In the next few days, NebraskaPrepVolleyball.com will go offline and will be born again 24-48 hours later. No need to change your bookmark or learn anything new – our URL stays the same, but that’s about it. Our website is undergoing a major renovation to make it more aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly. NebraskaPrepVolleyball.com will transform from a simple blog into a site with a magazine/newspaper website feel.
This style change is also an opportunity for us to make a few other changes. We are incredibly thankful for the overwhelming support and popularity of the website. In our first 12 months, we will have had nearly 250,000 visitors to our website. That’s crazy! We want to keep up with your demand for a quality website experience, so here are a few of the enhancements you can expect from us during July and August.
Premium content for members of the Nebraska Prep Volleyball Booster Club: Once the new website is completed and live, you will have the opportunity to join the Nebraska Prep Volleyball Booster Club and reap some extra benefits for it in the form of premium content. This includes:
- Video highlights of matches throughout the high school and club seasons
- Player interview videos
- Coach interview videos
- Access to our new player rankings (outlined more below)
- Access to high school rankings, including the new Nebraska Top 25 (outlined more below)
- Access to club team rankings
- Access to a new Booster Club Blog page where you will get breaking news before anyone else (outlined more below)
- Inclusion in drawings for sweet volleyball stuff like T-shirts, tickets and random things of awesomeness.
To be a member of the Nebraska Prep Volleyball Booster Club comes at the minuscule price of $29.99 for a full year or a reoccurring $2.99 a month if you would rather go on a month-by-month basis.
Booster Club Blog page on our website: Often times there is stuff going on in the Nebraska volleyball scene that doesn’t require a full story or is a developing story. With the Booster Club Blog page members will be able to ready multiple postings a day, if necessary, on all the latest volleyball news. When there are rumblings of a player being recruited by certain schools – this is where you find that information. Did a key player get injured during a practice? Is there a player who is about to burst onto the scene? These are the sorts of things that you will find on the Booster Club Blog page.
Our hope is to be able to start the Booster Club Blog page before the start of the UNO team camp next week and be able to blog live updates from there. Also this month we hope to be blogging from NCA All-Star Volleyball practices and the Top Ten Team Camp in Kearney.
New player rankings: Previously, we have been putting out our Super 25 lists for top players in each graduation class. We are discontinuing the Super 25 list and will instead incorporate a star rankings system similar to several other websites focusing on high school sports.
We have assembled an advisory panel of between 15-20 high school, club and college coaches from throughout the state and members of the media who will aid in this process. Players will be given rankings between two and five stars. More detailed information about it will be released in the coming weeks.
Star rankings will be updated each Sept. 1 and March 1. Rankings are a reflection of both a player’s current ability and projected ability; therefore it is reasonable for a player’s ranking to change during the course of their high school career. Rankings for a player will begin no earlier than March 1 of their sophomore season and changes will cease upon their graduation from high school. A player may be added or dropped from the rankings at any time between those time periods.
New Nebraska Top 25 Rankings for high school season: We will continue with our weekly rankings each Monday during the high school season in each of the six classes. However, we will also have a Nebraska Top 25 each Monday as well, that will rank the top 25 teams in the state regardless of class.
We are excited about this new team ranking for the high school season because we think it will be great for fostering debate throughout the volleyball community about the comparison of larger schools versus smaller schools. Could some of the top teams in Class C-1, C-2, D-1 or D-2 hang with Class A and B teams? We think so, and it will be fun to reflect that in the Nebraska Top 25.
Concession stand reviews during high school season: If there is anything we love more than volleyball, it’s food. As we travel across the state and spend time in three or four different schools each week, we’re going to give you a first-hand, light-hearted review of the quality of each school’s concession stand.
Do they serve Coke or Pepsi? Is the popcorn loaded with butter (extra points if it is) or does it have excessive salt? How’s the candy selection? Can we get jalapenos on our nacho or nah? There are some small-school gems out there where you can get homemade items. We’re going to let you know who rocks the concessions. We plan on having fun with it and hope you will as well.
So, there is a lot of new stuff happening and it will all begin in just a few days. Be sure to keep checking back to the website. We’re excited to keep raising the bar for coverage of volleyball in Nebraska and genuinely appreciate your support in helping make it all possible.
