The Net Live: Internet Radio Broadcast

"On “The Net Live” Podcast, 11/30/09
We’ve got a full RPI for today’s show…Kevin, Reid, and Dan are gonna plug away and answer the tough questions, like what on Earth does “RPI”stand for anyway??

Also on the show…

• NCAA Women’s tournament Preview
• Guest Brandon Rosenthal of Lipscomb University will talk about the NCAA tournament bracket
• Here’s the bracket!
• Men’s and Women’s World League Pools + 2010 Prospect Cities
• The “Bigger Better Deal” on the beach…With Kerri potentially out in 2010, who would dump her current partner to play with Misty? (Answer: ANYBODY!)

And if we’ve got time, we’ll talk about USOC assessing its governance structure + The Hoops Whisperer and how this could be applied to volleyball (and life)."

http://www.thevolleyballnetwork.com

March 1st, 2010
"On the show…New AVP Commish Mike Dodd is talking about his new role. Jane Collymore is going to talk about her role with the USA national team and her music career. And Texas women’s head coach Jerritt Elliott will talk about why he opposes the current NCAA sand volleyball proposal.

Barnett said that on a list of most cardiovascularly intense sports…Motocross is #2?? “You’ve gotta shift and maneuver…” And he likes that new Miley Cyrus song. He is also wearing the “Vitruvian Danny” tee from kindagood.com. Bam!

Nebraska assistant coach and former Team USA member Erik Sullivan has called in about last week when Geeter and Mike Sealy accused Erik of almost losing the 2008 Gold Medal when Sully intimidated Reid by telling him to stay in the corner of the court so he didn’t mess anything up. This was when Reid was a young pup and could have led to a discouraged Reid quitting. But, as Erik says, he helped Reid by making him mentally tougher.

JANE COLLYMORE Interview
Jane is quite the musician as Barney discovered by accident while talking to her earlier this year. She grew up playing classical piano and writing songs in high school. She’s recovering from her 2nd hip surgery and hopes to return to the national team in July. Fingers crossed. If she didn’t have the music creative process outside of vb she’d probably be going crazy…She’s content with music being a hobby for now. Listen to the show to hear one of Jane’s songs!

Mike Dodd Interview
Mike says his first order of business is to help AVP CEO Jason Hodell with player representation and issues. There will be sponsor meet-and-greets and he’ll be involved in most of those meetings. Sort of like the “Mayor of the AVP” as he was previously but now it’s official. He will be responsible for reaching out to the grassroots organizations, connecting with them, and have them be a part of the AVP. He will no longer coach his long-time team Sean Rosenthal and Jake Gibb (who will now be coached by Jeff Alzina). His role with them wasn’t a financial decision but as a way to become more of a part of the AVP. During Rosenthal/Gibb run at the 2009 Manhattan Open, Dodd called a timeout and referenced his own Manhattan Opens that he’d let slip through his fingers…and he expressed his feeling and opinion and told them to take advantage of the opportunity. “You’re legacy won’t be the same without your name on that pier.”

Dodd was 1 of a few candidates for the position, the first candidate was Karch Kiraly, but he was not able to accept. As far as selling the sport and signing sponsors, there is work to be done. AVP did sign with ESPN/ABC which should prove to be a big boon for the sport. There are still settlments to be made regarding player prize money and FIVB events. Mike believes he can be a bridge to a new relationship with FIVB. He’s seen all the big changes in beach vb and he believes that AVP is in tune and that they keep it about the volleyball. There have been many turf wars in vb but it’s been progressing at a snail’s pace because it is not integrating itself within other vb events. Why not?

Mike believes pro VB will get back to drawing the type of sponsor and fan support as it had in the 1990s. We’re moving in the right direction. “Is VB a lifestyle or a performance sport?” Mike believes it’s both. We’ve done great at its highest level, the sport is sexy, and we shouldn’t ignore that beach vb is a great vehicle for marketers but the focus should be on the game.

Jerritt Elliott Interview
Jerritt’s objection to NCAA sand volleyball was the parameters and the lack of dialogue and the hasty and quick pushing of the sport. He grew up on the beach, went to school with Kent Steffes, and is friends with Geeter, so many people were surprised he was opposed. He wants a few things modified. Indoor is growing at a high rate but there’s probably not enough to get even more quality players.

Quality of life…do you hire an additional coach and the indoor coach oversees anything? How do you decide which girls play which sport? There would also need to be too many time-management issues with coaching as well as too many days recruiting on the road. His idea is to use your indoor team in the spring to work on the beach and avoid coaching overload. Players love to get on the beach anyway.

Back to NCAA indoor…Who would be his #1 vb draft pick…? Megan Hodge of PSU or his own Destinee Hooker? He’d pick Hooker. Elliott was very involved in Hooker’s decision to turn pro. It was a good decision to turn pro as a volleyball player, though she could be a great world-class high jumper.

Co-Opetitive Trivia Slamdown! (Tune into our show to get the answers and see who won!)
1. The overtime goal scored in the USA/Canada Gold Medal hockey game was scored on who?
2. Pepperdine is the #1 team in D1 men’s volleyball. Who is the #1 team in D3?
3. What rapper owns a stake in VitaminWater?
4. What’s the name of the current bachelor on the show, The Bachelor?
5. What name was given Tiger Woods’s Gatorade flavor?
6. McIlhenney Company makes what flavorful pepper sauce?
7. How many medals did Lindsey Vonn win in this Olympics?
8. Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow also directed what 1991 surfer bank robbery movie?
9. USA finished first in total medals at the 2010 Winter Olympics with 37. Which country finished with the most gold medals?
10. Who was Mike Dodd’s first partner on the AVP?"

