It is hard to believe that the 2003 season will soon be over. It has certainly been an eventful one! As I write this, we have our first Regional Championships coming up next weekend for the 14 and under Juniors, the Adult Hi Neighbor will be going on, and spring-like weather is starting to come out of hiding.
Speaking of Spring, what a winter we had. I ca not remember a season where we had more potential weather problems than this year. Thanks to everyone for being patient during the storms while we gathered information from across the state. As always, we strove to keep the web site as the most up-to-date source for your information. As I always say, if I know it, it will be on the web site! The one exception this year was when the Region Office was without power for about 1/2 a day. Then, I was a little worried about getting the information out. But, it worked out, the web site got updated, and I appreciate everyone's cooperation and patience.
It is not easy when we lose sites due to weather and Saturday school to come up with back-ups, but we all should thank all the Tournament Directors for stepping forward in a crisis. Several times this Junior season we lost a site as late as Monday before the tournament only to have someone step forward with a site for teams to play. Tournament Directors do not get thanked enough by the participants, so please let the Tournament Director know you appreciate their efforts at the next tournament you attend (and you can further show your support by cleaning up after yourselves once the tournament is over!).
This season has been another growing year for the Region. We are over 3200 members strong with about 290 teams. Obviously, our Junior population is fueling the growth and we will have to continue to address how we can provide playing opportunities for as many of our teams as possible. The split weekends of 14 and under and 15 and above seemed to work well this year. The Junior Division will probably be considering whether to make the splits more even to help out even more on the facility needs. We have even more younger players (13 and under) than ever, so the future of the sport looks bright! But Juniors, do not forget that when you age out of Junior play, we have Adult tournaments also. Volleyball is a lifetime sport and does not have to end after High School or College!
The Board will be meeting in June for their Annual Retreat to plan for the 2003/2004 season. If you have ideas and suggestions about anything at all concerning volleyball in the Carolina Region, please send them to the office. The Board loves input from our members!
This issue of the newsletter has a lot of results from this season. Included are all the results from the tournaments held so far this season. The summer edition of the newsletter will have the final tournament results including the Regional Championships. Good luck to all!
| "The Official Ball of the Carolina Region" |