Despite Nasty Weather, AVP Show Must Go On

With wind gusts of up to 30 mph and heavy downpoor expected all day, the volleyball pros still plan to play, even though there won’t be many there to watch. I was told by someone that the last event they had attended 18 out of the 25 games they watched were in bad weather.

They play, rain or shine. I was told the qualifiers went well yesterday; the players got wet, and had to fight the wind, but they played. Coming from one direction, the players barely had to tap the ball to serve it over the net, but from the other way, hitting it as hard as they could, the ball sometimes wouldn’t even make it. I guess the advantage of wearing bikinis and boardshorts while you play your pro sport is that getting wet just doesn’t matter.

I was up on the roof of Seahaven, Origin, and felt like my Blackberry was going to be blown out of my hand; my jeans were flapping in the wind, and I don’t wear baggy jeans. My hair was even blowing, and I keep it too short for it to move.

On the ground, flags were flapping in the wind, near the brink of ripping. I overheard one worker screaming “that’s all you got!”, then it started raining – hard. Luckily I was under the covered area of Sharkys. Cameras and rain don’t mix.

Play was postponed until 10 am when I was there. Not sure if they are playing right now (its 1020). It isn’t raining right now, but it is very windy still. Tomorrow, however, is supposed to be nice. We’ll see.

Spring Break, Kids just want something FUN to do!

Beach Tennis Tournaments for Spring Break

We had the opportunity to introduce a healthy approach to Spring Break 2009 in Panama City Beach this year. We introduced the Beach Tennis USA Association to the area and began to offer active sports on the beach as a way for students to meet others and have fun in competition. We brought in Pro Tennis players and all of the nets and equipment to set up in front of Sharkys to offer an organized “sport” and play with prizes, t-shirts and most of all FUN.

The play is FREE and we are offering t-shirts to all who play and try the sport. The winners of the tournament have received dinner for two at Sharkys and various tennis related prizes. We have given away tennis racquets as we approached the end of the event to winners who want to continue to play this new sport and have fun.

We have been running tennis tournaments most every day. Two Sundays ago we had 20 teams ( 40 kids) lined up to play at 10:30 a.m.

The students we have met and interviewed just want to come to the white sand beach of Panama City and enjoy the sun and meet others. Every day we had students who were signing up to play, excited to compete and interested in additional sports and activities that will let them be active and meet others. We had repeat students coming back to compete and win better prizes as the week progresses.

We have met students from all over the world including Australia, United Kingdom, France, Italy and all across the U.S., and they have all been excited to have something active and fun to do at the beach rather than just “drink” all day.

Students are much more concerned about their health and wellness these days than in the past and many of them workout, run and exercise. Yes there is a percentage that come just to drink and get wild but the many students we have met over the past 2 weeks are just here to have some fun.

Many of them do not like the concept of a community who makes money offering them “all you can drink” for a set price at a number of bars. In fact many of them would like to have someplace else to go at night rather than the crowded bars.

Accidents happen when people of any age get out of control. The idea of offering all you can drink to any age group provides the basis for danger and accidents.

Does anyone offer all you can drink healthy drinks or provide a choice for the students to do something else to have fun and meet others?

If you look at the ads from many of the establishments to the colleges in the “Spring Break” guide you will see they promote the idea of sex, drinking and wild parties.

The college atmosphere is changing and students will drink and they do want to have fun but overall they want to do something active to meet others. They are becoming much more concerned about the environment and have innovative ideas to drive change.

If you spend the time on the beach and watch the students and ask them questions they are mostly good kids. They also want to pick up their trash but many times the location of the trash barrels are not convenient.

We know they want to play more sports on the beach and hope to develop further programs and ideas to offer for future Spring Break. Has anyone ever done any survey with these kids to really determine how to help the community offer new and fun ideas for the kids to meet others and have good clean fun??

It is a shame to have a few kids that go overboard or in the case of our observation we noticed a local who came to the beach asking kids for beers across the beach. Panama City Beach has an opportunity to work with the students who help make this community profitable and better understand how to change and offer new and innovative ideas to give them fun ways to meet others and the ability to “drink” responsibly.

If we think about it the spring breakers are just our “own kids” trying to become the star in their own lives. We just need to ask a little more in words and our actions because we need each other and can help make this work if we just listen and learn to engage the students and kids with their ideas.

Beach Tennis is Here

Beach Tennis is here, along with the pros to help you figure out how to do it. Behind Sharky’s Beach Club two beach tennis courts are set up with a station to “rent” the racquet from along with deflated tennis balls. Rent is free and equipment is provided by sponsors and is actually quite nice.

