AAU VOLLEYBALL ALUMNA EARN SEC AWARDS

At the end of last month, the Southeastern Conference (SEC) announced its annual volleyball awards after the 2014 season was finished. Of the seven athletes that took home 2014 SEC Volleyball Awards, six were former AAU members. Two of those athletes were from the University of Florida, and three others attend Kentucky, Missouri and Texas A&M. The coach of the year went to a face that we've seen for several years at the AAU Girls' Junior National Volleyball Championships, University of Florida Head Coach Mary Wise!

Alex Holston was selected as the 2014 Player of the Year in the SEC. The sophomore right side hitter has helped lead the Gators to win this years' SEC title and is in the top ten in hitting percentage, kills and points. She has been a consistent presence for the Gators this season, earning SEC Offensive Player of the Week honors three times and being named to the All-SEC team.

Jackie Napper, a senior at Kentucky, earned SEC Libero of the Year honors in 2014. She is fifth in the SEC in digs and 14th in service aces, recording 462 digs in 29 matches this season. Her SEC award this year is the second Libero of the Year honor for the Wildcats and the schools' third Defensive Player of the Year award overall. Napper was also named the All-SEC team.

Congratulations are also in order for Florida's Holly Pole, Missouri's Carly Kan and Texas A&M's Shelby Sullivan. These three talented ladies were named as the SEC's Scholar-Athletes of the Year after showing off their talents on the court and in the classroom. Pole, a senior at the University of Florida, boasts a 3.5 GPA and has a double major in accounting and sports management, the third person in 20 years approved for a double major in accounting at Florida. Kan has a 3.88 GPA in accounting at Missouri and is only a sophomore! The outside hitter is also a Capital One/CoSIDA Academic All-District selection. Sullivan joins Kan on the Capital One/CoSIDA Academic All-District team, while earning a 3.85 GPA in marketing.

Florida's Head Coach Mary Wise took home the SEC Coach of the Year honors for the 14th time after leading the Gators to the SEC regular season title. Her Gators team is currently undefeated as the enter the 2014 NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball Championship and is No. 6 in the AVCA Coaches Top 25 and No. 7 in the current NCAA RPI ranking.

Congratulations to everyone who took home SEC volleyball honors and good luck in the championships!

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CROSS COUNTRY NATIONALS

The AAU Cross Country National Championships are finally here!

The University of Kansas cross country course, Rim Rock Farm, is hosting this highly anticipated event. This facility has hosted the Rim Rock Classic, Kansas High School State Championships, as well as the Big XII Conference Championship!

For live results updates, continue to visit www.aauathletics.org or CLICK HERE.

2014 AAU LEAGUE BASED NATIONALS

The event you've been waiting for is here! The 2014 AAU Tackle Football League Based National Championship kicks off this week from December 3rd and will run through December 6th.

This event features the top two teams from each AAU Licensed League around the country in 8U, 10U, 12U, and 14U divisions.

Pool and Bracket play is taking place at Northeast Recreational Park in Davenport, FL and Championship games will take place at West Orange High School in Winter Garden, FL

To view the schedule and results of this exciting event, CLICK HERE.

DEADLINE FOR UNRESTRICTED NATIONALS

Attention Athletics Coaches, Parents, and Athletes! The deadline to register for the 2014 AAU Tackle Football Unrestricted Nationals is quickly approaching!

Make sure you sign up your athletes by December 8th, 2014. The entry fee is $180 per flag team and $280 per tackle team.

This top of the line event is taking place from
December 19th – 21st, 2014 in San Antonio, TX at Wheatley Heights Sports Complex.

CLICK HERE to register your team today!

DEADLINE APPROACHING FOR THE WEST COAST WINTER NATIONALS

The deadline to register for the 2014 AAU West Coast Winter Nationals is quickly approaching!

This event which qualifies teams for the 2015 AAU Junior Olympic Games, will take place from December 20th – 22nd, 2014 at The Rinks in Corona, CA.

The deadline to register your team is December 12th, so sign up your team today!

For more information on which age divisions are available or how to register your team, please CLICK HERE or contact Ken Murchison at 951-279-7465 or by email at ken.murchison@ducksinline.com.

TRACKWRESTLING LAUNCHES "TRACKCAST"

The wrestling world has been asking for it and Trackwrestling has answered. Trackwrestling has been on the forefront of putting easy to use technology in the hands of tournament directors, coaches, and fans for over a decade, adding new functionality to the website each year. With the explosion on online streaming video, event directors have been searching for options with live event coverage. Trackcast delivers.

To find out more about Trackwrestling's exciting new feature, CLICK HERE.

BARRY JACOBS: FRESHMEN TAKE BIGGER ROLE IN ACC BASKETBALL

BY BARRY JACOBS
The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)

The way some see it, the day is fast approaching when high-level NCAA basketball will be defined first by its newest players, then by everyone else.

"College basketball has been, in my judgment, the quality of the game overall, the landscape, has become more and more dependent on the quality of the freshmen class," ESPN analyst Jay Bilas said during a November teleconference.

This isn't entirely a good thing. Even the best freshmen are often inconsistent as a season unfolds. Off the court they're particularly prone to distraction by college life's cornucopia of temptations.

No matter. Where once freshmen were expected to gradually find their way, media members now think nothing of voting them to All-America squads before they play a college game.

