When does the USAV season start and stop?

This depends by region as the season usually starts with a "friendlies" set of tournaments before going into the true tournaments, Regionals and Nationals.

Friendlies are, basically, tournaments that are run by USAV clubs for USAV teams, but people are not required to be dedicated to an individual team.  This means that a player hasn't picked which team they're going to be playing for during the rest of the season.  They are tournaments where you can "test" the waters, as it were.  In the LoneStar region, friendlies for 2009/2010 were in September and October.

Starting in November, for the LoneStar region, players have to commit to an individual team.  Some regions have different timeframes. The Rocky Mountain region, for example, doesn't require players to commit to an individual team until about January.  

In March/April, there's usually a major tournament. This tournament, dubbed "Regionals", is held to qualify teams for Nationals and for the prestige of being 1st or 2nd in the region.  Officially, only the first place team is "guaranteed" a slot in the Nationals tournament. 

In May/June, there's a single Nationals tournament.  This tournament is held in a different city each year. It's been held in places such as Austin, Minneapolis/St. Paul and (this year) Phoenix.  Teams from all over the nation come to compete against others and see how they do.  There are usually 50+ teams in many of the divisions and the tournament lasts four days.  As I said, only the first place team for Regionals is guaranteed a slot. That having been said, there are usually many more slots than there are teams so if your team wants to go, you don't have to place at Regionals. 

Oh, no! I got injured at a tournament... what now?

Luckily for you, the LoneStar region has insurance. This means that you may be covered under their tournament system -- what you'll want to do is make sure that the tournament director fills out paperwork for your injury. If they didn't, contact your regional director and let them know what happened. You'll need to have paperwork filled out and then submitted to the insurance organization.

The process itself is painless.  I haven't gotten to the payments part yet, though, so that might be more of a challenge!

Are USAV rules different from FIVB? from recreation leagues?

Rather than trying to answer this and keep the answer updated into the future, I'll just say that they are very close to the same.  Some rules have interpretations and some USAV specific rules exist.

Here are the national USAV volleyball rules. .

How do I find a team?

There's a few ways to do it.  Some probably easier than others.

In my opinion, the easiest is to play open gyms around town and just mention that you're looking to play on a USAV team to people that you're playing with. Some will know of openings or of a team that's just starting up.  You may find a group of 6-9 people that all want to create a new team and then simply start one.

The LoneStar website also offers a place to see if a team has posted that they're looking for new players or for an individual to post that they're looking for a new team.   There's also a list of all the adult team contacts for the current USAV season. You could email them to find out if they're currently looking for a new player.
 
A final place that you could post is a local volleyball mailing list such as the Austin "Jabol" mailing list (note: I have no idea why they named it Jabol, but that's what it's called).

In all cases, make sure you know about what level you're looking to play.

If I'm not in the LoneStar Region, where can I play?

Although I started this blog specifically for my own purposes and supporting the USAV in the LoneStar Region, I figure I might help those outside the region as well where possible. I noticed that at least one of my readers is from outside of Texas, so welcome! ;)

There are 40 RVAs (regional volleyball associations). Not all of the associations have every level of membership or registration level.  In general, here are the levels available:

• Adult (for players, coaches, officials)
• Jr. Olympic (for players ages 18 and under)
• Youth (for players ages 11 and under)
• Outdoor (for late spring/summer only play)
• One Event  (for one event USAV sanctioned play)
• League (for 8-12 week limited play only leagues)
• Other (fan, chaperone, leadership, etc.)

The map to find your local region is here. Simply click on your region and it'll help find you can play.

CENTRAL ZONE:    

• Central East Section: BG, GL, GW, HO, LK, NO, PR
• Central West Section: GP, HA, IA, RM

PACIFIC ZONE:    

• Pacific North Section: AK, CE, EV, PS
• Pacific South Section: AH, IM, MK, NC

ATLANTIC ZONE:    

• North Atlantic Section: CH, GE, IE, KE, NE, OV, WE
• South Atlantic Section: CR, FL, OD, PM, SO

BORDER ZONE:    

• Border East Section: BY, DE, GC, LS, NT, OK
• Border West Section: AZ, SC, SU

Where's your posts?

I'm sorry for the delay in resuming posting, but the surgery has been kicking my rear.  At this time, I'm running a 101 fever, am unable to stand for more than about 15 minutes without breaking out into sweats and shivers, and generally feeling wrong.

Because of that, I'm not writing anything yet.  Just so you know. In case you care. :)

Anyone have USAV questions?

I'm going into surgery today for my ACL and meniscus.  I tore them on February 13th along with my MCL.  Sadly, this means I'm out of volleyball until everything's healed up, but I'm trying to make sure to stay involved and I still want my own club to succeed -- so I'm continuing to make a push towards trying to get more players involved in USAV.

Do you have any questions? Comments? Is there anything that you have questions about that I've missed so far? 

I won't be making any posts this week, but will resume next week.  If I don't get some ideas, though, the posts will probably be with less frequency!