It’s the slow time of the year here, but just wanted to check in and say hello! Your webmaster is handling his volleyball withdrawal as best as he can. Unfortunately there is no patch he can slap on so he’ll just have to suffer through it. (Apparently talking in the third person is one of the symptoms of volleyball withdrawal!) Sometime in the next few weeks I hope to have the second part of the 2009 records up — it’s shaping up to be a pretty big update. And spring volleyball is almost here! I’m hoping to head to the Fiesta on Siesta Key event in April and will obviously post about that as well. Hope everyone is having a great off-season!

Congratulations to Chloe Goldman and Nikki Fowler who have been named to the national CVU.com Stellar Spikers Honorable Mention list. The pair of Lady Vols are among 8 SEC players honored.

The official site has reports from Chloe Goldman and Nikki Fowler on their (and Kayla Jeter’s) recent trip to Colorado for the USA National Team Tryouts. And USA Volleyball has photos from the event here, here, and here. Women’s National Volleyball Team Head Coach Hugh McCutcheon said, “I thought the tryout was successful. It was wonderfully well-attended. There were a lot of great volleyball players in the gym all at the same time for us to evaluate…. The amount of talent and support that the colleges have provided bodes well for the U.S. Women’s National Team program”.

While not on the original list back in January, the Fiesta on Siesta Key website now lists Tennessee as one of the teams committed to participate in the beach volleyball tournament taking place April 17th.

Chloe Goldman, Nikki Fowler, and Kayla Jeter will be taking part in USA Volleyball’s National Team open tryout later this month at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. A total of 174 athletes are competing. More info about the programs from USA Volleyball follows:

The U.S. Women’s National Team program is open to athletes who have concluded their college eligibility and who wish to train full-time. (Athletes who will have remaining collegiate eligibility may still participate in the program when their scholastic calendar ends.) The U.S. Women’s National Team Open Tryout is the only path for a collegiate volleyball player with remaining eligibility to access the U.S. National Team and have an opportunity to be named to the 2010 FIVB World Championship.

Athletes in college with collegiate eligibility remaining for the 2010 season and not selected to the USA Women’s National Team may be invited to participate in the USA Senior A2 Team where they could compete in the 2010 USA Adult Open Championships, an even USA Volleyball considers the the National Championship for the sport of volleyball in the United States.

Good luck!

Eight Lady Vols were named to the 2009 Fall SEC Academic Honor Roll. Congratulations to Carol Cheade, Nikki Fowler, Amanda Friday, Chloe Goldman, Kayla Jeter, Kelsey Mahoney, Kylie Marshall, and Emily Steinbeck.

The second annual Fiesta on Siesta Key sand volleyball tournament will take place on April 17, 2010. Last season the SEC Coaches Beach Volleyball Championships and the Collegiate Beach Volleyball Challenge were two separate tournaments held during the Fiesta on Siesta Key. Based on the press release I’m not sure if that is the case this year or if the SEC is ending their event to join the other tournament. More info will probably be coming soon.

Updating the 2009 records is taking a lot longer than I had planned! It’s not the actual work, but finding the time to get it done! I’ve had the basic individual stat records finished for awhile. Now I’m working on some of the harder to track stats — things like “most home wins in a regular season” and “most games against ranked teams”. So instead of making you wait for those, I’m going to split these up and post the half that is finished. You can check out part one of the record updates here.

The NCAA Women’s Volleyball Rules Committee met this week. They decided to keep substitutions at 12 per set, and to allow players to go under the net to pursue an errant ball in the opponent’s free zone. I would have preferred the opposite result on both counts — but I also would have preferred us to stick with side-out scoring, so maybe I’m not the best judge of things! And at least they didn’t make a dramatic change like the move to 25 points. If I’m not mistaken, rule changes will from now on be restricted to every other year. So (assuming they don’t come back and add anything else later this year) the volleyball rule book will be locked until 2012.

I’d planned on writing a blog post about the sand volleyball vote taking place today but luckily (for me!) the New York Times has done it for me.

