Windham local 13-year-old Megan Fleck belongs to an AAU Volleyball team known as The Maine Juniors Volleyball Club 14 Gold team. The team recently won the second New England Regional
Volleyball tournament in Merrimack, New Hampshire. Teams from Maine, New Hampshire and
Massachusetts competed in this tournament.
The team won five out of the six sets to get seeded first going into the
finals. The team then won all three sets
in the finals and taking home the championship.
The Juniors Division of New England Region Volleyball
administers to nearly 50 Boys and Girls Clubs throughout New England. The
New England region continues to grow each year with over 3.500 members, 400
teams and 500 tournament events each year.
The 14 under age bracket consists of sixth, seventh, and
eighth graders in middle school. This is
Megan’s second year playing volleyball and plans to continue as she moves to
high school next year. When Megan and
her team are not competing they are acting as referees for other teams.
As parents that may be new to sports programs for their
children, we tend to only focus on school sports or what is available in our
communities. However, there are programs
available as our children grow and they find the desire and passion to
participate in a sport and want to continue beyond what the community or
schools have to offer. These are called Amateur
Athletic Union (AAU)
programs. These programs also allow your
child to develop friendships that go beyond the court, the field, the diamond,
the school and the community. When the
time comes during the school season to play against other schools, the
friendships that developed during AAU are respected on the playing grounds in
which they participate.
The AAU is one of the largest non-profit volunteer sports organizations in
the United States. AAU is dedicated
exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical
fitness programs. Individuals can build
on their skill levels by joining an AAU club team. AAU is a nationally
recognized organization, dedicated to providing young athletes with
opportunities to play their sport outside of school teams. Most players decide
to compete on an AAU team so they can continue to play year-round and compete
against the top competition.
AAU teams give players a great opportunity to gain exposure and possibly get in contact with college scouts and coaches.
Depending on your sport you will even be able to check out which colleges were
represented at certain tournaments and competitions. Local Windham athletes past and present,
such as Samm Frank (wrestling) and Kevin Weisser (basketball) have joined AAU
teams to either develop themselves or to help develop others.
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