, exactly 6 months to the day the rig exploded, I took a picture of a jammed BP Gas Station.  Its not like this was the only gas station around, I took the picture from across the street at a competitor’s station.  Did the American public already forget what happened six months ago or does the American public even care?  I am still under the philosophy that if it does not immediately impact or directly inconvenience us in some way, we do not act. Continue Reading

The Concept 1 Basketball Shoe developed by Athletic Performance Labs has been banned by the NBA.  APL’s website claims test participants achieved up to 3.5 inches of increased vertical leap. Continue Reading

Wired Magazine posted an incredible story about a lightweight exoskeleton that gives paraplegics new legs (read the story here).  In essence, the ability for paraplegics to walk with robotic aide to the legs.  It is a  remarkable device developed from the invention of the HULC system that US Soldiers use lighten the load of their utility packs on long hikes. Continue Reading

I try to eat healthy, choose organic food when possible, but organic can get pricey (in the short term).  So I get the weekly coupons from Earth Fare, our local organic grocery, and found the Free Ground Chuck coupon I received today a bit ironic…as it happens to be my birthday.  If you know me, I really don’t weigh enough to be giving away any pounds.  And if I were to be ground up for sale, I don’t think I’d taste too good.

As a college coach, the following provided an interesting perspective on coaching youth.  I realized that the same principles to coaching apply, no matter the age.  Here is a question I received from a former player that coaches on the side:

I am working with an 8th grader at the end of the week that wants to
make the middle school team in a month, but has never played volleyball before. Any ideas of things I could do with her?

As great a coach as you are, you are not going to convert this player into a superstar in a week or month.  In the short amount of time you have, the best thing you can do is build confidence in her by focusing on the positive things she does.  Continue Reading

This past weekend in Boston, my little brother, Ben Rey, married the lovely Monica!  He’s been living in Boston for the past few years getting his Masters at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminar and then started Church of the Cross.

This is my third trip to Boston and I continue to be impressed with Continue Reading

After I “Liked” NPR on facebook, I thought it was a sign of old age.  I remember my parents (specifically my father jamming out to the band Chicago played over the Pioneer speakers that were so big they were also used as end tables) watching PBS on Channel 11 (pre-cable) while growing up in the suburbs of Chicago.  I was bored to tears, but my Atari was also spliced into the same television, so I had no choice but suffer, watch, and listen. Continue Reading

Winthrop University does a pretty cool thing…  the university designates a common book, a book all students, faculty, and staff read.  This year’s book, Make the Impossible Possible, is a life story about Bill Strickland.  The first chapter, From the Ghetto to Harvard Business School, sums up what the book is all about, but the meat in the middle is worth the read. Continue Reading