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Mike Miazga |
Some random thoughts this month from around the sport:
You are probably noticing that the magazine you are holding in your hands
right now feels a little heavier than normal.
Starting with this issue, Volleyball has added
16 pages, bringing it up to 84 total pages. The increase in page-count will
allow us to bring you even more comprehensive coverage of the many different
facets of this great sport. Enjoy.
I had the chance recently to attend the Northern Lights Junior National
Qualifier at the Minneapolis Convention Center and was completely blown away
by a couple of things.
For starters, if you have never witnessed 84 volleyball courts going at the
same time, you are missing a sight to see. The Northern Lights event had 710
teams, which meant approximately 7,000 players were competing in the three-day
gala. Tournament director Curt Glesmann estimated 10-15,000 people (including
parents, coaches, etc.) were expected to be in the facility on the final day
of the tournament.
But what really made my jaw drop was the groundbreaking technology that was
used in this tournament. This event was one of three qualifiers (Colorado
Crossroads and Big South were the other two) that went completely paperless
this year.
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Mass volleyball—juniors style |
Instead of the traditional print and post method for results, players,
parents, coaches and recruiters were able to access results either via laptop
computers that were set up throughout the convention center or by looking on
large screen television monitors that were above the computers.
This technology also extended to other areas like registration, real-time
results on the tournament website and even to how college recruiters went
about locating players to watch.
I liked how, by typing in a player's name, someone was able to find the
court and the time where that particular player would be located.
This is a huge advancement in the sport and hopefully one that will become
more widespread in the years to come. Hats off to Glesmann and his technology
crew for hitting a massive home run with this one. Coverage of this can be
found on Page 64.
This issue also contains our men's college season wrap-up with complete
coverage of the NCAA men's championship from UCLA (Page 18). We also have our
annual ASICS®/Volleyball All-American Awards
(Page 26). Our Mizuno/Volleyball Boys' High
School All-American awards can be found on Page 59.
The beach season is starting to get into full-swing. We've got coverage of
the AVP starting on Page 42. The new partnership of Jason Ring and Stein
Metzger has been a success in the early stages. Ring and Metzger won the
first two men's titles this season.
Also be sure to check out the story on the Corona Light EVP Pro Am Beach
Volleyball Tour (Page 72).
As always, your comments, questions and suggestions are welcome.
Mike Miazga
Editor in Chief
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