Adult Nationals 2006 - New Orleans, Louisiana
May 27-June 3rd

Molten 65 (Rustys)

 So they went ahead and held the 78th Annual USA Open Volleyball Championships in New Orleans after all. I know, they were scheduled long before Katrina. But after Katrina there were questions about the ability of New Orleans to host the Nationals. They even had an alternate site (never revealed as far as I know) in reserve, just in case. But after checking out the city, and the site, the USAV decided to hold the competition in New Orleans as scheduled.

 Lots of people still questioned the decision. Some felt that the city would not be safe, questioned the water supply, or worried about the beginning of hurricane season, loudly proclaimed as June 1. Others felt that it was not right to be having a sporting event in the city, taking up hotels that could be used for the many displaced people.

 Well, the Nationals are over. Was it a good decision? Was it a success? Was it a disaster? I would declare it a qualified success. Certainly teams came, played, and had a good time. They spent money sorely needed by the businesses of New Orleans. (Tourism is at about 15% of normal.) But the number of players and teams was down perhaps 20% from previous Nationals. Many teams did stay away.

 Did we take hotels away from people in need? I don’t think so. Hotels around the site were full, and ours even had a lot of FEMA workers staying there. But FEMA, rightly or wrongly, seemed to be closing up shop. They are closing all the camps housing volunteers, saying it’s the problem the city must address.

 New Orleans itself is quite a disaster. Staying near the convention center one sees shops closed and boarded up and businesses closing early for lack of workers. Many people have not returned because there is no housing. Rents have doubled. Help wanted signs are everywhere. Going further afield, one sees that in areas touched by the floods and looting, houses and businesses have been gutted, with open businesses surrounded by closed shops and empty houses. The trolleys and buses are free for all riders, but they run on irregular schedules. A trolley that runs one day will be out of commission the next.

 In spite of the decline in visitors, the French Quarter seemed to be full of people at times. I can only wonder what it is like when tourism is normal!

 And, oh yes, we played volleyball. Our Molten 65s team, defending champs from the year before, entered minus three key players. One formed his own team, Outback. One is recovering from an operation. And the third just lost his job. So we entered confident of defending our championship! The first day we were in Pool 1 (of two pools of four). We won all matches:

 Molten def Palmetto (from Anderson, SC) (25-21, 25-9)
Molten def Outback (from Seattle) (25-18, 25-21)
Molten def Team Sota (From Minneapolis, of course) (25-15, 25-21)

 As you can see from the scores, we had little difficulty this first day. What was clear was that due to extremely bad seeding, the three best teams, Molten, Outback, and Team Sota, were in the same pool. By the way, Team Sota had two Rustys players on it, Ken Bleasdell, and Norm MacLeod.

 On day 2, they redrew the two pools of eight, with Molten and Outback (top two in Pool 1) being placed with the top two from the other pool, Body Wise and Morgan Stanley. The competition was much closer on Day 2. The scores:

 Molten def Outback (25-23, 29-27)
Molten def Morgan Stanley (from Virginia Beach, VA) (25-15, 19-25, 15-12)
Molten def Body Wise (from La Jolla, CA) (25-13, 25-19).

 Day 3 started the double elimination bracket. As number 1 seed, we played the 8^th seed called From All Over (listed as from Plymouth MN) We won (25-10, 25-8).

 The 5^th seed Team Sota (really better than that, but the biggest victim of the poor seeding) defeated the 4^th seed Morgan Stanley. We then won a hard-fought match from Team Sota (27-25, 25-16)

 Day 4 featured the winner’s bracket championships, and our big match with the team we beat twice before. So what happened? We lost badly (25-21, 25-15). Going to the loser’s bracket, we beat Team Sota again (25-18, 25-14), setting up the championship match. Unfortunately, we lost (25-14, 25-22). Result: the Silver Medal. One small consolation--The All-Tournament Team had three members from Outback, and three from Molten.

 The All-Tournament Team: Vahe Petrosian (MVP), Tom King, and Dave Danielson from Outback, and Jerry Allen, Lyle Berlin and Tom Swanson from Molten.