Seniors - We are not a "closed" club, we do
have room for new Seniors who haven't played with us before! Feel free to call
us if you have questions.
Additional staffing in our SAQ room to give athletes
more individual feedback.
New high impact absorbtion flooring in our SAQ room to
ease the stress on your knees.
For the 4th year in a row, our top teams will once
again have the opportunity to travel to Europe!
Northern Lights free Open Gyms for 15's - 18's will be held
on Sunday November 4, 4-6pm, and Tuesday November 6, 6-8pm.
Why play Northern Lights ? See what our
players say!
ELITE TRAINING:
High level technical training by the area's finest high school, club, and
collegiate coaches.
TRAVEL:
Competition in top USAV National Qualifiers, USAV Jr Nationals, AAU
National Championships, and Regional tournaments.
EXPOSURE:
Northern Lights is known as an elite club among college coaches. We are
recognized as a training ground for future collegiate volleyball players.
Over 185 players have graduated from Northern Lights and gone onto play in
college on scholarships. We even have three players who are either currently on
the USA National team, or have been. They are Elizabeth "Wiz"
Bachman, who graduated from Northern Lights, played at UCLA, and is now on the
USA Olympic Team, Cassie Busse who graduated from Northern Lights, played at
the University of Minnesota and is now playing on the USA National Team,
Stephanie Hagen who graduated from Northern Lights, played at the University of
Minnesota and played for almost 2 years on the USA National Team.
REGIONAL/NATIONAL SUCCESS:
Home of Minnesota's only USAV & AAU National Champions.
Lights undisputedly has had the most competitive club program in the North
Country Region, has qualified more teams for the USAV Junior National
Championships than any club in Minnesota and is the only club in Minnesota to
win a USAV National Championship.
The first and only club in Minnesota to "medal" two teams in the
prestigous Open Divisions in the same year. Our 18-1's and 15-1's both placed
3rd this year in the Open Divisions of the USJO National Championships.
This past 2007 season we qualified a record high
number of 16 teams for the USJO Championships, two in the prestigous
Open Divisions and 14 in the National/American Divisions. No other club in
Minnesota has ever qualified more than 8 teams. Northern Lights has
consistantly qualified 8 or more teams in the past 3 years.
The first and only club in Minnesota to win a USJO National Championship,
which we did in the 2006 17 & Under Open Division.
The only club in Minnesota to win 3 AAU National Championships which we
did in 2004, 2006, & 2007. In addition we have had numerous 2nd & 3rd
place finishes at AAU's for the past 5 years.
In 2007 at the USJO Championships in the two highest divisions (Open &
National) 6 of our 9 teams in those divisions finished higher than any other
teams from Minnesota.
7 of our teams finished in the top 25 of their division.
2 of our teams were in the Gold Championship Brackets
1 of our teams was in the Silver Championship Brackets
NL 18-1's were 3rd in the 18 Open Division
NL 15-1's were 3rd in the 15 Open Division
NL 16-1's were 10th in the 16 National Division
4 NL players were selected for the All Tournament Teams
In addition to Qualifying 16 teams for the 2007 USJO Championships, Northern
Lights sent 19 teams to the 2007 AAU National Championships.
Our 15-1 team won the 15 Open AAU National Championships. This was our 3rd
AAU National Championship.
Our 18-1 team took 2nd place in the 18 Open AAU National Championships.
Our 16-2 team took 2nd place in the 16 Club AAU National Championships.
Our 15-2 team took 3rd place in the 15 Club AAU National Championships.
We had 6 additional teams place 5th in the AAU Championships.
A record high 14 Northern Lights players were named to the 2007 AAU All
American teams.
Previously in the USJO Championships:
In 2006 at the USJO Championships, in addition to winning the 17 Open, our
14's - 18's age level teams finished higher in their divisions than any other
teams from Minnesota.
In 2005 at the USJO Championships our 15's - 18's age level teams finished
higher than any other teams from Minnesota. Our 18-1's finished 5th, and were
the only team from Minnesota to get into the Gold Championship Bracket.
