Boy's FAB 50 for 2003, Volleyball Magazine

[Fabulous]

This is a post I cut and pasted from the Volleyball Magazine Forum for the 2003 Boy's Fab 50, from Volleyball Magazine.
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www.volleyballmag.com/dcforum/DCForumID3/121.html

Posted by:
Hut
Member since Jan-26-03
26 posts Apr-10-03, 09:31 AM (PDT)
 <br>18. "RE: FAB 50"
In response to message #9
 <br>   Hit the hut

EAST
Bill Freesmeir 6'3 S - RVC
Joe Klein 6'1 S - Eden
Dan Rhodes 6'5 OH - RVC CSUN
Jay Sawicki 6'4 OH - Warren PSU
Graham Sheppard 6'4 OH - RVC
Aaron Smith 6'6 OH - RVC PSU

Puerto Rico
Julio Acevedo 6'2 S Torrimar UCLA

MIDWEST
Drew Adams 6'5 OH adversity
James Grunst 6'7 MB NorthShore
Brian Guntli 6'4 OPP
Alex Gutor 6'3 OH Addison PSU
Mitch Hazelett 6'5 S
Thomas Hulse 6'7 MB Adversity PEPP
Sam Kim 5'10 L Adversity
Kyle Masterson 6'8 adversity MH
Nick Meyer 6'8 MB Cin Attack
Ian Peckler OH Adversity -
Ed Ryan 6'5 MB Premier Quincy
Brett Versen 6'5 OH Northcoast OSU
Doug Willman 6'8 MB BSU
Andrew Zabeck 6'4 OH Quincy

WEST
Brian Beckwith - 6'4 S Balboa Bay - Hawaii
Jon Bergmann - 6'6 OH - Central Cal
Ben Brockman - 5'8 L
Jared Dayton - 6'5 OH
Brooks Dierdorff - 6'3 S UCSD
Jack Hauck - 6'0 S
Taylor Hein - 6'2 OH Irvine
Norm Hutton - 6'5 MB Long Beach
Jayson Jablosky - 6'4 Irvine
Eric Jones - 6'8 MB Stanford
Tyler Jones - MB Utah -??
Brett Kahout - 6'4 MB - Irvine
Steve Klosterman - 6'7 - LBC - UCLA
Justin May 6'6 - Long Beach
Chad Miller - Outrigger
Brandon Mortenson - 6'1 OH
John Parfitt - 6'7 MB - Pepp
Brett Reid - S Irvine
Jeff Robinson - Las Vegas - ??
Jake Schkud - 6'5 MB - UCSB
Tim Schnieder - 6'0 S
Josh Schwarzapel - 6'5 OPP - Stanford
Garret Smith - 6'6 MB -
Andy stewart - 6'6 OH Utah - ??
Tanner Sutherland 6'3 - LBC - Pepp
Eric Vincent - 6'7 - MB Arizona Primitive
Ryan Walthal - 6'2 -S
Matt Weber - 6'5 Irvine
Jacob Wiens - 6'3 UCSB


Congrats to all. All with every year I'm sure that we all agree there are some players that have been left off unjustly.....and put on unjustly. There is nothing that I or you can do about it. If you have a teammate who is on it, celebrate and take pride in your helping him get there. If you are not on it, use it as motivation to prove the subjective powers that be that they were wrong.

Observations that I would make is:

Lots of kids signed early with Irvine. How could we not be impressed with the start of the year for Irvine. Good for Coach Speraw....hopefully 2 or 3 pan out.

UCLA has the top recruits in Acevado and Klosterman,

UCSB in my mind is 2nd with a great catch in Wiens and Schkud.

Pepp is 3rd with solid players in Hulse and Parfit.....still I think they needed to pick up a setter but I'm sure they will go after the Balboa 17's setter as will many schools.

But of course this is on paper and we know that some players are not even close to peaking.

Top Players by position are the following:

SETTERS
Acevedo
Beckwith
Klein

OUTSIDE HITTERS
Klosterman
Wiens
Rhodes
Sutherland

OPPOSITES
Schwarzapel
May
Weber

MIDDLE BLOCKERS
Hulse
Parfitt
Schkud
Hutton
Willmann

[AsianThug]

CONGRATULATIONS SAM! ;D

[OC Homer]

VBMag got the obvious one, but blew it big time. Too many east coast guys from teams that do diddly squat when it comes to JO's. Far too many west coast guys left off, and couple left on who can only be described as head cases having erratic games, one of whom did not even play club this year and another who plays for his club's #2 team. Kenny Marquardt, Tyler Hagstrom, Brett Simpson, Brian Thornton, Tyler Rex and Jordan Morris are just a few of the names omitted. Without them this list is premature, poorly researched and irrellevent. I feel sorry for the deserving on this tainted list.

[Saruman]

Here we go. I was waiting for a "Sour grapes" comment like this one.

Too many East Coast Kids. Come On. There are 6 kids listed. you can't tell me that you can't think of 6 Eastern kids right now in college that are impact players on their teams.
Right know I can think of 4 from last years recruiting class that are starters in college Honsbgerger, Proper, Tarr, and O'dell to name a few. STARTERS....HELLO

The RVC team is very athletic and physical and their top 3 player are the some of the top recruits for PSU, George Mason and Northridge.
The Sawicki kid (PSU) is a great athlete on a crappy team and was being looked at by UCSB among others

The Klein kid from Eden is one of the best athletes in this class and if any team has a right to complain they do. From what I understand, Eden has beaten everyone out here and many of the Midwest team this and in past years and was very competitive in their Cali trip earlier in the year.

