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USA Volleyball

Open Source Volleyball – Chuck Rey has a very good blog worth bookmarking, and recently wrote about some of the reasons USA Volleyball is such a strong National Governing Body and national program. Check it out by clicking here!

Fearful to Coach – Jahrae Hampton, a coach up in Denver who has worked hard to learn to be the best coach he can be and help grow the game, shares some insights into his process of learning to be the best coach, without having really played the game. I have enjoyed spending time one-on-one with Jahrae at various times of late, and I think you will enjoy his thoughts on this topic. too. Click here to read his CAP II article and download a concussion fact poster.

Concussion Info from the CDC – A lot of helpful resources and even USAV branded information is out there to help programs and clubs. Here are some recent links to new and perhaps never seen material.

Other heads-up resources:

Freestyle Soccer – A recent email from Peter Vint at the USOC about a New York Times story on a soccer prompts me to share my collection of Freestyle soccer links. Some of you who have attended a clinic I have done might have seen these used to tease volleyball coaches about “ball control” (along with a rhythmic gymnastics clip from worlds a couple of years ago…) – Here are my favorites, two older Nike clips from 2006 which are edited well, one Red Bull classic, and a couple of kids. Good stuff about talent development and deliberate practice to be sure…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DqO7zxP2SE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dyM9SoB_-Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jIKG6NEpjc&NR=1&feature=fvwp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyD9UC0BGoM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74_Q26HEQNQ

The Hartford and US Paralympics -  The Hartford has sponsored U.S. Paralympic athletes for more than 16 years and became the Official Disability Insurance Sponsor of U.S. Paralympics in 2003. Most their top staff and leadership have come to the OTC and competed in sitting volleyball. They have a new “Achieve Without Limits campaign” which honors and supports athletes; features ads, and uses social media – indeed they pledge to donate $1(up to half a million dollars) for every Hartford Facebook page 'Like'  or twitter “Share” to U.S. Paralympics.  Go to http://www.facebook.com/TheHartford to like or twitter @HartfordAchive to share.

Earth Hour – So lots of interesting things flow into my email box. This one (click here) was a neat trip around our world. We can also be thankful that volleyball is a low impact sport, not needing all that much, compared to say golf or ice hockey, to make happen as a competitive sport.

As always, thanks for your help in growing the game, and let us know how we can help you more!  john.kessel@usav.org