Chloe Goldman, Nikki Fowler, and Kayla Jeter will be taking part in USA Volleyball’s National Team open tryout later this month at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. A total of 174 athletes are competing. More info about the programs from USA Volleyball follows:

The U.S. Women’s National Team program is open to athletes who have concluded their college eligibility and who wish to train full-time. (Athletes who will have remaining collegiate eligibility may still participate in the program when their scholastic calendar ends.) The U.S. Women’s National Team Open Tryout is the only path for a collegiate volleyball player with remaining eligibility to access the U.S. National Team and have an opportunity to be named to the 2010 FIVB World Championship.

Athletes in college with collegiate eligibility remaining for the 2010 season and not selected to the USA Women’s National Team may be invited to participate in the USA Senior A2 Team where they could compete in the 2010 USA Adult Open Championships, an even USA Volleyball considers the the National Championship for the sport of volleyball in the United States.

Good luck!

Eight Lady Vols were named to the 2009 Fall SEC Academic Honor Roll. Congratulations to Carol Cheade, Nikki Fowler, Amanda Friday, Chloe Goldman, Kayla Jeter, Kelsey Mahoney, Kylie Marshall, and Emily Steinbeck.

The second annual Fiesta on Siesta Key sand volleyball tournament will take place on April 17, 2010. Last season the SEC Coaches Beach Volleyball Championships and the Collegiate Beach Volleyball Challenge were two separate tournaments held during the Fiesta on Siesta Key. Based on the press release I’m not sure if that is the case this year or if the SEC is ending their event to join the other tournament. More info will probably be coming soon.

Updating the 2009 records is taking a lot longer than I had planned! It’s not the actual work, but finding the time to get it done! I’ve had the basic individual stat records finished for awhile. Now I’m working on some of the harder to track stats — things like “most home wins in a regular season” and “most games against ranked teams”. So instead of making you wait for those, I’m going to split these up and post the half that is finished. You can check out part one of the record updates here.

The NCAA Women’s Volleyball Rules Committee met this week. They decided to keep substitutions at 12 per set, and to allow players to go under the net to pursue an errant ball in the opponent’s free zone. I would have preferred the opposite result on both counts — but I also would have preferred us to stick with side-out scoring, so maybe I’m not the best judge of things! And at least they didn’t make a dramatic change like the move to 25 points. If I’m not mistaken, rule changes will from now on be restricted to every other year. So (assuming they don’t come back and add anything else later this year) the volleyball rule book will be locked until 2012.

I’d planned on writing a blog post about the sand volleyball vote taking place today but luckily (for me!) the New York Times has done it for me.

I have to admit, I am on the side of putting off sand volleyball for the time being. Non-traditional volleyball powers are starting to catch up to the big guys in the indoor game. Bringing sand volleyball into the mix will give those big names back their huge recruiting advantage and it will take time for other schools to catch up again, if they ever can. There are other issues too (money and resources, coaches and players having to do double duty, scheduling for schools in colder climates…) that need to be hashed out before we rush into this. Don’t let sand volleyball supporters beat you over the head with the line that people against this are “eliminating opportunities for women”. That is not the intention. In fact you could say we’re trying to protect the opportunities for women that are already there. The end of that article says:

The best solution, some say, is for both sides to take more time to resolve their differences.

“They are politicizing it and once it’s off the table, it’s hard to get it back,” said Billy Stone, an executive producer for the CBS College Sports Network…

I’d say something similar — one it’s approved it’ll be hard to take it away later. Let’s fix the problems before we approve it, not after.

UPDATE: 166 of 284 schools voted to not go forward with sand volleyball at this time — that’s about 59%. Unfortunately a 62.5% majority was required. AVCA Executive Director Kathy DeBoer (a very vocal supporter of going forward with sand volleyball ASAP) said:

The length and tone of the debate over sand volleyball in Division I means we have much work to do. While we are thrilled about the new opportunities for women that will be created by this sport, we are also mindful that the legislative parameters for governance of this sport still need careful deliberation.

Hopefully those in charge will keep that admirable sentiment at the forefront of their minds as they move forward without the endorsement a significant majority of schools.

UPDATE: Just a clarification. I don’t think many people are against sand volleyball itself. I think most of us who opposed it right now wanted to ensure that it was going to be implemented in a way that would not interfere or harm the indoor game. If those specific safeguards had been decided beforehand there would probably have been almost unanimous support for sand volleyball.

Congratulations to Kylann Scheidt who was named to the ESPN RISE Volleyball All-America Second Team.

Just popping in to say I haven’t forgotten! Those promised updates will be coming soon! I’ve had a very busy holiday that is finally slowing down. So look for some new stuff in the coming week.