The Volleyball Network

March 8th, 2010
"On the show today we’ve got the Lambo+Lambo punch! Mike Lambert is going to fill us in on life after volleyball, his injuries, and his family. And Rich Lambourne will discuss an unfortunate event that just happened…We’ll also have Dan’s customary Co-Opetitive Slamdown Trivia! BAM!

A little Geeter hugging Bob Barker (youtube)

What Rich Lambourne Did (youtube)

Geeter is talking AVP and its schedule. He says it’s smart for AVP to scale back to 12 events, loves the Cali events, Chicago, Cinci…But it scares him because it’s tough for most of the players to survive, and the prime of a beach player is late 20s and early 30s. Volleyball has so many players in their prime but without an avenue to play. Reid is concerned that the fewer events isn’t conducive to sponsors paying big dollars for the rights…The one thing that has always botherd Geeter is to see his close friends going 3-2 in an open event and only making $1,200.

RICH LAMBOURNE Interview
Short version of his indoor incident: He flipped the bird to his coach and got fired for it.
Long Version: He came into the Polish team as a libero to help Delecta Bidgosh (spelling) reach their potential and win the indoor league. The coach was a bit of a strong personality…the coach said, “Rich, put the ball in the air.” Rich reacted with the middle finger because…The team was in a losing streak, they subbed out a passer for a stronger passer, Rich asked the new guy to take a different part of the court, he nods, the serve goes to the new guy’s spot, he doesn’t take it, so Rich dove to pass it and he shanked it. So the coach yelled at him, and Rich, unable to respond with language, responded with the bird. He’s disappointed in himself, of course. His agent called him a couple days later that the team wants to fire him, and it boiled down to “either the coach or Rich”. Rich got the ax. Bummer.

Barney saw an article about how hugging makes teams closer and better. Check it outz!

MIKE LAMBERT Interview
He’s in the USA right now, looking for work and to move his family back to SoCal…He blew his achilles out this summer during a tryout with a Greek team, trying to catch up with the pace of the indoor game. It was tough to tell the wife about the new injury to his GOOD leg, after he had rehabbed his knee. He thought he was hit by a baseball bat. He had been on antibiotics while he was playing. Coincidentally, Misty was also on antibotics when she tore her achilles. Woah!

He says it’s time to get a real job. He thinks he can probably still play, crank out a few more years, but no. Now’s the time for a job. Looking in the sports world, sports marketing sales, advertising sales, or that type of profession. Coaching probably isn’t in the cards. If he were still single (not a husband and a father), he may approach the sport differently. It’s hard for him to consider playing at a level that is considerably lower than he’s used to playing.

He has no regrets with his career. He went to 2 Olympics (1996 & 2000), played indoor overseas for many seasons. He wishes he could have had a better Olympic career and committed more, but instead he got to play AVP with Karch Kiraly, so that was a good option. And after that, he got to play and win many tournaments with his childhood friend Stein Metzger.

Co-Opetitive Trivia Slamdown (Tune in to the show for the answers!)
1. Who won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1977, the year Star Wars came out?
2. Who hosted the 2010 Oscars?
3. What TV show stars Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey?
4. (Bonus for specific type of animal) During his Oscar presentation, what type of animal was Ben Stiller dressed as?
5. Give the full title of the movie “Precious”
6. The Big Lebowski won the Oscar for Best Actor. What’s that actor’s name?
7. Who won the Women’s NCAA national championship before Penn State?
8. Mike Lambert has 16 career AVP titles with 4 different partners. Name 3!
9. The 2010 AVP schedule is out and according to Google Maps, which location is the farthest from Los Angeles?
10. Who won the 1999 Men’s NCAA Volleyball National Championship? (from the chatboard, Thanks Ryan Millar!)"

The Volleyball Network

"We’re going all indoor today with our guests, Team USA women’s middle-blocker Heather Bown and Team USA men’s head coach Alan Knipe. We’ve also had some great commentary on girls’ club indoor seasons and why they are so long, if that’s good, and what can be done about the length.

Geeter’s Sports Shack 18-1 club team qualified for Junior Olympics and he’s stoked apparently. Caller Eric is asking Geeter about the AVP/ESPN broadcasting. The AVP production team will be producing the events. No big news on a title sponsor, but there’s some interesting ideas going around, including an “Adopt a Team” where local businesses can sponsor a team for single events.

Heather Bown Interview She claims she did 5 takes of her “The Net Live” intro and Reid took the one she messed up and now it’s the most popular intro bit. Heather has been on the national team for 10 or 11 years. Who knows. She plans o coming back to the team around May when she gets home from overseas. For the 2008 Olympics she succeeded because the whole team communicated with each other on and off the court. She didn’t really think about “winning” as much as she thought about “process” and it wasn’t until the final match that she realized how fun it was to be in that position.

It’s not always about winning because you learn a lot from the winning & losing process.

Alan Knipe Interview Alan has been the men’s national team coach for a year. He would give himself and his staff a “B” grade for the work they’ve done thusfar. In the final match of 2009 he had all the top players for the team and it felt good to have the guys there. He didn’t think their serving or transition offense was great and they struggled siding out. The team needs to play better over a longer period of time. Alan’s focus in the offseason was to put together a report on the team and its goals, personnel, and logistics. Carl McNown, Jeff Stork, Ron Larsen, and Jon Speraw will be helping out, but there won’t be a 2nd assistant hire until next summer.

He wants to make sure that the new guys on the team have to adjust to the new lifestyle of playing professionally and making decisions that ensure their health and allow them to develop an improve. The 22-member World League roster is due today, but he has more guys in each position that will create depth and also a lot of decisions to make."