By By ERIKA PICKLES / Niles Daily Star
NILES - The USA Volleyball High Performance program is a national program coordinated by USA Volleyball for the player identification and development pipeline leading up to the USA Women's National and Olympic teams.
The program goals are to teach the techniques and systems of the women's national team to developing players.
In addition, the High Performance Programs give each player throughout the country an opportunity to attend a tryout, be evaluated, identified and if selected, be placed in the appropriate training program.
The USAV High Performance Program has two levels, national and regional, and three age groups.
In May, every member of the Krush Volleyball team, a USAV Volleyball team made up of players in the Niles-Buchanan area, tried out for the national program in Minneapolis, Minn at the Northern Lights National Qualifier.
Recently graduated Brandywine senior Nikki Cooper was selected as a candidate to attend the 2005 USA Women's Junior National Developmental Camp held July 9-13 at the University of San Fransico in California.
Cooper was among 2,200 hopefuls around the United States who tried out for the USA Junior National Team, or one of its camps, in various cities.
Only 16 players were able to make the USA Junior National Team, 18 members were selected to the Development Camp (A2 Camp) and a handful of players made the Regional HP Junior Camp at the high school level.
As a player for the Bobcats, Cooper was first team All-Conference (Lakeland) and first team All-Region in 2004 and 2005 and made second team All-Conference in 2004. Cooper also played in the State semifinals as a sophmore when Brandywine made the final four in 2003.
This fall, Cooper will attend Grand Rapids Community College to play volleyball.
Cooper admitted she is excited about the camp because it will help her better her skills.
Some of those coaches include University of Nebraska assistant coach Lee Maes, who will be the head coach of the camp as well as many other college coaches.
Cooper will continue to try out for different teams each year which include the Junior nationals team, World University Games team, USA National team and eventually the Olympic team.