{"id":6727,"date":"2014-10-20T09:00:04","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T08:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coachingvb.com\/?p=6727"},"modified":"2014-10-20T09:00:04","modified_gmt":"2014-10-20T08:00:04","slug":"volleyball-england-influencing-university-volleyball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/2014\/10\/20\/volleyball-england-influencing-university-volleyball\/","title":{"rendered":"Volleyball England influencing university volleyball"},"content":{"rendered":"

Volleyball England a while back announced<\/a> an extension of its Talent Pathway into the university arena. The Talent Pathway is the progression of volleyball athletes through the youth ranks toward senior national team selection. They call it a senior academy program. The expressed idea is that it will provide English players a way to continue their progression and development beyond the Juniors level. England brought back the senior national teams in 2015 after they were defunded following the Olympics.<\/p>\n

The announcement relates to what I wrote about in regards to the conflict between the competitive needs of university clubs and the demands put on them in terms of growing volleyball participation<\/a>. I am all for making university volleyball in the UK stronger. It benefits the sport overall, and it should eventually develop a player pipeline for the national team (as it does in the US). From that perspective, I approve of the move.<\/p>\n

But …<\/h6>\n

Let’s be honest, though. University volleyball (BUCS<\/a>) is simply not strong enough at the moment. It does not provide a meaningful developmental platform for prospective international and\/or professional caliber players. Barring a massive influx of talented athletes, it won’t be any time soon. The reality of the situation is that this will be all about playing top level NVL<\/a> volleyball.<\/p>\n

That’s all fine and good (if it works as intended). Let’s just not think this is something which will have a direct impact on university volleyball. All it will tend to do is create a very clear group teams far above the rest. If other schools are encouraged to better support volleyball to be more competitive, then great! I see just as much chance, though, of them looking at this and saying “Why bother?”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Volleyball England has announced a new senior academy set-up tied in with five universities. I have my doubts about what it will accomplish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11],"tags":[182,219,339,349,402],"class_list":["post-6727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-n-r","category-volleyball-coaching-news","tag-international-volleyball","tag-national-team","tag-university-volleyball","tag-volleyball-academy","tag-volleyball-england"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}