Athletes utilize high school, club programs in pursuit of perfection

Kari Gibb/MDN
South Prairie-Max senior Azjiah Trader, seen here in action earlier this season, was part of the 2023 NCR NIKE U20 All-Star Team.

South Prairie-Max standout senior volleyball player, Azjiah Trader has reached a milestone early this season. She has recorded her 1,000 career kill and continues to pile on the numbers with the highly ranked Royals. Her net game and attack is in many ways near perfect.

How did Trader end up as close to perfect in her craft as she is?

If you look up the phrase ‘Perfect practice makes perfect’ you discover it originated in the 1500s from the Latin phrase “use maketh mastery”. It first appeared in the United States in John Adams’ Diary in 1761 and has been used by piano teachers, martial arts instructors and coaches of all sorts for all types of sports and activities.

That mindset leads hungry athletes to want more opportunities for practice, or in other words, more repetitions of performing a function under scrutiny to achieve the proper mechanics and functions of the activity in question.

In individual sports, that focus narrows to one athlete performing mechanics and movements for that one sport. Tennis, wrestling, diving, track and field events- all focus on how an athlete perfects each stage of the event and then how well that athlete can perfect those movements and stages for optimum effect.

Team sports add another element that requires the synchronized movements of various athletes doing various things at the same time for a strategic purpose. This requires both individual repetitions for the individual athlete and their effort as well as the ability for a group to flow those individual efforts into a harmonized effort for a ‘win’ as the team.

In today’s modern world of overwhelming functions pulling youth in various directions, where does an athlete find the training, resources and ability to cultivate perfect repetition for perfect results?

For the sport of volleyball, one answer is a club program in addition to local school and recreational offerings.

“The NCR All-Stars Indoor High Performance/RTDP (Region Team Development Program) allows outstanding junior volleyball athletes to play for experienced coaches and represent the North Country Region at an interregional & international volleyball event(s),” said Beth Modaff, the Event, Tournament & High Performance Director for North Country Region – USA Volleyball. “The USA All-Star Championships is the only international junior volleyball tournament in the country. Any of the 40 USA Volleyball Regions are able to register an All-Star Team(s) in the boys age divisions or the girls age divisions,” said Modaff. “This past season teams came from 20 different USA Volleyball Regions and provided a phenomenal opportunity for coaches to network and players to compete against the best of the best.”

How do such programs develop athlete abilities and allow the repetitive power to improve?

“The NCR High Performance/RTDP process includes three steps,” said Modaff. “The first step is to attend an open tryout in North Dakota, South Dakota, or Minnesota, where players are evaluated by a qualified coaching staff, which includes experienced collegiate, high school and club coaches. With a short window of evaluation and training in a pool of skilled players, being a great teammate and communicator are two of the most important attributes that will make players stand out to coaches and evaluators.”

Tryouts come next.

“Following the tryout, selected athletes are invited to the NCR High Performance Selection Camp held yearly in June or July,” said Modaff. “This is an overnight three-day camp where players receive training in multiple facets of the game from physical training on the court to knowledge of the game in the classroom to how to become a great teammate during team activities. Players attending the NCR High Performance Selection Camp not only have the opportunity to be coached by the NCR All-Star Team Coaches, they also receive supplemental on-court training with accomplished NCAA Division I coaches from the Region. Attending selection camp is a great experience, and it is a great accomplishment to be invited to attend camp.”

The path to over 1,000 kills in a high school career is just the tip of the iceberg.

“The final step in the NCR High Performance/RTDP process is being named to an NCR All-Star Team roster,” said Modaff. “All-Star teams attend a three-day training camp immediately prior to the USA All-Star Championships to prepare together to compete in the only junior volleyball event in the nation that follows the FIVB international rule set – the same rule set under which Team USA competes.”

Trader has completed this process and is one of very few from the central and western North Dakota region to be named to a team or named as an alternate.

Zoe Zarr, a Minot High graduate of the class of 2023 was named to the 2023 NCR U20 All-Stars and 2023 USA All-Star Championships All-Tournament Team.

Trader, a senior at South Prairie-Max, was named to the 2023 NCR NIKE U20 All-Star Team while current Minot High junior Mackenzie Dufner was named to the 2023 NCR NIKE U17 All-Stars. There are two other athletes that were named to teams out of Dickinson.

A pair of very young players are already in the pipeline and on team alternate lists. Adalyn Harper, a Minot North freshman and Bristol Bolton, a Minot area eighth grader both received invitations to the NCR All-Star Selection Camp this season.

Both are a part of the school programs where they are students, and have the potential to play on the All-Star teams as their bodies mature from being mechanically stellar in movements into the smoother athletes as those same mechanics become part of the muscle memory developed by the repetitive efforts in practice.

How does the club process work with the school process?

Brandon Robinson, an NCR staff member, also currently coaches in both the high school and club settings.

“There are multiple challenges when addressing the differences between club and high school development,” said Robinson. “Time is one constraint; the length of the season relative to the amount of practice. Most Varsity High School teams practice 2-3 times a week, with maybe 2-3 hours of practice and 2 to 3 matches (and a maybe a tournament) per week. The High School season is only 13 weeks if you are fortunate to make it to state.”

Club development can take place in every other month, week or day that is not occupied with school sports and the coach / student-athlete contact rules established by the state high school activities association over those schools.

“Another constraint is an age group constraint,” said Robinson. “The average area Varsity High School team has a mixture of ages and classes; from 7th grade to 12th grade. That also speaks to the inherent variety of capabilities (strength, skill, knowledge, experience) on a single team.”

The time and effort that goes into working for a perfect kill at the net goes far beyond the time it takes to play enough games to record 1,000 kills. Trader is a prime example of that. She probably has closer to 10,000 kills in order to get to the 1,000 in her high school career.