3/19/2008

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Roll Call:

Todd Caughlin, St. Mary's (Tx.)

Debbie Hendricks, Metropolitan State

Megan Hrbek, Caldwell

Patricia Mickow, St. Cloud State

Shannon Mincey, Carson-Newman

Tracy Rietzke, Rockhurst University

Jill Stephens, Florida Southern

Bren Stevens, Charleston

Ibraheem Suberu, Pittsburg State

Heidi Sunderland, University of Mary

Absent

Kim Sudbeck, Augustana (S.D.)

Tia Brandel-Wilhelm, Ferris State

Theresa Garlacy, Bryant

Amber Glass, Augusta

Cody Hein, Chico State

Tom Justice, Lock Haven

Kris Naber, Grand Canyon

Bo Pagliasotti, Southwestern Oklahoma.

Stephanie Radecki, North Alabama

Phil Shoemaker, Alaska Fairbanks

Alex Koszalka, Dowling

Meeting Called to Order: 1:00 p.m.

Topics
I. Welcome.

Leah served as proctor for the call and welcomed everyone to the meeting. Leah also made a special welcome to new HCC member Megan Hrbek of Caldwell College.

A. AVCA Update (Leah)
Leah began the meeting with a short update on things going on at the AVCA. This included:

* Men's Championship Weekend: The 2008 AVCA Men's Volleyball Championship Weekend held in conjunction with the NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship will be held in Irvine, Calif. Featured this year will be a championship tailgate party, educational sessions, high school boys matches and a boys talent showcase.

* Collegiate Beach: The following is a list of the collegiate beach events that are scheduled to take place this spring:

March 29 Sunshine State Collegiate Beach Volleyball Tournament

April 12 SEC Conference Coaches Beach Volleyball Championships

April 19 Big West Collegiate Beach Volleyball Tournament

April 19 Division I Florida Invitational Beach Volleyball Tournament

April 20 Collegiate Beach Volleyball Championship

April 26 Rochester Indoor Beach Volleyball Tournament

Leah also mentioned the AVCA was busy planning the 2008 Collegiate Showcase Tournament in August and the 2008 AVCA Convention in December. The showcase, held in Omaha, Neb., will be a conference challenge format this year, with Nebraska, Texas, Stanford and USC comprising the tournament field.

2008-09 HCC Term Rotations: The conferences that will be rotating off for the 2008-09 season are: Carolina-Virginia, Sunshine State, Great Lakes, Great Northwest and Heartland. Leah advised the HCC to please contact one of their conference coaches to replace them beginning in August of 2008 if they are currently serving in one of these conferences.

AVCA Awards: New AVCA Awards Coordinator Ashley Beil was on the call and introduced herself to the HCC members. If anyone has any questions for Ashley, please contact her at ashley.beil@avca.org.

Honorable Mention All-American: Leah advised the coaches to look over the memo to Jill Herschinger that Kim had sent to the HCC prior to the call. If the coaches have any issues with this, please contact Kim immediately. Otherwise, the awards chair will begin to move forward with this.

II. New Business (Leah)
A. NCAA

Kim invited Venera Flores-Stafford, the Volleyball Championship Chair of the NCAA, to be a guest on the call to explain some changes to championships. Kim also invited Carlos Chia, the Division II representative for the 2008 playing rules to join the call.

* Venera explained some items that were approved and changed by the championships committee. These were as follows:

a.) the selection committee is trying to get away from using team records in the selection process. Instead an example of selection criteria would be win percentage within the selection region.

b.) Strength of schedule will be considered, and information on this will be located in the NCAA volleyball handbook's initial mailing

c.) The Division II Management Council is also pushing for a game environment statement. This is different than the sportsmanship initiative in place for many schools.

d.) Schools are encouraged to foster community engagement projects and initiatives for tournament host sites.

e.) First Round game tape exchange was discussed by the council but not implemented because of several problems, one being the issue of which tape to use.

f.) Venera welcomed the new Vice Chair, Robin Salters from New Haven and also mentioned that the West Region (formerly the Pacific Region) chair is yet to be named.

* Carlos Chia was not present on the call. Instead, AVCA Executive Director Kathy DeBoer spoke on Carlos' behalf about the NCAA playing rules changes. Items that were addressed were:

a.) The AVCA is looking to Marcia Alterman for what guidance PAVO is giving to officials concerning the rules changes.

b.) The AVCA has secured Mick Haley, coach at the University of Southern California, to write an article about the switch to 25 points, which will be featured in Coaching Volleyball Magazine.

c.) The AVCA is looking into creating a web seminar that will help coaches through these changes.

Kathy mentioned that voting among the coaches was divided: Division I coaches favored the changes, while Division II-III coaches opposed the changes.

Kathy then informed the HCC that NAIA, Two-Year and Men's colleges are in conversations and are likely to switch to the 25 point set as well.

*Also on the agenda were the May AVCA board meetings in Lexington, Ky. Please provide Kim any items you would like for her to bring forth to the board as soon as possible.

III. Old Business (Leah)
A. Leah advised the Division II committee members and all coaches to check out the Division I HCC minutes, posted on the AVCA website. As of the HCC call, the Division I March minutes were not posted yet, but please take the time to look at what is going on in the Division I world every so often.

B. Kathy DeBoer added at the end of the HCC call that the AVCA needs a liaison to the Division II Legislative Committee. If the HCC has any suggestions or wants to put forth a possible candidate, please let the AVCA know and we will contact them. The candidate would be replacing Melanie Nelson of the North Central Conference. The ideal representative would be someone who previously played or coached volleyball and is now in an administrative position.

VII. Next Meeting
The next meeting will be Wednesday, April 16th, at 1 p.m. Central Time. (2 p.m. Eastern Time)

Meeting adjourned at 1:27 p.m.

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