2012-13 What’s new at NVVA

2013 What’s new at NVVA

NVVA enjoyed the most successful season in the club’s history in 2012. We sent FIVE  girls’ teams and two boys’ teams to Nationals.  In fact, we have sent more teams to Nationals in the last three years than any other club in the Region. Last season’s success was virtually unmatched by any other club in the nation. We intend to build on the successes of last season and believe we have a tremendous season planned. To that end, we have hired a new Executive Director, Jeff Billington , a new Director of Recruiting, Dawn Barnes, a new Technical Director for the I.C.E. Division, Shawn Patchell and added a Technical Director for the Club Division, Rodrigo Gomes. As NVVA has grown and evolved, the changes to add staffing to best meet the needs of our families was clear!

Our Programs:

I.C.E. (Intensity, Commitment, Excellence) Division – the changes we made to the training methodology was self-evident in the improvement of each of our players last season and through the achievements of our teams, ultimately qualifying five teams to USAV Nationals and sending our remaining I.C.E. teams to AAU Nationals. This program will continue with some adjustments to address some areas of needed improvement.

• These teams are highly competitive and require a significant time commitment for those athletes who are highly motivated to compete at the highest levels with at least some desire to be recruited to play at the collegiate level; during the height of the season, significant travel (for players included in fees) is expected.
• Teams will practice Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays beginning November 27 and through either USAV Nationals (late June/early July) or AAU Nationals (mid June), depending on the outcome of the Regional Qualifier.
• 13-15s team practices are from 5-7 p.m. at VVC, 16-18s team practices are from 8-10 p.m. and clinics/conditioning sessions are from 7-8 p.m., as they were last year.
• At 16s and 17s, I.C.E. teams attend an additional Qualifier as compared to last season.
• 1’s teams will be entered into the “Open” division at National Qualifiers; 2’s teams will be entered into the “National” division at National Qualifiers.
• 1’s and 2’s teams will compete in the “Open” Regional Championships, which is also a qualifier for USAV Nationals.
• I.C.E. teams (included in fees) will participate in NVVA’s unique Total Athlete Program (*see below for more details), including clinics and conditioning training. Conditioning sessions will be offered by True AP.
• Please click here for the 2012-13 I.C.E. fee schedule. Our fees are player comprehensive and you can see a full breakdown of allocations as well as the projected tournament schedule.
• Please click here [link] for the list of I.C.E. Head Coaches

Should you have further questions, please contact Glenn Padeway, I.C.E. Director at I.C.E.director@nvva.com.

 

Club Division (note that teams formerly known as “Open” are part of the Club Division) – recognizing that we have many girls who would like to compete at the club level while playing a more competitive schedule, NVVA  will field a top level team in Loudoun and Fairfax geographic areas (practice locations). The top teams will compete in tournaments that will offer recruiting exposure.

• formerly known “Open” teams will now be called “Black” in the Loudoun division and “Red” in the Fairfax Division; these teams are intended for players who may not have been selected for the I.C.E. division or cannot commit to the requirements of the I.C.E. division (e.g., multisport athletes, kids with other activities that require significant time commitments), however, have the strong desire to compete in a highly competitive environment and have some interest in being recruited to play in college
• teams will practice twice per week, generally two hours per practice; practices may be scheduled in local areas, however, space permitting may also practice at VVC
• generally, younger teams (12-14s) will practice during early time slots while older teams (15-18s) practice during later time slots; you will receive information about your team’s practice locations when offers are extended; due to County space allotments, the exact practice location in Loudoun may not be known to NVVA at the time an offer is extended, however, the practice location will be within in Loudoun County or at the VVC.
• The team’s season record will determine which Club Regional division the team can be entered into; top performing teams may be entered into the “Gold” bracket; should a team win the CHRVA Regional Club “Gold” bracket, they are eligible to attend a post season tournament known as the “Volleyball Festival.”

• Please click here for 2013 Club fee schedule, our fees are player comprehensive and you can see a full breakdown of allocations as well as the projected tournament schedule.

