Starting Up the Blog Again???

Wow, it has been since July since I last posted. There was a lot of volleyball action but no time to sit down and write. So much for the off-season.

I really enjoyed the World League matches in Minneapolis. I got to take some great photos from my floor (press pass) position. I even created the first Middle Hitter quiz using some of the photos. I was able to meet a few of my USAV email contacts face-to-face. It is always a pleasure to finally meet someone you correspond with. I happened to be staying at the same hotel as the teams and coaches (it wasn't planned) It was hot as #$@% in Minneapolis with temperatures reaching 100 plus degrees. Sure glad the walk from the hotel to the matches was via the indoor walkways built to protect people from the COLD.

Using my press pass, I was able to attend the post match press conferences. I brought my video camera but wasn't really prepared the first night. I wasn't sure how it worked. However, the second night, I had prepared a few questions for the players and coach. It was interesting to see the individual player’s personalities. Very few volleyball fans know anything about the players and therefore find it difficult to identify with them, discover a favorite and be able to follow their playing careers. Men's volleyball is not football or basketball (understatement intended)!

A couple of good things have occurred this fall. The volleyball community is starting to respond and assisting middle hitter in providing content to share with the rest of the volleyball community. A few examples of contributions include but are not limited to: providing names/teams of players in past JO All Tournament teams, providing a home video of the 2006 JO 18 Open Championship match and most recently, some pre-season NCAA video from a recent Canadian tournament. I allow the contributor to choose whether they wish to be acknowledged or remain anonymous. I am hoping this practice of sharing will continue and even expand during this upcoming season. I hope to have DI, DII, DIII and NAIA video offerings.

I have the FAB50, JO Medals and JO All-Tournament databases all updated and ready for the next updates next spring. I will be using the same database format for the 2007 Commitments. That way I can input the names and info and develop several reports. I am holding off inputting names until after the first National Letter of Intent (NLI) signing date on November 9th. Then I will input the confirmed signings along with some of the rumor mill names.

The 2007 season will also include a DI news section. I received enough comments and requests that I decided to go with it. The challenge will be how to keep up with all of the updates when DI is the busiest of the schools that have regular press releases. I am preparing an email to go to the Sports Information Directors (SID) to see if I can get them to send me the headline and url in an email when they release something (kind of like copying me on a press release). If a large majority of them could do that, it would save me a lot of time.

OK, it is time to go to bed. Maybe I will be motivated to write more often.

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