How the NCVA Began                 

The year 2008 marked the 26th year anniversary of the NCVA servicing Northern California and Northern Nevada. The Northern California and Nevada Region of

We are proud of our recent and ongoing accomplishments. In the 2007-2008 season the NCVA region grew to almost 1,200 teams in about 350 clubs.  Our Power League consisting of a 2 day Qualifier 3 League tournament days and a 2 day Region Championship weekend produces some of the top teams at the USAV Junior Olympic level year after year.  With the Area League schedule of a 1 day Qualifier and 4 League tournament days and a 2 day Regional Championship we find that with the Special Tournaments, Non-Leagues and National Level tournaments our region is one of the busiest of the 40 USAV Regions and also the 4th largest in membership numbers.

This brings with it some challenges that all clubs and regions nation wide are having.  1.) playing sites with the tightening budgets at the school level and the demand of other activities on the school facilities.  They are for the most part the heart of our sport and if they are the heart then the Club Directors and Coaches are the arteries that feed the players the oxygen (knowledge) they need to become strong and able players, to coaches, to Club Directors in the future of our sport.  Thank You!

 2.) Coaches with the player numbers growing the coaching pools are being strtched thin.  While a lot of our young  players move on to other things a select few start to give back to their sport early on in their lives either by coaching or officiating (also needed).  Other players move on with their lives with education and work then marriage and children.  Once their kids are old enough to start sports they come back to the sport they love, Volleyball.  Thank You!

With-in the structure of USAV the NCVA has grown over the last 24 years from a small Mom and Pop region to the 4th  largest of the 40 regions nation wide.  In 1994, the NCVA Board of Directors chose to move in a new direction and hired a full-time Commissioner to run the region and move the region towards their dream region.  That dream was to build a region that would support a large contingent of players with a league system that would challenge them to the top of the USAV Junior Olympic system, Power League.

 Then they wanted to make sure that the players that could not or did not want to put in the commitment of the Power League a League that fit their needs, with the Area League we feel that this was accomplished.  With the goal of lower cost and the playing site within 90 minutes of their clubs home city.  This has become a very popular building block for the coaches and players to learn the crazy ropes of the game we love, Volleyball.

 But they weren't throught there, they wanted another way to make volleyball available to the players and coaches that could not commit to a league situation, but wanted to play the game.  This brought about the Non-Leagues.  Last season the first non-league of the season had 190 teams playing and over 200 that wanted too, the only thing that limits the leagues is playing sites.

Which brings us back to problem one.  As the leagues grow more sites are needed, but it takes contacts within the school systems that are committed to growing their programs and the game of volleyball by using their inside contacts to secure facilities and then it becomes the coaches and PLAYERS responsibility to take care of the facilites by not abusing them and cleaning up after yourselves.  Sometimes it seems like the NCVA is always changing things on you, we work very hard to schedule the courts needed for every weekend as close to the areas you need them.  Some of the problems we run into along the way are lack of facilities in high use areas such as, South bay and Stockton are a few of the sports along with yours that we need more courts in.  Then there is the last minute change for some unknown reason, sometimes it is the site canceling  (often) at the last minute with very short or no notice.  It is something that we can't do much about because if we attempt to penalize the facility we will lose the facility.

In our 4th year of competing in the USAV High Performance Championships after tryouts our HP staff chose 3 teams to compete in the tournament in Flordia which the NCVA Youth Red team received a Gold Medal in the Regional compeition.  Our HP program also sent 4 teams to Europe for the 1st Global Challenge International Tournament where they played against some National Federation teams and did pretty well.

As we contine striving to uphold our mission of supporting and devloping NCVA programs, community volleyball programs and organizations, actively collecting and distributing volleyball-related information, providing educational opportunities for the regional volleyball community while working in conjunction with volleyball's national governing body, we look forward to reaching a membership base of 14,000 members for the 2008-2009 season.