The Truth About Purpose and Team Selection for NPV Invite
Berk Brown
Berk Brown is the founder of Nebraska Prep Volleyball. He has won 19 awards for his journalistic work during his career, including awards from both the Nebraska Press Association and Minnesota Newspaper Association. In the early 2000s he was a regular contributor for ESPN.com. He has covered, coached and been involved in volleyball for the past 25 years. You can reach him at Berk@NebraskaPrepVolleyball.com.
My first experience with hate mail came around Thanksgiving of 1993 and it was thanks to a column I wrote as a sports writer for the Fremont Tribune about Nebraska football.
Nebraska had just defeated Oklahoma 21-7 on Nov. 26 of that year – you know, the game where Trev Alberts dislocated his elbow. The win meant Nebraska would be playing in the Orange Bowl for the national championship against a yet-to-be-determined opponent. My column in the next morning’s paper talked about the need for Husker fans to root for Florida to beat Florida State that day, because a FSU win would put them against the Huskers for the national title.
Nebraska can’t beat Florida State, I said. Nebraska could, however, beat either undefeated West Virginia or one-loss Notre Dame – their most likely opponents, had Florida State lost to Florida on that day. Florida State wound up beating Florida 33-21 to set-up the 1994 Orange Bowl between Florida State and Nebraska for the national championship. I wanted Nebraska to win. I rooted for the Huskers. But my job paid me to be objective, even if I knew that my opinion wouldn’t be popular with certain people.
Hate mail and calls started immediately. I had dared to publicly doubt Nebraska and people were not fond of that. That was more than two decades ago, and trust me, hate mail has been a regular occurrence in my life since. Sure, it’s changed from people dropping anonymous letters in the middle of the night in the mail slot to anonymous Twitter accounts, etc., but there have always been haters.
And that’s OK. If people always agreed with my thoughts and opinions the world would be, well, a pretty messed up place. Different opinions and the ability to express them is part of a healthy society. When mature people engage in dialogue with different opinions, what can come out of it is a concept or opinion that’s even better because of increased awareness and perspective.
When it becomes unhealthy and when it is not OK is when people who should be mature spread false information to enhance their own agenda or hold fast to an ideology or culture that breads disharmony at the expense of others.
This is why I would like to lay out for you – with complete transparency – how this weekend’s Nebraska Prep Volleyball “Best of the Midwest Invitational” field came to fruition. There is a lot of misinformation out there, some as the result of a lack of clarity on my part and some as a result of purposeful misleading by others. So, please let me clarify the situation from the beginning.
Last year was the first such tournament and I put it together for one simple reason; I wanted all the major local clubs to be able to play each other without worrying about whether or not they are USAV or JVA. As an independent entity, I have the ability to host such an event that is “non-sanctioned” and bring all the teams together. It has also been a strong desire of mine to break down the walls that exist between competitor clubs and bring everyone together for the sake of a great event for the athletes.
The concept was simple. There are seven or eight large, major clubs in the Omaha-Lincoln area. I was hopeful that each club would send their top team in each division to the tournament and I would go out and find another club in the area willing to come in and do the same to fill any voids. As with the first time you do anything, there were some hiccups in 2015, but the event went well so we decided to do it again this year with the same concept.
Also, I feel like it is important to note that the cost of a team entering the tournament is $175. When a team plays in a Gold USAV single-day tournament on a Saturday or Sunday, the cost to play in it is $190. For me, I wanted the Nebraska Prep Volleyball Invitational to be a lower-cost option because I wanted there to be no excuse for a club to not send all its best teams.
On August 14, 2015, I sent out an email (view the email by clicking here) to a total of 19 clubs, inviting them to enter their teams in all age divisions into the 2016 tournament. The invitation had links for signing up teams and had all the information club directors/coaches/players/parents needed. The email was sent to the following clubs: Nebraska Elite, Nebraska Juniors, Nebraska ONE, Performance VBC, Premier, River City Juniors, VCNebraska, Club Legacy, Adrenaline Volleyball Academy, All Iowa Attack, Central Iowa Select (CIS), Club Iowa (CIA), Dynasty, Invasion, Iowa Rockets, Iowa Six Pack, KC Power, MVP and Topeka Impact.
