Michigan Blog - Featuring Michigan Shopping, Travel, Business & People

The Ripples that come with the Michigan Sports Season Change

Been to a HS volleyball game this year? The seasons have changed and ripple effects are starting to unfold.

Here is a summary on what happened. Remember ... I am a blogger and not a lawyer, so some of my terms may be off, but I think it is fairly accurate.

After review of evidence presented in the original court case, the judge ruled that it was a disadvantage for a sport to be played out of season compared to the traditional season of the sport. (ie .. Volleyball in Michigan was in winter and throughout the US it was in the fall)

Going by documents introduced in the case, the seasons were originally aligned many years ago to accomodate boys sports. As a result of this alignment, there were 6 girls sports playing out of season, while no boys sports were being played out of season. In other words, girls were the only ones playing in disadvantaged seasons.

That disparity was finally ruled (after appeals) a Title IX violation.

The Michigan High School Athletic Association tried to argue that they did not fall under Title IX because they were a private company, but the ruling stated that they acted as a government agency because they served the schools.

.. and whala - we are have VolleyBall in the fall.

...and whala - we have AAU and USAV Volleyball tryouts in the fall too. I guess that we always did ..but the off-season will start ALOT earlier and the girls will be able to attend alot more volleyball tournaments this year.

Here are a few tryouts that I know of:

Huron Valley Volleball (Ann Arbor area) will hold national team tryouts on Oct 14 and regional team tryouts Oct 21 for U15/16/17/18. An information meeting will be held on Oct 7. Multi-sport athletes are welcome.

---

MI Elite - Date 10/21/07

Place : University of Michigan Dearborn(fieldhouse)directions are on website under locations
Times: Ages U12 (ages 8-12 are encouraged) - U15 10:00am till 2:00 pm

Ages U16 - U18 3:00 pm - 6:00 pm
MI Elite VBC will make every effort to place all HS aged players.

---

Volleyball Club Directors - Post a comment with your tryout dates and times. Lot's of volleyball visitors here!
:)

Labels: AAU Volleyball Tryouts, michigan elite, Michigan Volleyball Tryouts

Exactly how did it get to this point? - Teri Rhodes

“Never can we avert every tragedy. They are a part of life. But we can and should learn from them, deal compassionately with those who are hurting and double our efforts to offer support to those who are in crisis.” — A statement issued by Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa.

The district attorney from Erie, Pennsylvania took five weeks to charge 19-year-old Teri Rhodes with homicide. A month and a week after she gave birth to and "allegedly" suffocated her newborn baby daughter, Rhodes sat in a courtroom with bloodshot eyes and arms wrapped around her body, as she was read the charges against her. No need to repeat the charges here, you have read them all- over and over again.

I have too much in common with the Rhodes family to not be following this story closely. I too, have daughters that play volleyball in the Catholic League and they have aspirations to play college ball. My heart breaks to see the rest of Teri's life be ripped away from her because of this horrendous mistake. On the other hand, I was adopted at birth and feel a deep sense of devastation and sadness for her baby girl who only had 10 minutes to live in this world.

I can't help to wonder where I would be if my birth-mother had made such a mistake.

Teri was a fabulous setter at Ladywood High School in Livonia and both Teri and her family are well known in southeast Michigan volleyball circles. Teri played for the Motorcity Volleyball club before it became Michigan Elite and her younger sisters are still involved in volleyball here in Michigan.

What went wrong and was there a chance, somewhere along the line, to save both Teri and her baby? Why did Teri Rhodes choose to keep her pregnancy a secret? Secrets are powerful and dangerous for youth. How could she have spent the entire summer at her parents home and they not have known that she was pregnant?

Rhodes managed to hide her pregnancy from her parents, her sisters and her friends. Still, there were people in Teri Rhodes’ life who knew something was wrong. Rhodes’ assistant volleyball coach suspected pregnancy and asked Rhodes to take a pregnancy test, which she did on August 11.

The test, she said, was negative.

But if we only study the time before Teri Rhodes gave birth to her baby daughter and the time that she was pregnant, we haven't come close to how far back we need to look to find these answers.

I am sure that Terri Rhodes will become a target for many people to voice their personal opinions regarding abortion, sex education, college athletes and abstinence.

When do we stop debating over these things and start to figure out how we keep lives from ending like this?

The story of Teri Rhodes is heartbreaking. Many of us will be crying over the next few weeks - but none as hard as Teri and her family.

What exactly did you not understand about "Thou Shalt Not Kill"?

Labels: homicide, ladywood volleyball, mercyhurst, michigan elite, pregnancy, rhodes, teri rhodes