Growing boys volleyball in Tennessee has been a most rewarding challenge. In 2012 K2 Volleyball Coach Cory Felts started a boys team that included his son and his son’s friends, some other coaches’ sons, and little brothers of the K2 girls players. Even years later it was challenging to find tournaments to play in due to the lack of boys clubs and boys tournaments in the southeast region. Felts is a Tennessee native that grew up playing three major sports so he understands the challenge, but prying these boys and their dads away from other conventional or more mainstream sports is an uphill battle.
“I think if a few more southern states sanction boys volleyball at the high school level, that will help tremendously, but getting these athletic kids opportunities to play in front of more fans is really all it’ll take,” said Felts. “At every tournament it doesn’t matter whether they’re 12u or 18u, you can always tell where the boys are playing. The spectators are always ten deep around their courts.”
The Vision
In 2021, K2 decided to expand to multiple teams, and in the second year at K2 Supafly Boys Volleyball there are 65 boys that compete on five teams in 12U-18U. Felts had been coaching K2 girls teams in the Mideast Power League for many years and was a big fan of the quality of coaches, the quality of the clubs participating in the league, as well as the level of competition. All of the clubs competing together on a regular basis creates a “cauldron-like effect,” which forces every team to up their game to remain competitive.
With boys volleyball opportunities growing so rapidly in the mid-south, southeast and east coast, with clubs now regularly traveling boys teams to tournaments, Felts thought it was time to form a similar power league to serve those clubs and athletes.
“I had been discussing the idea of the boys version of a power league casually with our directors at K2, J and Chris Hames, for about a year, and they were very supportive. I then proposed it to several directors and coaches at Carolina Union Volleyball Club’s Rock Hill event in January 2021,” said Felts.
The Networking
One of the first directors Felts approached to discuss the league with was Ashley Monfort from Jacksonville Juniors. He was in with both feet from the very first discussion, and has agreed to send teams to several of the events, as well as spread the word around the Florida Region. John Brannon and Bill Ferguson from CUVC, and Corey…
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