I have to admit, I am on the side of putting off sand volleyball for the time being. Non-traditional volleyball powers are starting to catch up to the big guys in the indoor game. Bringing sand volleyball into the mix will give those big names back their huge recruiting advantage and it will take time for other schools to catch up again, if they ever can. There are other issues too (money and resources, coaches and players having to do double duty, scheduling for schools in colder climates…) that need to be hashed out before we rush into this. Don’t let sand volleyball supporters beat you over the head with the line that people against this are “eliminating opportunities for women”. That is not the intention. In fact you could say we’re trying to protect the opportunities for women that are already there. The end of that article says:

The best solution, some say, is for both sides to take more time to resolve their differences.

“They are politicizing it and once it’s off the table, it’s hard to get it back,” said Billy Stone, an executive producer for the CBS College Sports Network…

I’d say something similar — one it’s approved it’ll be hard to take it away later. Let’s fix the problems before we approve it, not after.

UPDATE: 166 of 284 schools voted to not go forward with sand volleyball at this time — that’s about 59%. Unfortunately a 62.5% majority was required. AVCA Executive Director Kathy DeBoer (a very vocal supporter of going forward with sand volleyball ASAP) said:

The length and tone of the debate over sand volleyball in Division I means we have much work to do. While we are thrilled about the new opportunities for women that will be created by this sport, we are also mindful that the legislative parameters for governance of this sport still need careful deliberation.

Hopefully those in charge will keep that admirable sentiment at the forefront of their minds as they move forward without the endorsement a significant majority of schools.

UPDATE: Just a clarification. I don’t think many people are against sand volleyball itself. I think most of us who opposed it right now wanted to ensure that it was going to be implemented in a way that would not interfere or harm the indoor game. If those specific safeguards had been decided beforehand there would probably have been almost unanimous support for sand volleyball.

Congratulations to Kylann Scheidt who was named to the ESPN RISE Volleyball All-America Second Team.

Just popping in to say I haven’t forgotten! Those promised updates will be coming soon! I’ve had a very busy holiday that is finally slowing down. So look for some new stuff in the coming week.

After posting a 24-8 record and making it to the second round of the NCAA tournament, the Lady Vols have ended the season ranked #24 in the country according to the AVCA. This is the fifth time in school history Tennessee has finished in the top 25. Three other SEC schools also made the cut: #12 Kentucky, #15 Florida, and #19 LSU. This is just the second time four SEC teams have finished in the AVCA Top 25. In other systems: The Lady Vols got their highest ranking at #17 in the final RPI, were #25 in Pablo, and #27 in the RichKern.com Top 30 Poll.

For the third year in a row I get to copy and paste this same image! Congratulations to Penn State on another dominating season capped by a thrilling comeback in the finals of the 2009 NCAA Division I volleyball national championship!

The 2010 Final Four will be played in Kansas City – which is just 733 miles from Knoxville…

Just a reminder that the 2009 National Championship is tonight at 8pm ET. #1 Penn State and #2 Texas meet tonight in Tampa. The match will be broadcast on ESPN2.

• There are over 300 teams currently in Division I. But in the 29 years the NCAA has had the championship tournament, only 25 teams have made it to a Final Four. Only 5 of those schools are in the Eastern Time Zone (including Tennessee in 2005). Only 2 of those went on to the Finals. Penn State is the only eastern school to have won the title.

• Only 10 different teams have ever won the National Championship. Penn State has won 3, while Texas has won once (which means after tonight only 10 teams will still have ever won the championship).

• Penn State has been in every NCAA tournament since its inception in 1981. Texas has only missed three.

• Penn State and Texas were ranked #1 and #2 in every weekly poll this year by both the AVCA and Volleyball Magazine.

• The Lady Vols have played both the potential champions a few times over the years. Tennessee is 1-10 vs Texas, and 4-5 vs Penn State. The Lady Vols have faced both teams in the tournament. In 1984, Texas defeated Tennessee 3-1 in the regional. In 2005, Tennessee knocked #2 Penn State out of the tournament 3-1 in the regional semifinals.