Regionally: Northern Lights remains the undisputed leader in Regional
Championships.
In 2007 we won the 17's, 16's, & 13's & 12's age divisions. (In
the 18's & 15's we had already Qualified for Nationals and weren't allowed
to compete in the Regionals). In addition to winning most of the Regional age
divisions we also placed 3rd in the 17's, 2nd in the 16's, 2nd in the 15's, 2nd
in the 14's and 2nd in the 13's, and in most of these cases we lost to our own
teams!
Overall Northern Lights has won over 32 regional Championships, a feat
which no other club in Minnesota has even come close to. This is even more
impressive when you consider that 24+ of our top teams were not even allowed to
compete in the Regional Championsips because they had already Qualified for the
Open Divisions of the USJO Championships.
FACILITY:
With one stop at one facility (Midwest Volleyball Warehouse), the
experience of learning from other coaches and athletes becomes the true power
of the warehouse. All of our athletes train in one facility, and
all receive equal treatment.
Our offices are located right behind the courts, and communication with
players, parents, and staff is instaneous.
The new Midwest Volleyball Warehouse is the premier volleyball facility in the
USA. There is no other facility in like it in the world.
8 Courts - each in 50' bays. More space than any other facility in the
Midwest!
Full Floating Sport Court® floor. Built on Neo-Shok performance pads,
this floor has a high degree of rebound and cushion. Players will see reduced
injury from repetitive jumping and training on this floor. No Sport Court®
floor used by any other Club in Minnesota has this level of performance
cushioning. Your knees deserve the very best in
injury prevention flooring.
A 5200 sq ft volleyball only Strength and Conditioning room.
Separate Athletic Training room with an ice machine for the athletes.
A 3 camera, 4 court, state of the art video system
Special room for parents to work in during practice with internet access.
Conveniently located at the intersection of County 42 & Judicial Road.
THE NORTHERN LIGHTS DISTINCTION
SETTER TRAINING:
The Northern Lights coaching staff has always believed that the success of
any team will be determined to a large degree by the skill level of the setter
running that team. Lights supports this philosophy by offering special setter
practices.
Northern Lights is proud to announce that in 2008 we will have three top level
setters coaches working with our players. Cathy Noth, Dennis "Aame"
Amundson, and Jen Blendermann will be involved in coaching our setters at
specialized practices. Cathy & Amme are recognized as two of the top
setters coaches in the nation and Jen has been working with them for the past 4
years.
Setter practices are designed to train the fundamentals of setting to those
athletes who play the setter position for their team. Fundamentals include:
setter footwork, hand positioning, jump setting, principles of running an
offense, and setter deception skill
MIDDLE BLOCKER TRAINING:
For the eighth consecutive year Northern Lights is going to offer our
Middle Blocker School. The middle blocker school is being led by Kari Raymond
and Nicole Gilmore who have run it the past two seasons.
For the 2nd year in a row we are also pleased to have Meredith Nelson, former
middle blocker at the University of Minnesota, also training our top middle
blockers. Meredith is also a graduate from Northern Lights.
The middle blocker school is designed to train middle attackers in the
fundamentals of: spike approach mechanics, arm swing mechanics, transition
footwork, blocking footwork, slide hitting, read blocking, quick attacking and
blocking within a system.
OUTSIDE HITTER TRAINING:
Northern Lights will once again offer it's outside hitters additional
advanced training. Sessions will be led by U of M coaches Scott Swanson &
Dave Manka, and former Northern Illinois University 1000 kill leader Tera
Lobdell.
Northern Lights outside hitters are taught advanced hitting techniques that are
not detrimental to their shoulder joints.
LIBERO TRAINING:
If setters and middles are your keys to offense, then Libero's are your
keys for defense.
Northern Lights believes in a strong defensive program, and our Libero's will
have the opportunity to participate in additional specialized training for
their position.
STRENGTH & CONDITIONING TRAINING:
Now in the 3rd year of our unique volleyball specific SAQ program we are seeing
the benifits of stronger players and lower injury rates than other clubs in the
area.
