philosophy

Philosophy:

The Midnight Sun Volleyball program has been in
existence for over 25 years and was created for and
still is a program whose primary goal is to improve
middle and high school volleyball. This is a private
organization that is not recreational volleyball. We
teach advanced skills at all levels and prepare players
for middle, high school, and collegiate volleyball.

This program has produced NCAA Division I, II, III
All-Americans as well as NCAA Champions. However,
we are most proud of how the program has helped
high school volleyball continue to leap forward in
level of play. Our coaching staff has over 60 years of
high school and college coaching experience and
many of our former players, who were successful
collegiate players, have returned to be a part of our
coaching cadre.

Participation in the club is through a try-out basis and
our age groups are 12/13, 13/14, 16 and under and 18
and under. Try-outs for the 16's and 18's (high school
age players) is usually the middle of November, with
the younger age groups the first part of December.
We have our own gym located at 6330 Arctic, and use
AT&T Sports Pavillion and Hanshew sites also.
Practices are twice a week starting at 4:30 or 5 with
the late practices starting at 7:00 and could be any
weekday or Saturday. Each age division will have one
large tourney a month starting in January and the
program ends with a tourney the first week of April.
We do not practice over Christmas or Spring Break.
With sister clubs, we have helped create, in the valley,
Eagle River and the peninsula, our tourneys are large.

The cost for our 4 and 1/2 month program is $710.
This can be paid in 1-2-3 or 6 payments if needs be as
we offer different payment schedules and we do
accept Visa and MasterCard. We do not have
scholarships and usa a couple of different small
fundraiser programs to help those who wish to
fundraise. The cost covers administration, our own
gym, equipment, uniforms, in state tournies,
insurance, national affiliation with USA Volleyball and
our coaching staff. We field about 25 teams and do
not have more than 10 players per team to help with
instruction and playing time.

We have hard and fast rules for practice attendance
and players may be excused from practice for family
emergencies, church related functions, school
academic functions, school sports and family
vacations. We do not excuse for social functions and
we give each player 2 unexcused absences to use. If a
player goes beyond 2, they are automatically dropped
from the program and parents must pay the entire
sum of the contract. We use a parent financial
agreement which is signed at the beginning of the
season. We encourage kids to play other sports but
take a good look at their schedule to make sure they
can fit this in before signing a contract. We do not
use a parent board and no parent coaches. All of our
coaches are experienced players as well as current
and former college, high school and middle school
coaches. We encourage parents to come to tourneys
and cheer in a positive manner for their daughter;
otherwise parents are not in our leadership or
coaching process. Our systems of play are advanced
as well as the skill we teach at each level which is
why we demand that the kids are there for practices.

Once we set the times and days of the week for
practices, we do not change them unless we have a
crisis with gym time which is very rare. We select a
large number of players from the try-outs (we do have
to cut a lot of kids) and then draft them into even
teams into the divisions of play which are Varsity
Gold (4 teams), Varsity Silver (4 teams), JV (4 or 6
teams) - all of which are high school kids. 14's for 8th
and 9th grade, 13/14 for a combination of 7th and less
experienced 8th graders and 12/13's which is for less
experienced 7th and 6th graders. We practice up to
the start of Christmas break, resume practices at the
end of the break and go strong up to Spring Break
and then finsih up the first week in April.

Try-outs are through age groupings to keep the
numbers of kids manageable and then we place the
kids into the division that you see above based on
skill level. Once we select kids from the first try-outs,
then they come back to a series of secondary
evaluations so we can see players by position before
we place them within specific divisions and draft
them onto teams. Once the draft is completed, their
coach calls them and lets them know which team they
are on and when their first practices are. There is a
$10 try-out fee.

Each June we take teams to Volleyball Festival to
compete with national and international teams over a
week long period. We take a limited amount of teams
in all age divisions and selection is on a tryout basis
that begins in January. Cost is in addition to the
Midnight Sun dues.