Last season, Mitchell Wiggins of Kansas was an Associated Press preseason choice for All-America. This go-round Duke's Jahlil Okafor won the same designation, becoming the third freshman so honored in the past five years.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski has repeatedly shared his expectation that Okafor will leave for the NBA following this season. The 6-foot-11 center's immediate status as an All-American, and its easy acceptance, reflects growing appreciation of the poise and skill today's most-talented prep players bring to campus.

"I think AAU basketball, the exposure that these young men get at an early age puts them on the big stage a lot quicker," says Wake Forest coach Danny Manning, once a top recruit himself. "You pay attention to it a little more now because of one-and-dones and things of that nature."

But let's be honest - popular acclaim for freshmen also reveals a preference for the new over the old, the promised over the realized, the ideal versus the imperfect. It's much the same orientation that makes following college recruiting a sport in itself.

"There is a fascination with freshmen, and you know most of the freshmen nowadays are more worldly," North Carolina coach Roy Williams said. "Their game is much more evolved."

Just five years ago Tar Heels newcomer Harrison Barnes was a preseason All-American; one outlet even dubbed him the prospective 2011 national player of the year. At the time the choice seemed breathtakingly presumptuous. And so it turned out, as Barnes didn't make first team All-ACC, let alone first-team All-America.

That Barnes never quite lived up to the hype wasn't his fault. Only eight freshmen have made first team All-ACC, 11 the second team (Barnes among them) in the 42 seasons they've been eligible for varsity competition. That's 3.8 percent of all first-team selections by the media since 1972-73 (8 of 210), 4.5 percent of the top 10 picks (19 of 420). Three freshmen made first team in this century, when quick jumps to the NBA are increasingly prevalent.

After all, even great talents are like great food and need a bit of seasoning. Just think of the past two freshmen chosen first team All-ACC: Duke's Austin Rivers (2012), who had a difficult time blending with teammates, and Jabari Parker (2014), a notably inconsistent defender. (The other 21st century freshman first-teamer was UNC's Tyler Hansbrough in 2006.)

Freshmen began competing on the varsity in football and basketball in 1972, the same year Virginia Tech head basketball coach Buzz Williams was born. Doing away with freshman teams such as Duke's Blue Imps, N.C. State's Wolflets and North Carolina's Tar Babies was billed as a cost-saving measure.

Sanctioning the leap from high school to high-profile competition defied the wisdom of those who believed freshmen need a year to adjust to college.

"There's no question in my mind they would have been better served educationally to have been ineligible for varsity play as freshmen," UNC basketball coach Dean Smith said years later. "Almost all of the problems of intercollegiate athletics - excessive commercialism, compulsion to win and the whole success/failure ethos - impinge directly upon the talented freshman student-athlete."

The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics and other reform-minded groups continue to advocate a return to freshman ineligibility. Unfortunately that's about as likely as the NCAA agreeing to place men and women on the same basketball squad to promote gender equity.

These days the collegiate status of male freshmen is more dependent on NBA draft rules than on academic considerations.

"We're in a different era," said TV analyst Fran Fraschilla, a former head coach, pointing to "the dearth of great players in college because of the one-and-done rule." That stricture, imposed by the NBA in 2006, requires a player to be at least 19 years old and one year removed from high school to be eligible for the pro draft.

According to Forbes magazine, the NBA recently discussed with its players' association a rule requiring a two-year stay in college, an adjustment that Krzyzewski has been advocating for quite some time. This would not only further education and elongate some pro careers, but also bring greater stability and experience to college play.

"I still believe that, in professional sports and in college sports, that your veterans make your team," says Manning, the 1988 national player of the year at Kansas and then a 15-year pro. "In college it's your juniors and your seniors and your experienced sophomores. Professionally it's your guys that have been in the league for some time and had some things figured out."

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AAC CHOOSES SEVERAL AAU ALUMNA AS AWARD WINNERS

The American Athletic Conference has chosen their All-Conference selections! The AAU is excited to announce that two of the players who won individual awards are former AAU members and the Coach of the Year is a very familiar face at the AAU Girls' Junior National Volleyball Championships.

University of Central Florida's Delaina Sarden took home Player of the Year honors after putting up some impressive numbers this season. The 6'1 middle blocker led the conference in hitting percentage (.497) and is fifth in the nation for overall hitting percentage with .431. The senior from Lawrenceville, Georgia became the 10th player in UCF Volleyball history to reach 1,000 career kills and was named the American Athletic Conference Player of the Week on back-to-back weeks in October.

Sarden's coach, Todd Dagenais, grabbed the Coach of the Year award in the AAC after leading his UCF team to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2003. Heading into his seventh season as UCF's head coach, the Central Michigan graduate holds a 102-87 record, finishing the last four seasons with winning records. In 2014, his team capped off the year with a 25-7 record, going 18-2 in the conference, earning them the AAC title. Dagenais can be found scouring the courts at the AAU Girls' Junior National Volleyball Championships looking for his next star player and is a member of the coaches' panel at the Recruiting Seminar portion of the AAU Volleyball Nationals.

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WATCH FOR THE YEARBOOK YOU ORDERED
TO BE  DELIVERED
VIA USPS BEFORE DECEMBER 25TH!