By Aaron Hutton for VolleyballMag.com
There’s Vibe in Atlanta, extra gamers have signed with the budding professional volleyball leagues, groups are making strikes, and we visited with former Stanford nice and Athletes Limitless director of sport Cassidy Lichtman.
We’ll begin with Professional Volleyball Federation information.
The Atlanta franchise, which took benefit of getting AVP Atlanta in its yard this previous weekend, will probably be often called the Atlanta Vibe.
“We needed a reputation that displays our metropolis,” Vibe proprietor Colleen Craig mentioned.” With the intention to accomplish that, a city-wide naming contest was performed, returning effectively over 1,000 submissions with one which stood out to us probably the most – the Atlanta Vibe.”
The announcement was made on the Atlantic Station, web site of the AVP occasion, with two of the crew’s superstar traders available, Olympic nice hurdler Edwin Moses and seaside legend Sinjin Smith.
Atlanta additionally lately introduced that coach Todd Dagenais has employed Brian Doyon, who was one among his assistants at UCF the previous seven years.
The Vibe will probably be taking part in at Fuel South Area within the suburb of Duluth and can share the power with the Nationwide Lacrosse League’s Georgia Swarm and the East Coast Hockey League’s Atlanta Gladiators.
The Columbus Fury has been busy. The franchise named David Paitson its CEO. He comes from the professional hockey world.
“I noticed first-hand how this group took to the game of hockey when it was in its infancy, and I absolutely anticipate the identical to occur with girls’s skilled volleyball,” Paitson mentioned.
The Fury additionally signed Gabby Blossom, the previous Penn State setter who as a graduate switch took San Diego to final 12 months’s NCAA nationwide semifinals, and former Ohio State exterior Ashley Wenz.
“Being from Ohio, I’ve had the superb alternative to play highschool and school volleyball right here. Having left, I do know Ohio actually attracts you again,” mentioned Wenz, who performed a season of seaside at Arizona State.
“I’m extraordinarily excited to proceed to signify the city and state I like.”
Omaha final week introduced it is going to be referred to as the Supernovas.
Dallas was additionally launched as one of many PVF franchises, nevertheless it received’t play till 2025.
PVF, which begins play subsequent February, additionally has first-season franchises in Grand Rapids, Michigan; Orlando (team-name announcement coming later this month) and San Diego. Another crew will play in 2024 with an announcement approaching that franchise quickly.
For extra: https://www.provolleyball.com/latest-news/
Athletes Limitless
AU, which skipped a season, resumes October 3. AU fields 4 groups that play every week. After every spherical of three matches, the 4 gamers who rating probably the most factors as people develop into captains for the subsequent week and so they draft new groups.
Brazillian exterior Wélissa “Sassá” Gozaga is becoming a member of AU for the primary time. AU beforehand introduced the return of defending-champion Bethania De La Cruz, Tori Dixon, Morgan Hentz (the 2022 defensive participant of the 12 months), and Nootsara Tomkom.
We lately obtained to go to with Cassidy Litchtman, AU’s director of sport.
The previous Stanford nice, who performed in AU’s first two seasons, was with the USA nationwide crew from 2011-16 and her professional profession took her to China, Switzerland, Poland and Azerbaijan. These are among the highlights of our dialog.
Lichtman: “After taking part in the primary two seasons as a participant and being a member of the participant govt committee, I felt optimistic in regards to the imaginative and prescient and path of Athletes Limitless. So, when the earlier director stepped all the way down to pursue a NCAA alternative, I made a decision to pursue my very own position throughout the group.
VBM: Say I’m new to volleyball and I’m following AU for the primary time this season. What am I about to expertise and the way do I get probably the most from watching on ESPN’s platforms?
Lichtman: Athletes Limitless is designed with followers of particular person athletes in thoughts. That is a person competitors inside a crew sport setting. So, after every recreation you possibly can view our chief board at ausports.com/leaderboard and think about how these particular person gamers are stacking up. When the week is up, the highest performing athletes will probably be chosen as crew captains and can re-draft the groups, so it’s actually about participant efficiency over crew dynamic.
VBM: Do offensive positions earn factors the identical method defensive positions due?
Lichtman: Technically, sure. You’ll be able to see our scoring system at ausport.com/volleyball/how-we-play-volleyball, however, primarily we’ve used historic information from worldwide competitions to guarantee the scoring system was truthful to each place.
VBM: I’ve heard some say that AU isn’t a league. How would you categorize it?
Lichtman: We will not be a standard league, however we play six video games per week and our gamers are paid professionals, so I might name us a “league.”
VBM: ESPN requested you to maneuver your season lately. Serindipitously, this has allowed gamers signed with the Professional Volleyball Federation to additionally signal with AU. Organizations like PVF and League One Volleyball will inevitably trigger the variety of American professional volleyball gamers to extend exponentially. Has there been any discussions of increasing AU Volleyball’s participant pool from 44?
Lichtman: There’s at all times prospects for change, however we imagine 44 is nice for now. There are logistical challenges if we add extra groups. However, by no means say by no means.
VBM: I perceive there’s a documentary in growth?
Lichtman: Sure. Boardwalk Footage has made an settlement with us. We anticipate them to be with us this fall if we will get it green-lit quickly sufficient.
VBM: That sounds thrilling. Was there something you’d like so as to add?
Lichtman: This can be a very thrilling time for our sport on this nation. Three leagues means extra alternatives for our gamers and followers, and, I feel we will discover methods for all three organizations to construct volleyball from being the largest sport nobody talks about to one thing actually particular.
For extra on AU volleyball: https://auprosports.com/volleyball/