As Juniors Move Forward, Are We Moving Backwards? Greed is NOT Good.

In about a month, my club's sand season will be underway. We had 80 athletes last season, and this year we look to have doubled that. I've been lucky enough to increase our staff with some good coaches, and I'm optimistic that we'll have an even better year than we did in 2013.

I believe the level of education the girls get from us is pretty high - Many of our drills have come from Olympians like Stein Metzger, Jeff Nygaard, and Pat Powers. We also take drills from the FIVB which we went over at the USAV clinic held last year. Our coaches do a great job of giving the girls individual attention, and to top it all off, we're able to do it at a fraction of the cost of the indoor season.

I recently was approached by a friend who has gotten connected with people on the West Coast - he told me that he wanted to talk about bringing in some USAV High Performance coaches to work with our kids for a weekend. We are definitely interested in doing something like this, and I spoke with one of the Olympians who had a pretty reasonable price for his weekend. Switch back to this conversation with my friend, and when I asked about cost, his answer was:

"$125.00 per kid at 100-150 kids. And 4 or 5 coaches to help out."

EXCUSE ME?

Let me do the math for you all at home. One weekend, Friday night coaching clinic, one day of coaching, and one day of "like a round robin tournament of some sort where they would go around coaching them through it" (his words, not mine), for roughly $12,000-19,000.

If your name isn't Karch, Misty, or Kerri, those numbers are offensive (and I'd raise an eyebrow at those 3 too after briefly considering it). Let's do some more math here. Let's say I had a staff of 8 coaches, all paid 25/hour to coach ($200/hour). Let's even say it costs us $100/hour for the courts we use. $20 dollars per player for uniforms, and each duo gets 2 tournaments for the summer (about $60/team) With 100 kids, for the same price USAV is charging, I could provide TWENTY-FIVE HOURS of education, two tournaments, and a uniform. You tell me, which one will the kids benefit more from?

The names of the HP coaches mean something to me: I guarantee you 99% of juniors beach players have no idea who those people are. I'm sure they have some great things to teach, but I refuse to believe that any coach will teach more in a day then we could teach in 5 weeks of two 2.5 hour sessions.

This comes a couple weeks after I hear from multiple sources that the AVP has told the top 24 players that they are not allowed to play in non-AVP domestic events - keep in mind, the AVP is only running 7 of their own this season. I realize that they're trying to eliminate the NVL from their competition, but is this really what's best for the players? especially when anyone outside of the top 24 (and some within) are lucky to break even after a season of ball?

And, as usual in my beach rants, WHY AREN'T WE MORE CONCERNED WITH GROWING THE PAID ATTENDANCE AT EVENTS?

I feel like the people that are pulling the strings are like an aged former professional NBA/NFL athlete that can't tighten the reigns and admit that the checks aren't coming in like they did when they were in their prime (AKA the 80's/mid 90's). We want that same glorious lifestyle those players had, even though you look at the spectators during those years compared to the empty bleachers we have now and realize we currently don't have the following to justify that. Yet, all the conversation I hear/read about now is about the same subjects: Tours butting heads wanting the lion's share of the market, and players being restricted on what they can/can't do in the process. Sadly, because players don't have a lot of financial options, so when the people that are cutting them the checks tell them they can't play other events, what choice do they have? I'd be willing to bet if you asked many of them off-the-record if they felt that what's being done is best for the growth of the game, they'd say no.

The tours right now are being GREEDY. We have probably never had such a boom in the juniors beach scene nationwide, and instead of looking at this as a true opportunity to grow the game, get the player visibility increased, and generate interest in this younger group to attend professional events, we have a huge multi-tour game of tug-of-war, with everyone trying to dominate the market for juniors tournaments.  I think the people that are up top have the business knowledge to do it the right way: I also think they all have the business knowledge to recognize if they dominate the juniors market for tournaments, where they charge $50-60 per team, compared to what they'd make by charging $5-10 per spectator to watch their professionals, that will line their pockets more - regardless of what that does for the health of our game.

And that's what saddens me about all of this. If the powers that be actually gave a s*** about the sport instead of making money, now is as good of a time as we've EVER had to make this sport relevant again. Webcasting has never been easier. Certain people up top have more financial resources than we've ever had to play with before. Juniors is skyrocketing, and the NCAA adding sand as a sport has only helped that cause. The time is NOW to make a change - to truly GROW THE GAME. I just hope that one day, someone with enough power to make the change sees that too.