Sometimes I know you wonder why the Region has so many rules and regulations and why we enforce them when they may not seem to matter that much. This summer at the Girls JO National Championships, I had to disqualify a 12 and under team and a 13 and under team. It was nothing that the girls had done. In one case, it was a simple oversight by a club director when they checked the team in and failed to notice that a player's name was not on the roster. The other was more disturbing for me and reinforced why we do things the way we do in our Region. Teams at the JO National Volleyball Championships are required to have an IMPACT (or higher) certified coach on their roster. (This is why we require it in our Region and even suggest to teams that they have more than one). Other regions do not require it in their region and only require it for the teams that go to Nationals. In this case, the coach had coached all year and was not certified. The certified coach on the roster was the team rep (who was coaching another team at the tournament and went home with their team when they were done (one day before this team was finished) making them ineligible. We even run IMPACT clinics at the tournament site (before each session) for coaches who need certification. It was a real shame to have to disqualify this team since it so easily could have been remedied had someone followed through. In both cases, these were teams from large clubs who attend nationals every year with multiple teams and have the experience and knowledge to prevent these things from happening.

I wish everyone an exciting and fun Middle School, High School, and College volleyball season. We look forward to seeing you back on the USAV courts soon!