Thursday Musing

Not a lot on my mind. I’m about to go through all of the West Region teams to see who has released rosters. Yes, my job is glamorous.

I started work on the key returning players for 2019 and have made it through the setters/right sides. I have my preliminary lists for the other positions and it’s kind of amazing the talent coming back. I’m definitely going to miss some really good players in my write-ups. I also like to go through and find the top players that didn’t get a chance to perform in 2018 but should this year but it’s just not going to happen. It would just crowd an already crowded article.

One of the players featured in my setters/right side article will be Pomona-Pitzer Isabel Kelly. Is it wrong of me to realize she went to Pali High School, which was my high school’s rival back in the 80s, and think about dropping her from the article? (Okay, I really didn’t ponder the thought too long. I still have more internal conflicts with the Trinity players.)

I’ve been playing around with the idea of podcasts the past year. I did the YouTube video of the Top 25 and I have now signed up at a free hosting podcast site called Anchor. There are now links on the website to my Twitter, YouTube and Anchor sites through icons (upper left if you are on a laptop). Anchor will publish the podcasts on other sites with Spotify and Pocket Casts being the first two. For now this is just something that seems interesting and fun (to me) so I’ll probably continue. Anchor allows for advertisements where the money (not much) actually comes back to me. So, after two years, this little labor of love has finally been corrupted with my D3VbWest Initial Public Offering (IPO) to be announced soon.

Ricky has a post up on some notes from the 2019 Annual Meeting that I missed. As I went through it, I realized that Jan Gentry (NCAA) presented on “Inside the NCAA Division 3 Tournament Selection Process”. I’ve asked the NCAA for the presentation but haven’t received a response. I’ve also reached out to a couple of coaches to see if they have it. Now, I’ll reach out to anyone reading this…Bueller…Bueller…Bueller.

Speaking of Ricky, I’d love to do some podcasts with him on DIII volleyball. It’s another technical hurdle that I would have to overcome because we (currently) live apart and I’d have to merge the audio. Another technical hurdle would be, well, Ricky.

My Top 25 is out (obviously) and I think I ranked Saint Benedict a few places too high. I also think UW-Stevens Point is a few places too high. I’m also kicking myself for leaving off Augsburg now. Oh well. It’s these stupid little things I fixate on and not the fact that my Top 25 is probably 90% guess work.

Southwestern’s alumni match is August 24th and my daughter is having her bachelorette party that weekend. So, for now, it looks like I’m missing out. I’m not sure why my daughter thinks her wedding is about her. (Oh, yeah…my daughter is getting married. Thankfully the wedding is after volleyball season so I’ll be able to attend.)

It’s looking much more probable that I’ll be at the Friday matches for the East/West Challenge at Washington-St. Louis on September 13th. Planning a guy’s weekend and my buddies look like they are fine with it. Of course, they have both said they don’t want to be in a gym all day. Yeah, right. Agreed, but let’s just stay for this next match. I’m just saying I’ll be sure to put the rental car in my name only.

Alright, back to my fruitless search for the 2019 rosters. Yeah me!