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Post by BearClause on Mar 30, 2007 2:13:58 GMT -5
"We are all one big multicultural, happy family in club ball. We have kids from ALL socioeconomic backgrounds and all races and yadda yadda yadda...." Yeah, right. Poke your head into any major club tournament around the country for 5 minutes and tell me what you see. The first club tournament I ever went to was the '07 California Classic. The first team I noticed was Golden Bear 18 Forefront since they were assigned to the court closest to the entrance. I'm not going to argue that they've got poor kids who can't afford club volleyball, because that wouldn't be accurate. I would say that they do represent a healthy demographic cross-section of middle-class Bay Area families. www.pbase.com/bearclause/cakickoff07It certainly doesn't sound like you know Chancelucky or have seen his daughter's high school or club teams.
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Post by BearClause on Mar 30, 2007 2:20:49 GMT -5
Nice photo. What was the question?
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Post by bunnywailer on Mar 30, 2007 3:02:53 GMT -5
Nice photo. What was the question? I know in your Wonder Bread, NorCal, Berkeley-esque world that this seems like diversity, but REALLY, you need to get out more and take a look at the world. Really, you do. And how come you didn't look at or post the REST of those team photos?
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Post by BoilerUp! on Mar 30, 2007 10:38:56 GMT -5
thanks all who took the time to read the article and for your kind comments. I only see the end results of all the hard work and sacrifice - the college students. So it was really nice to read about what happens at a tournament, from a parent's perspective. It sounded like a lot of fun!
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Post by BearClause on Mar 30, 2007 10:49:32 GMT -5
I know in your Wonder Bread, NorCal, Berkeley-esque world that this seems like diversity, but REALLY, you need to get out more and take a look at the world. Really, you do. And how come you didn't look at or post the REST of those team photos? That was the first picture. I looked at them and it didn't get all that different. I know the teams from the midwest represent a different demographic. I attended schools in the Richmond Unified (now West Contra Costa) School District. The schools I went to had students from Richmond, El Cerrito, and San Pablo. A good deal of my classmates lived in the poorer areas of Richmond (including housing projects). My friends were primarily middle class kids and almost exclusively the college-bound set, but included people of all races and religions. One good friend was formerly an illegal immigrant from Mexico who obtained amnesty. That's the kind of diversity I'm used to. I'm also a huge Oakland A's fan. I like the cheap seats. My buddies there include some making 6-figure incomes as well as people from the less affluent parts of Oakland. We all get along whether we're young or old, poor or reasonably well off, working dead end jobs or not, black, white, Hispanic, Asian or not. I'm not saying that all of club volleyball is well integrated with society as a whole because it's obviously not. Expensive club dues are obviously an impediment to the poor. You have to be able to pay for it as well as have the talent. However - I don't see any exclusion and for the most part I don't see any need to try and socially engineer club teams. Maybe all I really saw was one court, where I was interested in the players I'd seen in high school. However - the players on court 12 at Hangar 12 weren't exactly lilly-white - not even close.
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Post by Wolfgang on Mar 30, 2007 11:29:19 GMT -5
I mostly agree with 38 Skinhead (aka Bob), which surprises no one more than me.
Anyway, just a point of order: BearClause is not white. I don't know whether he eats Wonder Bread though.
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Post by chancelucky on Mar 30, 2007 12:41:30 GMT -5
My issue with Skynyrd was that he insulted the kids.
I don't disagree that Junior volleyball on the whole skews white and upper middle class. I've also never met anyone who said "Gee this is a great thing, let's keep it that way." It does need to be addressed for a number of reasons.
A lot of people assume things though particularly about race. For instance, Logan Tom's not white either.
There's a whole generation of kids, many of them in volleyball, who get confused when they have to check those ethnicity boxes on application forms.
Bear Clause is one of two people on volleytalk I've ever met in person, but for some odd reason I think the board (maybe because of the Hawaii contingent) has one ethnic group that's better rerpesented than most would expect on a volleyball board.
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Post by Wolfgang on Mar 30, 2007 13:07:32 GMT -5
... for some odd reason I think the board (maybe because of the Hawaii contingent) has one ethnic group that's better rerpesented than most would expect on a volleyball board. Yes. I, too, have noticed the large number of Italian-born Argentinians on this forum.
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Post by chancelucky on Mar 30, 2007 14:42:14 GMT -5
Here I thought the Santa Barbarian was the only "gaucho" here.
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Post by Charlie on Apr 6, 2007 11:18:51 GMT -5
Yet another angle on white, upper-middle-class, entitlement driven club kids and their parents spending $$$$ to go to some faraway tournament in the hopes of landing the almighty holy grail of a college scholarship. If the parents are upper middle class, they don't have to obsess about getting a scholarship, they can afford college for their kids. But don't let simple facts like this get in the way of your bias. I always find these kinds of posts irritating. I run a junior club with 400 girls and boys participating this season. The above description does not fit the majority of the families. I went to Las Vegas to accompany our 18-2 team and interact on their behalf with college coaches while the tournament was going on. Some of these players really want to play in college, and some of them require financial assistance to go to a good college. Every year I see girls secure financial assistance that allows them to go to a college that they would not have been able to go to otherwise. Every year I see girls get into colleges of their choice because of volleyball. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. It worked for my daughter, and now she is choosing between three great choices for grad school. Being a member of her university's volleyball team probably didn't hurt when she was applying to those grad schools. And I always feel compelled to mention the players who don't go on to play in college. Just yesterday, I was at a boys high school match. One of our club players, normally a Libero, had to step in and set for his team. He did really well and afterward I congratulated him. He had a big smile on his face and was obviously feeling great about his accomplishment. You can make your snide little comments about club volleyball all you want, but moments like the one above totally negate them.
