It feels like just yesterday when I wrote the article "Volleyball is still in full force." In reality, I wrote that article in November and I can't believe the time has already come and gone as we are about to wrap up the 10th volleyball tournament of this year's JO season come May.
Each volleyball event we host has a different level of partnership involved. For the majority of our events we partner with the Rochester Youth Volleyball Association (RYVA) to make these possible. Through this partnership we are on track to reach this year's goal of bringing 15,000 visitors to Rochester for volleyball alone.
That number has increased by 2,500 visitors from last year, which shows that volleyball fans do, indeed, keep coming in full force. RASC also hosts Rochester Cup, which is a tournament that we created in 1998 with only 36 teams and has now grown to become a two-weekend tournament, with an average of 80 teams each weekend.
Through all of these events, volleyball is bringing in over 4,500 room nights each year and $472,000 in estimated hotel revenue.
Now I need to mention the two key factors that continue to make these volleyball tournaments a success. First, the RYVA and the dedication of their players' parents. If you have ever been out to the Volleyball Center during a tournament you will notice around every corner is another neon yellow shirt. Well, those neon yellow shirts are the event staff shirts for the SMV parents.
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We are lucky enough to have the opportunity of hiring SMV parents to assist in jobs such as gate, merchandize, court monitors, and set up/take down. This allows parents the chance to be more involved but also helps us grow strong workers we can rely on each and every weekend to assist us in providing a quality experiences for our visitors.
Secondly, none of this would be possible without Darla Heikes. Darla is the Facility Manager at the National Volleyball Center and she happens to also be the Event Director on the RYVA Board.
This means Darla not only just books her facility, but she also works on every aspect of the tournament to make sure the event is running to its highest standard. She assists in tournament registration, ranking and seeding teams, creating the brackets, making sure the scoring and schedule system is up and running, etc.
You name it and Darla does it, which is why I would like to thank her for all she does and for her dedication and passion to running the best volleyball tournaments around.
Dedication from these groups involved has been the key reason these tournaments have been so successful and how we will continue to grow into the future.