Should you have any further questions, please contact Heather J. Lynch fairfax.director@nvva.com for Fairfax related questions, and David Schulte loudoun.director@nvva.com for Loudoun related questions.
How teams are selected: Every NVVA team (I.C.E. and Club) will be selected by a three-person selection committee.  The selection committee will consist of NVVA’s 1)Executive Director, 2) Technical Director, 3) Recruiting Director, with input from the Head Coach. The I.C.E. teams, as well as the “Black” and “Red” teams will be selected on a tiered approach; the remaining Club teams will field only enough teams that the selection committee knows will be competitive with other area clubs (numbers of teams may vary by age group, depending on number of tryout attendants, level of play). Players who are not selected for a club team, will have the opportunity to enhance their skills in the Developmental Program (see below).
Last year we created a Developmental Program (see more detailed description below) for those players who needed more focus on their skill development. Many of the participants from last year made great improvements, which has prompted us to continue this program.  It is part of NVVA’s commitment to provide skill appropriate volleyball programs to any athlete who wants to play volleyball.  Any athlete who, for whatever reason, cannot participate in one of NVVA’s other club programs (I.C.E., Club) is invited to take advantage of these 8-week sessions.  Tryouts and placement will be on December 12 (this is a separate evaluation from club tryouts) and skills sessions and practices will begin in January 2013. The program will offer a low cost, clinic-like, fun environment for players to develop and/or sharpen their volleyball skills.  Teams in this program will practice two nights a week (Mondays and Fridays) for 8 weeks at the VVC.

 

Other Helpful Information:

1) To register for tryouts- DO NOT LEAVE THIS FOR THE LAST MOMENT! Registering your child for tryouts takes about 15-30 minutes. Each club will require your daughter to register for their tryout out separately! You only need to register for the Region one time, however, the registration process takes time. Generally, there is a three step process to register for tryouts, two of which are the same regardless of which club you are trying out for.

a) To register your child to try out for NVVA, you must register via “AllPlayers” by clicking on the link [link]. NVVA charges $50 for its tryouts, which covers the expenses incurred to administer tryouts.

b) Register your child with the Chesapeake Region (CHRVA), which is the governing Region of USAV for our area. Go to www.chrva.org, click on “Juniors”, then on “Register for CHRVA” on the left side of the screen and follow prompts to complete this necessary step. You will also find information on age chart definitions in case you are not sure which age group your child should play for. http://www.volleyballreftraining.com/RVA_folder/includes_RVA_assembly/RVA_membership_general_info/MGI_2013AgeDefinition.pdf

c) Medical Release – you should expect to fill out a medical release for each of the clubs your child tries out for. http://www.volleyballreftraining.com/RVA_folder/includes_RVA_assembly/RVA_registration_forms/2012-2013material/2013PlayerMedicalReleaseWClubTeamWITHOUTNotaryRev20120621.pdf
NVVA offers a convenient pre-tryout registration process at VVC. Reduce the anxiety on tryout day and come to the VVC any day of the week after noon with three above mentioned three steps completed (and copies thereof). One of our staff members will give you a bib number for your child. Please attach the bib number to your daughter’s lower back (to avoid ponytails encumbering the evaluators seeing your child’s number) with 4 safety pins on tryout day. We recommend that you plan on being at the VVC at least 30 minutes before tryouts as the parking lot gets very busy and the building is crowded.

2) What to bring to tryouts –
For Players

• YOUR BIB NUMBER
• Volleyball gear (spandex, t-shirt, socks, kneepads, court shoes)
• Large water bottle
• Great attitude, ready to play some volleyball! Go all out!

For Parents

• Your child
• Copies of paperwork (steps 1-3 of registration process)
• Good set of nerves! We realize that this can be a stressful time for everyone. We ask for respectful and civil conduct. Our overview area is open for viewing, but we reserve the right to ask people to leave who make derogatory remarks that are inappropriate for a youth sports setting
• You may stay to watch upstairs, or you may leave during the tryout time; we usually have an informational session for parents during the early phase of tryout times for general information and questions.

