Welcome Back, USAV!
Volleyball may have been invented on the East Coast, but it was definitely Californians that first ran with it. So it is only fitting that Southern California will have both the men's and women's National teams back and training in Anaheim soon.
Both teams made the move to Colorado Springs from San Diego after the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. But it seems that what training at altitude gave them in cardiovascular development, it took away in accuracy.
According to head coach Hugh McCutcheon, who moved back out west with the men's team in 2006, the ball moves more at altitude and can carry out of bounds by three and a half feet more than it would at sea level. Since most of the matches both teams play are at sea level, it made sense practice in a more comparable place.
Anaheim has been good to the men's team -- they won World League and the Olympics after making the move. We can't be sure how much their location had to do with that though. Training at altitude certainly didn't hurt the women's team seeing as they won the silver in Beijing, their best finish since 1984.
Whatever the reason, I'm glad to have them back. Hopefully, Anaheim and Southern California will step up and provide both teams with the support they deserve.
Comments
Bev:
From 1997 until 2007, Scott Hammon and I built this vball site together. He was the webmaster (and made all the money haha), and i wrote articles for him. This made his job easier, while increasing my camp, drill collection & ebook business at http://www.coachhouser.com. There have been two guides since then, neither lasted very long, and I feel like both were overwhelmed by the amount of time it took to fill the site with material. If I can help you get started with this site, please email me at coachhouser.com. You can see some of my work at my web site, if you will touch the “ebooks” link.
Chat later!
Tom Houser
Roanoke, VA
Rally Point Scoring is a FOOL’S FIRE
Ignus Fatuus Volleyball
Affliction…(1:5)
When the Federation International de Volleyball (FIVB) disemboweled volleyball of its side-out scoring system, they eviscerated the sport of some of its most prolific competitive features.
Symptom…(2:5)
If the FIVB had any sense of balance, intuitive perceptions, or integral rational when they attempted to remodel volleyball’s scoring system, they would have benefited far better, if they would have put more mental effort into working with the intrinsic values of volleyball’s side-out scoring system. The serve is the catalyst by which this kind of team net sport best operates.
Diagnosis…(3:5)
Under the rallypoint scoring system, the team in service is handicapped with the serve, and the receiving team is in the dilemma of having the scoring advantage for the disadvantages of the serve. Rallypoint’s anemic, self inflicting, and unearned point scoring system and its anticlimactic methods of winning set or game, are not examples of how anomalies may have to be solved when working to develop an equitable offensive and defensive scoring system.
Therapy…(4:5)
Under the side-out scoring system, a served ball is a challenge and a threat because it can’t be penalized error points to the advantage of the receiving team. However, it is the responsibility of the team with serve to provoke a competitive situation of cause and effect. When a team in service fails to fulfill the character of its role, a penalty situation would be defined and enforced: A penalty where a point would be lost.
If a service team fails in its responsibility to successfully challenge its opponents off the serve, it should be penalized a point. From this method, a service team’s opponent would benefit by increasing its lead, reducing the service team’s lead, or gaining the lead if both teams are tied. But, there would be no unearned points awarded, non competitive action would be devalued, and each team would have to gain set/game point off its earned points and competitive skills.
However, in order for the serve to be valuable enough to compete for in an offensive and defensive side-out scoring system, the receiving team would be limited to two hits off a served ball and three hits during volley.
And, only the first serve of the person rotating into the service position would be subject to penalty. Otherwise, all that would be created would be an inversion of the sport under the rallypoint scoring system, where every non-competitive action off any serve, is an unearned point.
Antecedent…(5:5)
The descriptions written up under “Therapy” of how to develop an offensive and defensive side-out scoring system are not suggestions, they are instructions. The basic ideas, as they have been described, come from the creation of the first team net sport of this kind responsible for the concept, development, and competition of offensive (volley) and defensive (rally) scoring.
In the process of designing and modifying the side-out scoring system for offensive and defensive scoring, it was essential to the success of the project to experiment with new ideas. The products of those efforts included unrestricted hitting and kicking, multiple point scoring, penalty point, vertical areas of scoring, and a quarter set system of play in which a team could win a game by the total amount of points scored after four sets of play.
And, every game with four 25 points sets takes a little less or a little more than one hour to play.