Personally I feel there are too many California kids. This is not a great class this year. Look at how many are unsigned!? The California teams are really not that far above the RVC, Eden, Adversity, Pace, Premier, Sports Performance, and NorthShore.

The be all and end all is not Nationals....why play a season.
If anyone has a right to complain it would be the East and most importantly Puerto Rico. One kid....come on. You are entitled to make your observations about the Cali kids who should have or not made this list....but until you are able to see the complete picture I would hold my tongue.

Look , we all know the people who put this list together ask a couple Club coaches and a couple college coaches. That is it. Sure it is imperfect but I'm sure educated people out there know that SOME of the top talent out there in the USA is not from California.

[StanfordFan]

I know virtually nothing about the boys' prep scene, so I don't know how good or bad this FAB 50 list is. One thing though, if you read Erin Pryor's intro piece in this issue (she's the managing editor or something like that), it sounds like Volleyball Magazine compiled the list themselves with virtually no experience or personal knowledge of the boys' prep scene themselves. If I recall, she says she started the process of compiling the FAB 50 by calling around to a bunch of coaches.

Sometimes, I wish the new staff of Volleyball Magazine would just admit they really don't know that much about the sport, and commission people who really do to work on some of these FAB 50 type projects. I'd bet Bookumdano, VBCrusin, and a few others on this board could put together a much more accurate list.

[vballmom]

They didn't list any players from Florida this year - I'm not sure there are any, but how would they know? Club doesn't start up in earnest until the end of May.

Also, this list is usually not published until July or August (can't remember exactly when it came out last year). In the past, club coaches nominated their players, providing a short resume, and the staff at Volleyball Mag talked to college coaches to find out who they were recruiting.

Two of the freshman starters on LBSU are not from CA. Hildebrand is from AZ and Tarr is from FL. As Saruman said, there are other non-CA kids doing very well in college and isn't that what we want? The sport would completely die if it were only in CA.

[tigfan]

The Fab 50 is crap anyway... there are so many guys that suck on the list when they get to college...and many who were left off that shine in the NCAA spotlight. I wouldn't read into it that much. I know a few guys who were on the list that were cut from their programs...

[Tig antieverything]

Hey tig -
Go crawl back into your hole from whence you came.

Yeah let's not have any "special" recognition for any players on any teams of any sports......you know we might hurt their feelings.

Is this this case Tig Fan.....did you get your feelings hurt once....or were you left of the all star t-ball team.

Poor Boy!

Go away and never come back!

-Smiegal

[tigfan]

Pat Bomhack was Fab 50... a pretty prized recruit too... He'll never set in front of Hanson at Stanford... BECAUSE HE'S NO GOOD...

...That's just one example... There are plenty more

[Common Sense]

tigfan said:

Pat Bomhack was Fab 50... a pretty prized recruit too... He'll never set in front of Hanson at Stanford... BECAUSE HE'S NO GOOD...

...That's just one example... There are plenty more

Feel free to start your own magazine, or your own list. You do no one a service by calling out individuals for any reason like this.

[Ne]

Hey tigfan, I thought your men's team is highly touted! Guess not 'coz they fizzled in the latter stages and got spanked by Stanford twice and by UCLA! Your women's player who pest the visiting teams should do something better!

[Midwest Vball]

Out of last year's Fab 50, who do you think was overrated or even underrated?

I'd have to start with Pat Nihipali being the most overrated player, seeing how he was #2 on the list and didn't even play at all this year.

[the future]

I'm sure we could all name quite a few but it really serves no purpose as it is all negative.

If you notice this years is alphabetical...so this will eliminate this discussion.

We need to have this list and more special recognition like it. Anything that promotes the sport more is a plus.

This years list is good....not great....but good. I wish that they had done abit more research and waited until May/June to find out where more of these boys had signed. The scope of coaches who were asked for their thoughts wasn't as large as people would like to believe. This is where the I think some of the discussion lies.

Oh well, congrats to those boys who made. It is a nice feather in your caps but you now have a big target on your back.

[OC Homer]

My point was that whoever did the flub 50 was not familiar w/ either the teams or the players. How can the Adversity club have 5 players on the list when the best they could finish at JO's was 9th, winner of the bronze division. There were seven Cali teams ahead of them. Balboa and Central Cal, who finished 3rd had exactly one player on the team. Balboa lost 16-14 in the 3rd game to LBC in the semi's and beat the Pali club w/ Beckwith, Schkud, Smith and Swartzapple to get to the semi's. Is there that much difference between the players? The difference here is that Balboa and Central Cal do not self promote or call attention to themselves. They just play good VB and win.
Puerto Rico definately deserves more than one player as does San Diego, especially when richmond has 5. Who have they played and who have they beaten? I can't even find them on the latest JO's results. Those who say the JO results don't count are those who are not playing in the gold division on the final day.

[IdahoBoy]

Does anyone think that maybe the Boys' Fab 50 should be more like the Boys' Fab 10? I ask because there are only about 30-40 D1 NCAA teams, right? Even if there were 50, each team would be ABLE to have at least one Fab player. On the girls' side, there are over 315 NCAA D1 teams. A Fab 50 player at that level is much more sparce. I think a Fab 50 for Boys' is a little too much, they should cut it back proportionally or make it a fab 500 for the girls'. Thank you.