Our players also typically see a 3-5" gain in their vertical jump, some of
our athletes have seen some incredible vertical
increases, as high as 9+" !
Our new facility has a special 5200+ sq ft room dedicated only to our SAQ
program. We believe in concentrating completely on volleyball. No Hockey
Players, Wrestlers, or Baseball players will be taking up your space!
In addition to our 5200+ sq ft SAQ room, we have an additional 10,000 sq
ft available for activities requiring more space! That's a total of 15,000+ sq
ft (over 4 volleyball courts) of space for SAQ training!
We have a full time CSCS Certified SAQ program director who worked with us
for the past 2 years and also spent the entire summer working with many of the
areas volleyball athletes.
New for this season. We have added a second
full time SAQ coach to help give each athlete more personalized attention.
We strongly believe our SAQ program gave our players one of the added
edges needed to win the National Championship and to still have some
"legs" at the end of those long tournaments.
We also believe our SAQ program was responsible for one of the lowest
number of injuries we have seen in our club history.
Our program is a unique and highly customized SAQ program that has been
formulated and used for the past 5 years with the Colorado based Front Range
Club (National champions in 2 age divisions 2005.) Some parts of our new
program have even been implemented at the National Team level.
The SAQ program will be run for all age levels 2-4 times a week at our
facility and will be integrated with your schedule.
No other SAQ program in Minnesota is like this, and even our SAQ director
admits she has never seen a program as specialized and unique as this!
BANQUET:
At the end of each season we have a fabulous year end banquet with some
awesome Multi Media shows. The banquet has been held in the Minneapolis
Convention Center Ballroom the past four years to accommodate the three huge
wall sized AV screens used. You can
click here to view 4 of the 15 multimedia presentations
used in our 2007 banquet.
There is no cost to the players for this banquet, another advantage for those
athletes playing with Northern Lights.
WHAT OTHERS SAY ABOUT NORTHERN
LIGHTS
Here are several of the many positive evaluations we receive each year from our
parents/players.
"As a first time parent to Northern Lights, we were very impressed
by the banquet put on last night in honor of the girls, coaches and parents. It
was a first-class event and made us proud to be part of this organization. This
was a huge undertaking, the pictures and videos was an incredible amount of
work but made the night very special. (Players Name) commented that this gives
them a whole new motivation going into the AAU tournament in Florida. Thanks
for a very enjoyable night."
"We just got home from the banquet and I personally wanted to thank
you all for a wonderful evening! Since this was our first Northern Lights year,
we had only heard what to expect. It was obvious that much love and time was
spent on all details of the banquet and the video and pictures. Our family
thoroughly enjoyed the evening but I can tell you that without the wonderful
video and pictures the night would not have been complete. So, I just want you
to know that your time and efforts are appreciated. We were also talking on the
way home and we are so very happy that we chose to come join the Northern
Lights family. Once again, we did not know what to expect and our experience
has been nothing but wonderful. (Player's Names) were blessed to have such a
terrific coach and they have both grown as young women and as volleyball
players. Kudo's to everyone at Northern Lights!
"I can't say enough about the Northern Lights program. My daughter
has fulfilled her dream of playing volleyball at the collegiate level and it is
because of the quality of coaches and club experience she had at Northern
Lights. When (player's name) made the XX team last year, she couldn't believe a
short little setter could earn a spot with the top club in Minnesota. We never
regretted the decision to keep her on the XX team as she was given the
opportunity to set a 5-1 the entire season. She was ecstatic to play again as
an 18 even though it meant another year of commuting over an hour each way. We
will all tell you that she wouldn't have traded this experience in for any
other. Every coach in the club, (Gene, Doug, Jeff, Jodi, the setting coaches,
Trainer Lynn and, of course, Curt) have been so supportive of our daughter.
Playing for NL gave her the confidence to take her play to another level. We
often talk about how NL is really an extended family. We will never forget the
people and experiences you have given our daughter over the past 2 years.
