This is an entry in my volleyball coaching log for the 2020-21 season for both the men and women.
It finally happened!
This week we finally got to start doing stuff. On Tuesday the women’s team did their first workout, and the men have now done two of them. The women will get their second in tomorrow morning. This is the preliminary phase before we can start volleyball practices next week. All the players had to be cleared through the normal compliance and medical stuff, plus COVID testing. Additionally, for each session the players had to do an online screening form as well as get temperature checked.
Recruiting
We actually had a total of four 2021 boys visit campus in the last few weeks – one each from Hawaii, California, Pennsylvania, and New York. We still haven’t had any girls on campus yet. Part of that is travel restrictions, but most of the girls on our list have also been in season as well.
To complicate matters, the state just changed their travel rules. They don’t impact visitors from adjoining states, but definitely create big issues for kids from further away. Hopefully, this is only a short-term thing.
We’re up to 8 boys who have applied, though three are not from our prospect list. It’s 21 girls, but only 8 are active recruits (2 have already said they are going elsewhere). The remainder are Admissions additions. Basically, those are kids who put an interest in volleyball down when they applied. We generally try to find out what we can about them, but in the vast majority of cases they are not likely to get on the team.
Player stuff
Not a lot to report here. We seemed to get through the mid-semester period in pretty good condition based on the progress reports I’ve seen. Of course, a lot can happen between now and final grades.
We’ve kept up the weekly zoom meetings of the full program. Much of what we’ve discussed has revolved around community service and fundraising efforts. We’re starting to finally get some content up on social media (Instagram, Twitter), which needs to become a more consistent thing. Actually doing some volleyball stuff will help.
Moving into practices
Now that we’re going to be able to practice – at least for a couple of weeks – I’m going to run separate log entries for the men and women. At least as long as that lasts. I’ll probably return to joint entries after that until we get to second term. The reason for the split is this. I have different things I need to try to accomplish with the two teams over this upcoming period. As such, it makes sense to deal with each individually rather than try to mash it all together.
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