Program introduces youngsters to volleyball
‘I see lots of progress with the kids,’ organizer Andrea Doucette says
Helping kids get an early start in volleyball was the idea behind a program put on by the Southwest Fusion volleyball club, and a spokesperson for the initiative said she was pleased with how it went.
Held at École secondaire de Par-en-Bas in Tusket, the program consisted of a 90-minute session per week over an eightweek period.
“It’s been going really well,” said organizer Andrea Doucette. “I see lots of progress with the kids.”
She made the remarks moments before the program’s last session, saying 35 children had taken part in the program. The age range for participants was six to 15.
“The older ones, some of them have played volleyball before – have played school or club – and they wanted to get some more skills,” said Doucette, a member of the Southwest Fusion board. “We covered the basics with the younger ones ... the basic volley and bump (using) lighter balls.”
Claudette Deveau, vice-president of the Southwest Fusion club, said volleyball – unlike some other sports – isn’t something kids normally get into at an early age.
“We’d just like to expose them – and Andrea’s doing an awesome job – at a younger age, so that way when it comes to doing ‘real’ volleyball, they know more about the sport,” Deveau said.
Citing soccer and hockey as examples, she said youngsters get to see these sports quite a bit on television. Volleyball tends to be a different story, she said, so “exposure” almost has to come from actually playing it.
And since Grade 7 – the first year of junior high school – can Andrea Doucette, right, organizer of the mini-volleyball camp put on by the Southwest Fusion club, at work during the program’s last session on June 25. be a challenging time for many students, playing volleyball might not be on their priority list. With some experience in the sport, however – the kind of experience a mini program can help provide – Deveau says young people may have more confidence to pursue the sport when they reach junior high.
“We haven’t had (a mini-volleyball program) for at least a couple of years and it’s showing in the numbers,” she said. “In Grades 7 and 8, we don’t have as much as we used to have, so that’s why Andrea decided maybe we should start again. And it’s been very good.”
Deveau has long been involved on the local volleyball scene and, like Doucette, she has seen how early exposure to volleyball can help set the stage for future success. Pointing to this past season’s Southwest Fusion teams as the most recent example, she said all of the club’s teams but one fin- ished in the top four provincially. The exception was a squad that was seventh out of 32 teams, she said, still quite an accomplishment.
“We’re very, very proud,” Deveau said. “And most of those kids are products of the mini-volleyball program.”
For Doucette, another nice thing about the mini program is how players from the Fusion club and from school, as well as parents, were helping with the program.
While Doucette was working with the program’s younger participants, her daughter Payton – a former Fusion and school player – would work with the older ones.
Asked how the younger participants had responded to their first volleyball experience, Doucette said they seemed to like it. Referring to one girl in particular, Doucette said, “She went home and asked her mom for a volleyball and a volleyball net.” With young program participants looking on from behind, Monique Muise sends a ball on its way during a mini-volleyball session at the Par-en-Bas school in Tusket.