By viewing that email, you can confirm for yourself that those club directors all received the invitation more than five months ago. If anyone from any of those clubs tells you that they or their teams were not invited is simply lying to you.
I was very humbled by the tremendous response and demand for the tournament. As you can see from this email (click here to view it) that I sent out to all the same club directors on Dec. 2, 2015, we had just three spots remaining for the tournament – one each in the 14, 16, and 18 division. Those final three spots were filled within 24 hours – giving us 48 total teams – 8 in each of the six divisions.
When we reached the capacity of 48 teams, here is the breakdown of the teams that signed-up by club:
Nebraska Elite – 11 teams
River City Juniors – 10 teams
Nebraska Juniors – 10 teams
Performance VBC – 6 teams
VCNebraska – 5 teams
Nebraska ONE – 4 teams
Adrenaline (Iowa) – 2 teams
At this point, I want to clarify a few things. I did have to turn away the Performance VBC 12 NIKE team that had registered for the 13s division because we had the maximum of eight teams in that division and no 13 team was really suited for moving up to 14s (not that there was room anyway). I felt terribly about this because I initially told Performance VBC director Brad Reichmuth his 12s could play because I was not anticipating such a large turnout of 13s. I was wrong and had to go back on my word to Brad and refund their entry.
I also feel badly that, these first two years at least, I’ve been unable to invite more clubs. There are many other clubs in Nebraska that I have great respect for and that do tremendous work that were not among the 19 clubs to be invited. I don’t like that I had to be selective but, again, the concept was to get buy-in from all eight major clubs to be willing to play nice together in the sandbox and send their top teams and to use a club or two from outside the state to fill any gaps. With that concept, you simply can’t invite more than eight Nebraska clubs. Next year, plans are already in place to be able to accept all teams from all clubs in the state.
I also want to clarify at this point that as of Dec. 20, 2015, I never received a call, email, text, Twitter message or anything from directors of two of the eight clubs from Nebraska that I extended invitations to: Club Legacy and Premier. Frankly, I was disheartened that neither club ever reached out to me nor expressed any interest in taking part in the event and being a part of the whole “breaking down the walls” concept and taking a step towards solidarity among competitors for the benefit of the athletes.
As I mentioned before, however, I realize and respect the fact that not everyone must share my views or opinions. I have no issue with that. And I never have heard anything from Club Legacy or its coaches since. That’s cool.
A pair of coaches from Premier did reach out to me personally late in 2015 about their desire to compete in the tournament despite the tournament being at capacity. I was grateful they reached out to me and made me aware of some communication issues. Fortunately, we were able to juggle the tournament schedule around enough to get Premier 17 Gold into the 18s division in late December. And, I’m happy to say we were able to do the same thing in the past couple weeks to get Premier 16 Gold into the 16s division. So now we stand at 50 teams.
Ultimately, any club or team that was invited, signed-up or reached out to me personally within four months of the initial invitation is playing in the tournament this weekend, with the lone exception of the Performance VBC 12 NIKE team. Anyone who tells you anything other than that is simply lying.
Not only was I happy to do whatever I could to get those teams and their players into the tournament, but it required some of the other clubs being willing to adjust the placement of their teams. To me, that’s the essence of what this tournament is about and breaking down those walls. It’s the way Nebraskans are supposed to be.
There are a minimum of nine Division I coaches coming to recruit the tournament this weekend and nearly 25 programs in all. Premier’s 16 and 17 Gold teams have some great talent and I have great respect for the coaches of both teams. They deserve the opportunity to play in front of those college programs and to compete against the very best in Nebraska and I am glad we were able to make it work.
I want to be very clear about one thing. I am excited for the tournament this weekend and I am very thankful for the coaches and the clubs that are committed to tearing down the walls and recognizing the benefit of not letting national associations and Hatfield/McCoy-style grudges prevent their athletes and families from having a great experience competing against friends in front of tons of college coaches.
I am very thankful for the support Nebraska Prep Volleyball has received the past three years and I can not be more excited for what the future holds, especially as more and more clubs begin working together instead of trying to tear each other down.
By the way, Florida State did beat Nebraska in that 1994 Orange Bowl, and nobody was more upset about it than me when the last-second field goal sailed wide left.