Mildura cancelled.

but thank god for tournaments

At AVSC last year, someone slipped a photocopy of a handwritten flyer to my club’s junior coordinator. It was like something you used to get pre-word-processing days and refershingly low-fi. The flyer was for a new tournament in mildura for junior aged kids (U13, U15, U17).

Both the club (henley hawks) and school (willunga) i coached for started organising teams. Without much time between the start of school and the tournament, we couldn’t get the numbers to send over a team from willunga. Unfortunately, Willunga’s problems weren’t unique and the tournament has been cancelled. It probably didn’t help it being scheduled on the same weekend as Warrnambool.

* * *

I’m not sure what it’s like in the other states, but there were more forfeits in junior and state league competitions in SA last year than possibly ever. VollyballSA sent out questionnaires to see how it could be better this year. I think there was a strong sentiment that this may be a generational thing. why don’t our current generation of players (gen y) want to play junior and state league?

Well, my theory is the concept of league, like scheduled television programming and movie sessions is becoming outdated. recently, i watched a documentary on Soccer, and a point was made that the growth of League football came from the industrial revolution when people started getting the weekends off and wanted something to do. Regular gate receipts from spectators helped football clubs and league grow. And it worked around the industrial routine – 9-to-5, monday-to-friday.

We’re not in the industrial age anymore.  And the modern consumer wants things delivered different. gen y’s want things “on-demand”. i had a player who had started the season late who was disappointed it ended so abruptly!

They also want meaningful experiences. the week-in-week-out grind of league competition tedium just doesn’t cut it anymore. in terms of extra currcular activities and volunteering, research has shown that boomers like “regular” commitments, X’ers like “projects” and Y’s like “one-offs”

Which is where tournaments come in. The AVSC will only keep growing. It’s a bunch of Gen Y’s loving the one-off festival, being coached by Gen X-ers who treat it like a project. and country tournaments end up being pleasant weekends away. who can resist that?

* * *

After the Willunga U15 Honours Girls took the bronze last year i was asked by the programme’s head coach “how can we keep enjoying watching these girls play at this level over the next few years”. I didn’t have an answer he’d like. U15 honours is their best window. after that they’re up against kids that play club and state, and unless they keep up, the playing field becomes less even. a couple of the kids might make state teams but the rest wouldn’t get the practice they needed to keep up. being so far away from the city and with the expense of indoor volleyball made it hard enough.

And then there was netball. i tried for years to woo kids over to volleyball from footy and netball but have given up. it’s a battle you just can’t win in the country. And it can work. after all, a large part of our girls success came from the fact that about 7 of them were also the state netball champions. i’ve probably never had a better team of athletes to train.

When i got the flyer for mildura i had a perfect solution. let them get fit playing netball in the winter and have them play a tournament every three months (including state school’s cup). in essence they’d give up only 2 weekends and get about the same amount of quality match practice, and you would get to monitor the progress of your training. there might be hope yet!

Mildura might be moved to October now. Pity because a junior march tournament sounded good. still, there’s always warrnambool, and it’s bloody nice there in march!