Professional women’s indoor volleyball has been previously attempted in the U.S., but never caught on, and so American women, including those with their eyes on the U.S. Olympic Team, have been forced to compete overseas, primarily in Europe. Now a new organization, ATHLETES UNLIMITED has started up, and has organized for five weeks (Feb 27 to Mar 29) of “action-packed competition” in a Dallas bubble.
According to Patrick Reusse’s column in this morning’s Strib, 44 of the world’s top players athletes will participate, including 8 former Gophers: Tori Dixon, Lauren Gibbemeyer, Erica Handley, Molly Lohman, Taylor Morgan, Dalianliz Rosada, Samantha Seliger-Swenson, and Page Tapp.
The 44 will be divided, weekly, into 4 teams, drafted by team captains selected by the previous week’s performance. The scoring of individual sets will be the standard system we’re familiar with, but there will be a new (and complicated) system for awarding individual “points,” leading to cash bonuses. Sounds wild.