3) What to expect during the tryout process- tryouts are essential to forming teams. We have made every effort to make tryouts as fair as possible in the following ways:

a) requiring our athletes to do an athletic test performed by an independent company; we use the data to measure athletic potential, which especially at the younger ages is very important

b) based on the athletic testing performed, if you daughter is in the top two categories AND is interested in I.C.E. (and thus is committed to the words contained in the abbreviation), please attend the I.C.E. tryouts; if your daughter is in the “red” category, based on history and statistics, she would have greater benefit from playing in either the club or developmental divisions

c) during the tryout time – drop your daughter off early so she can warm up and get comfortable; she will be asked to perform basic skills initially, then game-like skills; she will be observed and rated by evaluators; these evaluations are entered into a database; our selection committee will observe and select their ranked choices (rankings are weighted more heavily in terms of athletic potential and skills at the younger ages and in terms of skills and position at the older ages).

Note: ALL skills are important, but we have confidence that our coaching staff can teach a great athlete the skills they need to succeed regardless of their current skill set; between the three coaches who are the selection committee, there is over 100 years of experience in picking players from middle school to National team level of play

d) results – your daughter may

• receive a verbal offer during the tryout time period
• receive a phone call from the coach extending an offer

 

will

• will receive a form of written communication in one of three forms:
  • offer for a spot on the team (if she accepts, she will be place on the team she was offered, however, she may end up moving to a higher level team depending on the responses the club receives to offers extended; she cannot lose her spot unless she does not accept the offer extended by the deadline)
  • offer for an alternate spot on the team (that means, should another player not accept her spot as offered, your daughter would be the next player to receive the spot; she will need to respond as to whether she is interested to be an alternate)
  • notification that she did not make a particular team with information on alternative suggestions to stay involved with volleyball

Should you wish to discuss your daughter’s tryout results, please contact Jeff Billington or Ken Whitson. We are happy to discuss the data collected, however, we are unable to give you comparative information on other players.

We fully realize that everyone wants to know the results as soon as possible…and so do we! Therefore, please trust that we are working diligently at building our teams as quickly as possible, however, we do have some constraints (such as players who try out for multiple clubs and want to wait for other results before making a final decision). Being a large club has its pros and cons- pros are that we are able to field multiple teams at each age group at various levels of intensity to maximize the number of opportunities for a player to play volleyball; the con- it takes longer for tryouts to be complete because of the number of players and teams. NVVA generally attracts about 1000 girls to try out for about 600 spots on its club teams. For younger ages, the wait can be up to two weeks (due to numbers and the earlier tryout schedule), for older girls it can take up to ten days before teams are settled. You are welcome to communicate with our directors during this time, however, due to the high volume of calls and emails, please allow up to 48 hours for a response.

Please know that NVVA’s philosophy is that our coaches will contact you when they intend to offer your child a spot on a team. Once the coach has made contact, he/she will wait to hear from you next. We do not believe that daily calls are in the best interest of good decision making, but please do not hesitate to call the coach or the club with any questions that can facilitate your decision making. Clearly, once a coach has extended an offer, WE WANT YOUR DAUGHTER to proudly wear her NVVA jersey!

Please familiarize yourself with the rules all clubs need to follow to insure a reasonable tryout for players:

http://assets.ngin.com/attachments/document/0012/9459/CHRVA_Recruiting_Policy_2012-2013.pdf

4) Tryout completion-

• upon notification of team selection, please make sure you respond to emails sent by the coach or club to insure completion of the registration process (EG: you need to associate your child’s CHRVA registration with the club of your choice);
• you must complete the online scoring and refereeing classes CHRVA requires of its members

5) NVVA practices-

• ICE teams begin practice on November 29^th.
• Club teams begin practice Dec. 1
• Plan on a Season Kick-off meeting for each division from November 26-28^th.