Get Coach Rivera Back!

We strongly believe this is the wrong decision because there is a more qualified candidate for the job who has not only more experience, but better results

Her name is Coach Yolanda Rivera. We can only get her if you all help out. She has been coaching the girls team for more than twenty years and through  those many years, she has made many well-rounded players both for the girls and boys team. She knows how to get us to work hard and really absorb the skills and knowledge of volleyball to then apply them to real games. She is very cultivated on how to teach a new, non-experienced player to then grow them into fully fledged birds, flying in the court, working as a team to do their ultimate best, and to be proud of their best. She gives us goals and holds us to high expectations to encourage us to keep going on to our prime. She has really developed the love for this sport in the eyes of many of the players on the team and even has shown to people at tryouts how determined she is to teach these young, aspiring players to her wits end. Not only does she teach us, but she makes it an enjoyable community as well as a challenging one. Rivera is very deserving of this spot and I hope you all see it too.

On the other hand, Mr. Bartomeo is someone who we don’t think is quite qualified just yet. We aren’t saying he is bad at his job, but it’s like comparing billions of stars in our galaxy to our Sun. He doesn’t have nearly as much experience coaching volleyball as he has only been coaching the JV Girls Volleyball Team for two years. He hasn’t gained as many results from people who began at the same spot as many players have that were in varsity.  Examples of this are serving, spiking, and overall moving. He is a very chill coach that doesn’t get those girls working hard and exercising. This includes warming up which without it is very dangerous and can lead to more chances of injury when playing. Though he did many drills for bumping and setting, he never did any drills for spiking which should be drilled and at least be a little developed before a student goes into varsity to flourish that technique. Not only that, but he didn’t properly teach how an underhand serve should be performed as many of those girls who tried out for varsity couldn’t get the ball over the net or in the court in some cases and many of these girls didn’t really move around to try and get the ball. The blame is not only on the coach, but he has to actively encourage and make time for change and to really get better results on how they play and understand the game. Many girls that joined Varsity this past fall were from JV previously were coached by Mr. Bartomeo. Most of the girls have claimed their season started late, they rarely had any practices, and when they did they were very short practices. As a result, this caused the girls to have a short season, low skill learning, and lost motivation into playing volleyball. We see that he enjoys volleyball, but he has a few years of improvement ahead of him before he should be teaching at the varsity level since if he can’t get beginner level athletes to improve a lot, how can he do that for intermediate to advanced level players?

Coach Rivera is a huge advocate of warm ups because she knows it prepares your body for safe playing when you learn to do them accurately. She teaches you not only how to underhand serve correctly, but how to overhand serve. She teaches you more than just the basic bump-set-spike. She teaches you what to do when a teammate bumps the ball to the net. She teaches different positions as well as formations and determines which fits each of us the best. She motivates us to move and to really work together on the court. She has helped us trust each other and get closer as a team. She can make a beginner advance so far. She has also helped in building teamwork and makes the girls feel comfortable, confident, and connected. She has made every single girl she coached improve not only physically, but mentally. She has opened up the world of determination for each of us and even to apply it to an outside situation like this. She has aided all of us so much and we’re determined to do our very best to get her back for many years to come. Thank you all for your time.