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rose4vb2
Club
Is a gift to be simple, is a gift to be free. Add honest and humble is all I ask of thee.
Posts: 16
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Post by rose4vb2 on Apr 7, 2007 11:19:07 GMT -5
*Yawn* Yet another angle on white, upper-middle-class, entitlement driven club kids and their parents spending $$$$ to go to some faraway tournament in the hopes of landing the almighty holy grail of a college scholarship. Russ Rose and Andy Banachowski would be tickled pink to read about how much their presence drives club kids and parents to obsess about paying 4 bucks a bottle for water to prevent on-court dehydration for a match that lasts less than an hour-and-a-half and involves breaks after every play. Oh..the dilemma of a club volleyball chaperone parent. Do I try to be cool, permissive, and their friends during the course of the weekend? Do I attempt to crack the whip on these Sex In the City wannabees who have never had the whip cracked on them by their own parents at any time during their upbringing? Oh...the agony of it all.... Agony>>>>>>Seriously, it is people like you that spoil it for the majority of us . Agony is your jealousy shouting out, there are always a couple of bad apples, does not mean that the whole barrel is spoiled. My daughter played for a well known club team in the Bay Area, in fact they won the Vegas tournament when there. Yes, it was very expensive, we struggled financially to get her the opportunity to play for the team. The parents and girls were not as you describe, maybe more than less had alot more money than us but they were all very humble and nice people along with the girls. I think 6 or 7 girls that year got full rides to D1 colleges, including ours. The Vegas Tournament is at a time when almost all College coaches can go...Yes, you do have to preform, but you should be happy for the chance for coaches such as Dunning, Banakowsi, Matthews, Cook, to see you play. It may never come again, and like it or not Rich Kern, and Tawa cannot get all the good players on a list. Those coaches travel to all the different courts not just the ones for the finals or highly touted matches between high ranked teams. Sacrifice of time, and money is something that parents usual have to commit to, we did it proudly for our kids. It paid off for them, even though my husband and i worked our collective asses off. Maybe we were not as wealthy as some, but in the club it was all about volleyball, not how much your parents made...
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Post by bunnywailer on Apr 7, 2007 21:40:08 GMT -5
Blah...blah...blah...
Do you club people actually READ your posts? In your attempts to discredit me, you actually continue to solidify my argument.
For example:
"Yes, it was very expensive, we struggled financially to get her the opportunity to play for the team."
Why is it so expensive?
"The parents and girls were not as you describe, maybe more than less had alot more money than us but they were all very humble and nice people along with the girls."
More than less had alot of money....uhm....okay so I'll take you on your word that they are nice people. But they are still RICH, nice people. POOR nice people, I'm sure would LOVE to have their kids play sports that could potentially get them into college. But I'm thinking their kids are probably going to have to out and get part-time jobs as soon as they can work to help their parents out so that someday they might be able to move out from Section 8 housing, and maybe not have to apply for WIC every month.
"I went to Las Vegas to accompany our 18-2 team and interact on their behalf with college coaches while the tournament was going on. Some of these players really want to play in college, and some of them require financial assistance to go to a good college."
So what exactly is INTERACT? And why do you feel the need to INTERACT with the college coaches on the behalf of your athletes? Why can't you let the coaches assess all the athletes in the tournament on merit alone without having to have you and 10,000 other club types INTERACTING on behalf of their athletes?
All of you forget one thing. College is college and volleyball is volleyball. If club volleyball were truly a vehicle to get kids who wouldn't normally get into college into college and financial aid that they wouldn't normally get, then I can buy that argument. But that's hogwash. Any resources that parents invest into club volleyball in the interest of seeking a path to college could have easily been simply put away in savings or invested wisely and it would have paid off more dividends and been a more secure bet towards funding a college education. Also, financial aid is available regardless of volleyball if a student is truly in need of financial assistance. The mere fact that you mention volleyball as a means towards securing financial aid shows me that these athletes seeking financial aid DON'T QUALIFY IN THE FIRST PLACE FOR NORMAL FINANCIAL AID BECAUSE THEY COME FROM FAMILIES THAT ALREADY HAVE ENOUGH INCOME. In layman's terms, that's upper middle class families.
So if I irritate you bleeding heart club folks, great. The whole club scene has been irritating me for years.
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Post by bunnywailer on Apr 7, 2007 22:00:17 GMT -5
So tell me...all you club geniuses, what happens to the slightly chunky 5'4" girl that came to your club tryouts and has only played volleyball for one year because she decided as a high school junior that volleyball might be a good thing. She's very enthusiastic, but not very skilled, but really wants to play. And, oh yeah, her parents struggle financially and probably can't afford the club dues.
Do you find her some financial "assistance" so she can stay in your club and maybe play three or four times during the course of a whole tournament for your 18-4 team? Or do you tell her at the end of tryouts "Gosh, you were great, unfortunately we already have enough girls that are more experienced than you are for all of our 18s teams....perhaps you should try Club XYZ down the road, their tryouts are next Saturday, I'm SURE they'd love to have someone as dedicated as you playing for them..."
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levi
Freshman
Posts: 91
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Post by levi on Apr 8, 2007 16:40:06 GMT -5
Speaking of "blah...blah...blah..." consider the repetitive tripe that you've been posting here. Blah.
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Post by PierreAmi on Apr 8, 2007 18:21:58 GMT -5
Wolfie - I'm glad your son is feeling better, but I am surprised that he turned down that full-ride offer from Illinois. Where's he at now? I have two daughters. And one ill. son. I did not want to spell out "ill." for fear of retribution by the more prurient segment of this VT society. My son is not ill and he is not in Illinois. Okay, sorry for the interruption. Carry on where you last left off.
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