Posted on Aug 25, 2021
Last week our favorite, winningest CSU coach shared stories of 2020 with all its challenges (COVID +), his thoughts about the direction of women’s college sports and details about his current young team for 2021-22.

It all started with a brief video featuring some of the recent VB greats and their amazing plays. CSU is rated in the US top 5 for “home volleyball experiences”.  The focus is always on the Fort Collins community and getting to know the players both on the court and through contributions to our community off the court.

The 2020 story starts in March when the team was preparing for an important VB event called Colorado Crossroads. Suddenly, the arrival of COVID signaled the end of CSU Volleyball. Uncertainty ruled - rumors of a quick return died as potential normalcy was pushed ever into the future. Decisions were being made by administrators and coaches were intentionally left out of the process. A whole training season was lost. 

Virtual meetings with players were the rule as each displayed their own training/fitness routine on social media. Several players tested positive for COVID in July and August and were quarantined. In August players practiced with masks but by September all sports were shut down, eventually through Christmas. In a 16-match abbreviated Spring season, in spite of all these challenges, CSU finished 3rd in the MW. This Friday we start anew with the annual “white out” match!

COVID was not the only challenge last season. The new (2017-18) “transfer portal” allows for easier and more certain student transfers. Currently this allows for transfer within a conference. Challenges for coaches are obvious. The “COVID eligibility rule” has added another year of eligibility for players (this creates an increase of 25% more players). Scholarships do not expand to cover this extra year. NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) allows student sponsorship, but the rules are evolving with the NCAA mostly just observing. One requirement of NIL is that these potential student athlete benefits must not affect recruiting, but some schools seem to have devised various “work-arounds”.

Back to our team, COVID and volleyball. Currently all players are vaccinated (options are testing 3x per week for unvaccinated). Players must be masked when not on the court. Mask mandate is in place for fans. As for the team - 12 of 17 have never played in Moby, 2 are transfers and 10 are freshmen. Many are talented but training and on-court experience will be needed to develop many of the best volleyball skills. Tom next reviewed the upcoming season. Two matches with CU are among the highlights. With a good CSU effort, the Mountain West will be a 4-team race. It should be an interesting and challenging year- but we made through 2020-2021!

There were a couple good Rotary questions-about how CSU culture is demonstrated to recruits and what benefits COVID might have on the future (e.g., enhanced use of virtual techniques and communication).

See you all at Moby!

Purchase tickets here: https://csurams.com/tickets