Club Fusion & JVDA

Dear Club Fusion Families,

We would like to welcome back all of our Club Fusion families to another year of exciting club volleyball! Hard to believe that it's that time of year again, it seems like our last season just ended. Coming into our 9th season at Club Fusion we are excited about some very significant changes that have occurred in the off season and wanted to give you some of the highlights and specifics of these changes and how it affects all of us for the 2008 season.

In 2006, Club Fusion was asked to work with several other large clubs across the country to form the JVDA (Junior Volleyball Directors Association). Those large clubs (Charter Members) and the member clubs that have joined are significant in terms of success, experience, and reputation (see attached). The JVDA was formed out of a need for better representation of junior volleyball within our current governing body, USA Volleyball. While there are many agenda items important to the JVDA, those that are specific to you, our families, are revamping the qualifying process for JOs, changing the JOs event itself, and the length of the club season. While almost everyone involved in club volleyball management will agree that the current system is broken and needs fixing, the JVDA felt that there was no sense of urgency to consider change. In fact, in 2009 USAV has proposed a change that would ADD qualifiers and DECREASE the number of bids. They want to expand JOs to NINE divisions from the three we have currently. This plan completely contradicts the changes the JVDA is seeking and certainly does not have the best interests of you, the families, in mind. As a result, the JVDA developed its own plan to address these issues that surround the current state of club volleyball.

The changes proposed by the JVDA that we will be implementing for the 2008 season include the following:

1.  Club Fusion will not be attending any Qualifying events (National or Regional), instead replacing these events with JVDA regional and zonal tournaments. These tournaments will have outstanding competition and for the older ages, a great deal of exposure to college coaches.

2.  In lieu of the USAV Junior Olympic Championships (JOs), Club Fusion will be sending all of its travel teams to the inaugural JVDA National Championships held in Louisville, KY (June 27 to June 30). Click here for the press release for this event.

We believe that these actions by our club will have an immediate and significant impact to our families (parents and athletes) and our coaching staff by:

• - Significantly lowering the season travel costs previously experienced by our Fusion families.
• - Improving our families' and coaches' quality of life surrounding club volleyball (time, energy, stress).
• - Improve and enhance our tournament schedules by seeking the best competition.
• - Teams will be rewarded for how they play at the end of the season, not in the middle.
• - Players will be home with their families for Easter and will be done by July 1st.
• - Bring back to reality our core training mission by phasing our training without the interruption of midseason qualifiers. This should allow for less injuries and fatigue for the players.
• - Greater focus on individual skill development for a longer period of time to start the season.

During our tryouts in the upcoming weeks we will give parents more specifics as it relates to the JVDA and these planned changes. At that time we will go over the tournament schedules for the 2008 season as well as answer any questions you may have regarding the changes. The purpose of this letter is to proactively communicate to our families some of the preliminary details as word of mouth and media articles start appearing such as the Q & A's that appeared on PrepVolleyball.com. Hopefully, this information eases your minds and by seeing the list of JVDA clubs on board with us will excite you about the opportunities that exist with these changes.
 

JVDA Clubs

Charter Members
The following clubs were the clubs that started the JVDA in 2006:

1ST Alliance (Illinois)
Celtic Force (Illinois)
Club Fusion (Illinois)
Illini Elite (Illinois)
Lions (Illinois)
Sky High (Illinois)
Sports Performance (Illinois)
Milwaukee Sting, WI
Asics Munciana, IN
Dunes, IN
Team Z, OH
Premier, OH
Dayton, Jrs, OH
KIVA, KY
Michigan Elite, MI
M Jrs, MI
M1, MN
Carolina Jrs, NC
A5 Volleyball, GA
Colorado Jrs, CO
Juggernaut, CO
Nebraska VBA, NE
Texas Advantage, TX
Texas Tornados, TX
Willowbrook, TX
TCA, CA

These are several of the top programs in the country. Their programs have strong reputations and long standing traditions. Their directors are some of the most respected minds in the volleyball community.

We are proud to be working with such a distinguished group of clubs. In the following two columns contain the list of the member clubs that have joined the JVDA since its inception. The list grows more every month and we feel that the membership will take an even bigger step forward with all the changes in 2008.

Other Midwest Member Clubs
Other clubs you may know as they are from the surrounding states.