After posting a 24-8 record and making it to the second round of the NCAA tournament, the Lady Vols have ended the season ranked #24 in the country according to the AVCA. This is the fifth time in school history Tennessee has finished in the top 25. Three other SEC schools also made the cut: #12 Kentucky, #15 Florida, and #19 LSU. This is just the second time four SEC teams have finished in the AVCA Top 25. In other systems: The Lady Vols got their highest ranking at #17 in the final RPI, were #25 in Pablo, and #27 in the RichKern.com Top 30 Poll.

For the third year in a row I get to copy and paste this same image! Congratulations to Penn State on another dominating season capped by a thrilling comeback in the finals of the 2009 NCAA Division I volleyball national championship!

The 2010 Final Four will be played in Kansas City – which is just 733 miles from Knoxville…

Just a reminder that the 2009 National Championship is tonight at 8pm ET. #1 Penn State and #2 Texas meet tonight in Tampa. The match will be broadcast on ESPN2.

• There are over 300 teams currently in Division I. But in the 29 years the NCAA has had the championship tournament, only 25 teams have made it to a Final Four. Only 5 of those schools are in the Eastern Time Zone (including Tennessee in 2005). Only 2 of those went on to the Finals. Penn State is the only eastern school to have won the title.

• Only 10 different teams have ever won the National Championship. Penn State has won 3, while Texas has won once (which means after tonight only 10 teams will still have ever won the championship).

• Penn State has been in every NCAA tournament since its inception in 1981. Texas has only missed three.

• Penn State and Texas were ranked #1 and #2 in every weekly poll this year by both the AVCA and Volleyball Magazine.

• The Lady Vols have played both the potential champions a few times over the years. Tennessee is 1-10 vs Texas, and 4-5 vs Penn State. The Lady Vols have faced both teams in the tournament. In 1984, Texas defeated Tennessee 3-1 in the regional. In 2005, Tennessee knocked #2 Penn State out of the tournament 3-1 in the regional semifinals.

Congratulations to Chloe Goldman who today became the 10th All-American in Lady Vol history! Nikki Fowler earned the honors for the second year in a row. Both were named to the AVCA All-American Honorable Mention list. Fowler is just the 4th Lady Vol to be honored by the AVCA in back to back seasons. Tennessee has the story.

Just a heads up that I’m having some email issues. If you sent me something and I did not respond, or if I sent you something and you never got it I apologize. Hopefully I’ll have this fixed ASAP.

UPDATE: OK, I’ve fixed the problem on my end. Thanks to a friend I’ve discovered that over-zealous spam filters may be the culprit for people not getting messages from me — so check your spam folders before you assume I’m ignoring you!

Congratulations to Chloe Goldman and Nikki Fowler who were named to the AVCA All-South Region Team. The full list is here (PDF). Good luck to both as they are now eligible for All-American status (which should be announced next week or soon after)!

UPDATE: Tennessee has the story.

Complain about college football’s bowl set-up all you want, but one good thing about it is that of the 68 teams that make their post-season 34 get to end with a win. In volleyball, of the 64 teams in the tournament only one gets to finish the year with a victory. 62 other really good teams are going to end the year with a loss just like us.

So while it may sting right now, it’s not what we should focus on as we move forward. Here are a couple of quick numbers for you about the 2009 squad’s record which prove it’s been an amazing season.

• Most SEC wins in school history
• 2nd best record in the last 25 years
• 6th best record in school history
• Less losses than the team that went to the Final Four
• Only the 7th team in school history with single digit loses
• 3rd most wins in the last 25 years
• 2nd most home wins in the last 25 years
• 3rd most wins against ranked opponents in the last 25 years

I’m not quite ready to call it a wrap here yet! I’ve already updated the schedule and stats pages. Some time this month I’ll post a look at the updated record book as we’ve done before (like in 2007 & 2008) and a season recap. Plus, hopefully we’ll have a few more awards to announce this week and next!

I’ll post a few more pictures soon, but here are a couple I wanted to get out now. The first is the line-up for the team’s match vs Minnesota. The second is a panoramic photo of Thompson Boling Arena during the team’s warm-up. This one is full resolution — a thumbnail is below. The best way to get the full size version is to right click this link and choose “Save/Download File”. [Ha! Just noticed the clocks in the photo give away the secret of panoramic pictures!]

I’ll be back with more throughout the month, so don’t forget to check back! But I want to go ahead and send a special thanks to all the players, coaches, staff, families, friends, and fans who made this such an unforgettable season. Let’s all do it again next year!