The concept behind beach tennis is to provide a fun beach-oriented sport that is easy on the knees and cinch to learn.

Here are the rules:

Court dimensions are 30 by 60 feet with the net at a height of 5’10”.
Beach tennis is only played in the doubles format, no singles.
Scoring is 15 – 30 – 40 with no-advantage.
At deuce, receiving team chooses which player will receive the serve.
Only one hit per side. Unlike volleyball, no setting up your partner for the kill.
Only one serve allowed per point. If the serve hits the net, goes over and lands in bounds a “let” (do over) will be played. If the serve hits the net, goes over and lands out of bounds the serving team loses the point.
Serves must go cross-court.
Players change ends at odd game totals.
Touching the net in any way or breaking the plane of the net – that is, reaching over the net with your racquet, even on the follow through – will result in a loss of the point.
Each match consists of one eight-game pro set. The match must be won by two games (e.g. 9-7). If the match score is tied at 8-8, a 12-point tennis tiebreaker (first team to 7 points wins) will be played to determine the winner.
A ball that strikes the line is considered in bounds.

If you want to play, it is free for anyone and everyone. You should get out there and put your skills to the test.

Spring Break IS Upon Us

_mg_6742 Every year, at the beginning of spring break, I’m always glad to see the life pumped back into Panama City Beach. The Beach Wal-Mart is packed with young energy, the streets are pumping with life and local businesses are happy the winter months are over and they can start living again. Of course, I’m always glad to see them go at the end as well.

“As little as four weeks ago, we were a little worried,” said Russ Smith, Vice President of Resort Operations. He went on to say that over the last couple of weeks, things have picked up and it looks like at this time, occupation is right on par with last year over the entire spring break, but the times in which visitors are coming in have shifted. “I don’t know if it was the recent warnings about going to Mexico that’s given us the boost or just late planning on the part of the college kids.”

“Everyone seems to be cautiously optimistic this year,” says Dana Lent, Communications Manager for the Panama City Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau. “The proof is in the pudding, we’ll see how the numbers really pan out when we see the bed tax collections.”

What is mostly empty now, Sharky’s Beachfront Restaurant will be filled with spring breakers tomorrow night and in just 8 days time the local beach club will be jam packed.

For the first year ever, Sharky’s will play host to beach tennis and beach volleyball that will ultimately culminate in a professional tournament with professional volleyball players such as 2008 Olympic gold medalists Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers. Beach tennis will start off on Sunday March 1st and players can battle it out until March 18th.

This next upcoming week is really the first “big” week of spring break, with this past week having students from Michigan and Canada here in small numbers. Next week just under a half million students will be on spring break across the country and the week after around 1.8 million will be on spring break around the country. Note to other media that has gotten these numbers confused in the past – I said “around the country”, not necessarily coming here.

This year should be a fun year. There is a lot of emphasis on family spring break (another article coming on that!) and there are quite a few family activities coming up.

Check below for a complete list of colleges on spring break this week, courtesy of TripSmarter.com:

March 2-6, 2009 (Mon-Fri)
College / University	Enrollment
Alverno College	2,654
Barry University	9,324
Beloit College	1,300
Bennett College	572
Bethune-Cookman College	2,895
Bishop’s University	1,817
Boston College	13,723
California University of Pennsylvania	7,728
Cambrian College	4,401
Clark University	2,883
College of Charleston	11,320
Duquesne University	10,184
Fairfield University	4,935
Florida A&M University	12,792
Florida Atlantic University	26,245
Georgia State University	27,134
Grand Valley State University	25,000
Greensboro College	1,233
Lebanon Valley College	1,906
Lehigh University	6,836
Loyola College, Maryland	6,131
Loyola University, Chicago	15,545
Mary Baldwin College	2,242
Moore College of Art and Design	493
North Carolina A&T	11,103
North Carolina State University	31,130
Pepperdine University	6,053
Rice University	4,195
Rocky Mountain College	898
Saint Cloud State University	17,173
Saint Francis University	2,121
Schoolcraft College	10,213
Silver Lake College	1,000
Stetson University	2,273
Universite du Quebec (Montreal)	40,624
University of Evansville	2,350
University of Virginia	20,190
Valparaiso University	3,874
Villanova University	9,335
Virginia Western Community College	9,000
Western Carolina University	11,000
Western Michigan University	24,433
Wingate University	2,041
Xavier University	6,500
TOTAL	412,581