USAV Nationals notes: LSU football, IUPUI, recruiting Egypt and more

Finally getting to the notebook filled with tidbits from a two-day, see-as-many-NCAA-coaches-as-possible trip to Chicago for USA Volleyball Girls Junior Nationals. There’s more to come in future editions, including an NBA-volleyball tie-in and some great time-zone challenges.

But in this case, we’ll start with, of all things, LSU football.

Yes, LSU football.

One place it was easy to find college coaches was when TAV 17 Black was playing its 17 Open matches. Everyone was there to watch a team loaded with talent that included two daughters of former LSU football players. 

One was Macaria Spears, who goes by Cari, and whose dad, Marcus is a familiar face on ESPN. He played for seven years for the Dallas Cowboys before finishing with the Baltimore Raves. Cari, uncommitted, was playing up a year. The other was Jadyn Livings, whose father Nate was a longtime NFL standout for the Cincinnati Bengals and Dallas Cowboys. Jadyn is going to USC.

Both played on LSU’s 2003 BCS national-championship team.

Marcus Spears grew up in Baton Rouge, where I live, and I covered those guys back in the day. It was great to catch up with Marcus, and his wife, Aisha Smith, who played basketball at LSU and later for the Washington Mystics of the WNBA. She never played volleyball. 

It’s worth noting that she’s 6-foot-2 and Marcus is 6-4. That’s an inch shorter than their 14-year-old son, Marcus Jr. And both parents say 10-year-old Miko is something else and she will be the best athlete of the bunch.

“It was a good plan,” Spears said with a laugh.

Spears came to LSU at a time when the best athletes from the area were going elsewhere. He teamed with another Baton Rougean, Michael Clayton, who was a fantastic receiver for that LSU team and they changed the face of LSU football. Clayton’s  NFL career included playing for Tampa Bay and the New York Football Giants, with who he won the 2011 Super Bowl.

Anyway … So I asked Marcus if he kept up with Michael. 

He laughed and pointed. 

Clayton was two courts over watching his daughter, Michaela, play for OTVB 17 of Tampa.

And we had a reunion and it was awesome.

But there’s more. The daughter of former LSU player Chuck Wiley, Logan, played for the Atlanta team A5 17-Jing and she’s headed to…