Topic: Nassau to the fall? Why not Suffolk to the spring?

Anyone that knows volleyball knows that college coaches are not going to make a 4 hour trip to watch a state tournament to see a kid play when they can go to a club tournament and see a complex full of kids playing.

The idea of having a state championship sounds great, but to move Nassau County to the fall makes no sense at all.  Their are a number of factors that should be considered before making this move.

1. Officials; Their just won't be enough to go around.  We have issues now getting good top quality officials for varsity matches, if we move to the fall, we won't have enough, let alone good officials to officiate matches.

2. Gym space; finding time to practice, scheduling mathces, trying to find practice time when the girls program has a home match.  The gym will be empty in the spring, essentially won't be used.  So lets move the boys to the fall so we can have a scheduling nightmare?  Makes a lot of sense.  Now we'll have to go back to back.  JV will have to play after varsity, play 2 out of 3, not 3 out of 5, and won't get home until well after 8:00 on avg.

3. When do the men play?  In the spring.  When do most high school programs offer volleyball?  In the spring.  So why move to the fall?

4. My guess is most college coaches will recruit at a club tournament.  Why go to a state tournament to see a handful of kids when you can go to a club tournament and see well over a hundred kids play. 

Move Suffolk to the spring and have a Long Island Championship.  Include NYC.  If you want to go beyond that, invite teams up and down the coast who play in the spring to a Northeast regional tournament.  New sites each year, give the kids an opportunity to showcase their talents against the best of the best from other states.

Nassau should stay in the spring!  If Suffolk wants to join us, great, if not..............

I can't help but agree with evrything you've said, However there are a few simple facts that cannot be overlooked.

1.  The state championship has been put on hold because of the current economic state, so that argument has gone out the window.

2.  To compete for a State Championship a sport needs one more than half the sections in New York state to compete in that season.  In New York there are 11 sections.  When one of the upstate sections moved their boys volleyball season to the fall that gave the fall 6 sections playing boys volleyball in the fall.  6 is one more than half so thats why the State Championship will only be available to Suffolk.  Nassau is not required to move, but if they want to compete for the State Championship to be, they'll have to.

3.  All the points you made in you post are right, and quite frankly they're the problems we deal with in Suffolk county.  However, we'll continue to deal with them as long as there is a chance there will be a State Championship when the economic situation is reolved.

I understand that in order to have a state tournament you need to have six sections.  I wasn't aware that the reason that there won't be a volleyball state championship next fall is because of the economy. 

Nassau and Suffolk officials should have gotten together at the very beginning to ensure that both counties played in the same season so that there could be a Long Island Championship at the very least. 

But after years of playing in the Spring, I think that Nassau County would be making a mistake with a move to the fall.

I hope the Athletic Directors and anyone else involved in this decision investigate and determine whether it's going to help Nassau Boys Volleyball or hurt it.  If you're not going to have enough qualified officials, or enough officials period, you don't make a move. 

So if theres not enough refs...don't switch?  Thats the reason for not switching?  That doesn't seem like a great answer.  After seeing some of the refs over the years...if this was the arguement...we'd never have a volleyball season.

 Gym space?  Isn't there Boys AND Girls Basketball in the winter?  They both find ways to practice and have games, with some schools having Varsity, JV and Freshman teams for both boys and girls. 

Sure sacrifices have to be made, but if its for the better of the sport so be it.  And correct me if I'm wrong...but there is badmitton in the spring.  I will not disprespect those athletes that compete in badmitton to say "that doesn't count as a sport". 

 If I was playing...I'd want to play against the top competition.  As it stands at this moment, the top competition in NYS plays in the fall.  I'm not saying suffolk has the best competition.  The best volleyball in the State is in the Rochester/Buffalo area...there should be NO dispute there.

 Perhaps if we were playing all at the same time, Nassau and Suffolk will push each other so we can compete at a higher level.  

If you wanna argue....argue that the WHOLE state should be playing in the spring.  I think you'd have a better arguement there.

Considering the fact that without officials you're not going to have an opportunity to play, I think that argument does factor into whether or not a move should be made.

In regards to where the best volleyball in NYS is played.......you're correct; the Western region (Buffalo / Rochester) has the best volleyball in the state.

It's not so much that Suffolk should be moved to the spring, or that the entire state should be moved.  That's not happening.  As for boys and girls basketball in the winter, it gets done because their are no other options.  But you ask the coaches and it sucks.  Finding time in the gym is hard to come by.

My question is...........Why move Nassau County to the fall?  You think moving the season to the fall so that they can compete with Suffolk will make Long Island volleyball better?  How?  The athletic directors and coaches need to think long and hard about making this move. 

One fact that can not be disputed is that a move to the fall would set back Nassau volleyball for at least a few years.  Too many individual players would be faced with the dilemma about what sport to choose - Soccer or volleyball, football or volleyball, etc.  Who would programs replace these players with?  Juniors or seniors who played baseball or lacrosse in the spring and now have the option of playing fall volleyball?  Anyone who is involved in volleyball knows that experience playing and getting reps in the gym are the ways in which players learn.  It is very difficult for a player to "hop in" their senior year and be good at the game.

 I guess when it comes down to it we have a choice to make.  Do we go with what is good for volleyball (perhaps the level gets raised with the addition of state championships), or what is good for the kids playing our sport.  If we really are a scholastic program that is putting the kids first, why would we even consider a move to the fall?  The student-athletes will be practicing at all hours, going to away double-headers leaving at 3:30 and coming home around 9, getting a lower level of coaching (some of the 2 season coaches are the best around), and playing with warm-bodies officiating.  How is that good for our kids?  Does the 1 team making a state playoff warrant that?  Do the interests of those 12 kids outweigh the vast majority?  I know they make-due during basketball, but this is because they HAVE to.

Oh, and what about the current sop****re that now will have to make the choice between football, which they will have played for three years, and volleyball, which they would have played for three years?  I bet there will be more than 12 players that have to make such a concession to allow the 12 to play, more than likely, in one more match.

 Look...there is no easy solution.  It is going to be a rough couple of years in Nassau.  But this change is inevitable, in light of the state championship.  In the 90s lawsuits were filed by parents of students in districts to just have the chance to play in the girls state tournament.  That started the gradual shift from spring to fall for the girls.  We all know Long Island is law suit central, so we can pretty much guarantee a lawsuit would be forthcoming.

Not that some of you feel not having enough officials is a good enough reason not to switch to the fall, but from what I heard, Port vs East Meadow was cancelled today because their weren't any available officials for today's match.

Make you think what's going to happen if that move actually comes to fruition..........

Where do we stand exactly with this.  Not...do we think its good or bad...but are schools actually switching next year.

 I heard last summer that some schools were already set to switch.  Have any schools announced that they will be changing seasons?  Or is it still just talk?

It's a done deal......................Boys Volleyball to the fall in 2010.  Nassau County Volleyball won't be the same or as good for years.  It'll take years to get it back to how it's been.

So many coaches will no longer be coaching boys volleyball because they coach other sports in the fall.  The whole landscape of the sport will change.  It's a very sad day................. 

Again, I think that this is a short term problem for Nassau. 

So NO teams are switching THIS coming fall?  Next Spring will be the last season?

But again, in 3 years....the kids will never remember it being the other way.

What's Russi going to do in POB?  Does she keep the college gig or the HS?  I was looking forward to seeing how her squads would do against Suffolk teams.

You may think its a sad day for Nassau...but I still think its a big step forward for boys volleyball in New York.