Avalanche
Powerhouse VB
Prime Time VB
Rolling Thunder
North Shore Mil, WI
West Bend Power, WI
Wisconsin Ice, WI
Wisconsin Jrs, WI
Wisconsin Power, WI
CVA, WI
Circle City, IN
Fort Wayne, IN
INDY Jrs, IN
Indy VB Academy, IN
Performance Point, IN
Shank You VB, IN
Team Indiana, IN
Union VB, IN
Renaissance, OH
Toledo VBC, OH
MAVA, KY
Aquinas Club, MI
Dead Frog, MI
Far Out, MI
Krush, MI
Lansing VB, MI
Legacy, MI
Victors VB, MI
Valley, MI
Crossfire, MN
CVC, MN
Hopkins, MN
Minnesota Select, MN
Minnetonka, MN

All Other Member Clubs
Here are the remaining member clubs listed by alphabetical order.

900 Volleyball, TX
Advanced Approach, PA
Aim, TX
Albuquerque Jrs, NM
Arroyo Club, CA
Atlantic VB, NJ
Austin Jrs, TX
AVA, TX
Brazos Valley, TX
Carolina Storm, NC
CD Select, NY
Central Florida, FL
Club Florida, FL
Club Texas, TX
Colorado Springs Alt, CO
Colorado, Intensity, CO
Copperfield Jrs, TX
Court Authority, PA
Delano VB, CA
Delaware Jrs, DE
Diamondback VB, NM
Eastside VB, IL
Epic, CA
FJVC, VA
Flatirons, CO
Four Corners, CO
GA Jrs, GA
Hang Ten, CA
Jacksonville VB, FL
Jammers, HI
Lakeside VB, OR
Louisiana VB, LA
MAVS, KS
New Kent Jrs, VA
Nitro VB
Ocean State VB RI
Oregon Jrs, OR
OVA, FL
Pikes Peak, CO
Platform Elite, CO
Premier, NE
Rapid Fire, TX
San Gabriel VB, CA
SC Athletics
Smack Elite, MO
St Louis Fusion, MO
Sting Ray, CA
SW Illinois, IL
Synergy, PA
TCA Atlanta, GA
Team Momentum, MO
Texas Image, TX
Triad, NC
V Select, TX
Virginia Elite, VA
Volley FX, NY

Official Press Release from the JVDA Website

JVDA Announces 2008 Competition Schedule
Sunday, October 7, 2008

The JVDA would like to announce the organization's 2008 competition schedule for girl's volleyball events. The 2008 schedule is complete with Zonal tournaments, along with the first annual JVDA National Championship Tournament.

JVDA Zonal tournaments are designed for teams to be able to access local, strong competition within multiple areas throughout the country. The main goal of Zonal Tournaments is to reduce the time of travel, and inherently reduce some of the cost of travel for families. The 2008 Zonal list is headlined by two major events in late March in both Chicago, IL and Wisconsin Dells, WI that will allow for teams to experience an elite level event, along with a superb atmosphere. In addition to these two events, there are currently seven other Zonal Tournaments on the list, with the possibility of more being added.

The 2008 JVDA National Championship Tournament will be hosted in Louisville, KY in the South Wing of the Kentucky Fair and Expo Center, along with possible outside venues. The tournament is set to host up to 736 teams from all over the United States, along with invited International teams in some age-groups. The tournament is projected to be the one of the most competitive Junior tournaments in the United States in 2008. The JVDA National Championship Tournament is scheduled to kick off on June 27, 2008 as a four-day event, ending on June 30, 2008. JDVA member teams in age groups of 12s-18s will compete for multiple titles. The tournament will be complete with National Championship trophies in each age and division, along with all-tournament teams, and special individual awards.

To enter any of the Zonal events, teams should directly contact the Zonal director that is listed. The current Zonal tournament list can be found at www.jvda.org under events. To enter the JVDA National Championship Tournament, teams should send payment of $700 per team to:

JVDA Championships
c/o Mark McCloskey
Sr. Director, Recruitment and Events
American Volleyball Coaches Association
2365 Harrodsburg Rd., Suite A325
Lexington, KY 40504

In addition to sending payment for the JVDA National Championship Tournament, teams should contact JVDA Events Director Joe Jablonski for entry instructions and confirmation at vball10015@yahoo.com.

The JVDA is excited to announce such a prestigious end of the year event for the 2008 season. The Association is confident that the new schedule will provide members with cost effective tournament options, along with a competitive end of the season event.