A sincere and special thanks to Curt and the club for allowing us many
opportunities to work off much of the fees. No one could possibly understand
how hard it would have been for us to say "no" to club ball for
(player's name) this past year when her father was layed off from work. Anyone
who thinks NL is over-priced is wrong. NL is truly the best value for club
volleyball in Minnesota! The cost is minimal for all the travel, quality
coaching, and high level of competition you receive.
I wish I would have taken the time to let you know in writing each time
a coach made a difference in our daughters life. You certainly know how to pick
the best! I am amazed at the relationships the girls and coaches continue to
have after they leave the club.
Best wishes with the new construction and I hope our paths cross again in
the near future!"
"As (player's name) mom I was continually impressed with the
volleyball skills you were able to show (player's name). She learned a great
deal from you! Also impressive were the variety of drills you used to teach
these skills. The fun and laughter sprinkled in with the hard work and
determination was in my opinion, a large part of the success of this team. Your
ability to deal with teenage girls was amazing! Pulling together 10 girls of
various personalities into a team takes a special person! Somehow you were able
to manage this. I am very proud to have (player's name) a part of your team
with this great group of girls. Not only are the girls great athletes, but they
too are great people. Thank you both for the great volleyball season! It was
fun to watch your team."
Thank you for a great season! We really enjoyed being a part of the
Northern Lights Club. Our daughter had participated on two other club teams
before Northern Lights. We always heard such negative comments. Well those
comments were totally off reality. Northern Lights was, by far, the BEST club
we were involved with. Jealousy is a curious beast. If only we would not have
believed the comments we heard, perhaps we could have enjoyed years with your
outstanding program! We were always impressed with the entire Northern Lights
programs. The facility, organization of the club, coaching staff, opportunity
for players to be seen by the recruits, the level of play, and the generosity
of everyone at Northern Lights. Thank you for giving our daughter the
opportunity to play in your premier club."
THE NORTHERN LIGHTS PHILOSOPHY
Northern Lights is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the development
of junior age volleyball athletes. Besides acquiring advanced skills and
improving performance levels, players will learn the value of teamwork,
responsibility, motivation, and discipline. The club is also committed to the
development of volleyball in Minnesota by providing a showcase and support
system for young women intending to extend their volleyball careers to college
and beyond.
Playing time is based on practice and event performance. Playing time is
not guaranteed. Court time at major competitions may be geared toward the best
possible lineup. Local court time may be more evenly distributed.
Nationally Competitive Schedule
Northern Lights will continue to attend National Qualifiers in Denver or
Atlanta, and Minneapolis, USJO Nationals in Dallas, and the AAU National
Championships in Orlando.
Lights will also bolster its schedule by once again playing other elite
programs 3-4 times this season. These special Elite Series Tournaments will be
held in Mpls., Chicago, Omaha, and Kansas City.
Fund Raising Opportunities
Available
Last year our players and their families raised over $55,000, with several
athletes raising almost 100% of their club costs.
Players and/or parents have the opportunity to work in our concessions,
handle door admissions, be site and building supervisors, or do several other
club activities to raise funds for their fees. Each player in our club also has
the opportunity to receive a $300 credit simply by helping with the setup and
takedown of the Northern Lights Qualifier.
Compare our Costs and benefits against
other Club's
We have no hidden costs
°
Player fees are paid in 7 monthly installments starting in December.
°
Our cost includes USJO Nationals for qualified teams. Most other
clubs add this on.
°
Our cost includes AAU Nationals for most of our teams. (1 week in Florida
in June)
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ALL players receive uniforms from head to toe!
From oldest to youngest, each player will get:
-Practice Shirts (2-4 depending on your practice schedule)
-Practice & Game Shorts
-Game Jerseys (2-3 depending on your team's schedule)
-Complete Warm-ups
-Player Bag
-Kneepads
-Socks (2-3 pairs)
-Shoes
and there's always some extra surprises!
In some clubs you have to buy items such as the player bags, kneepads, &
socks ($70+)....not at Northern Lights, they are included as part of the
uniform you receive.
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No & Low Cost Private Lessons are available from our full-time staff
Northern Lights is nationally recognized! Northern Lights is the best
value!
