January 1, 2022

Happy New Year to the entire New Jersey volleyball community.

We set out three years ago to revitalize the NJP website, and this time, in favor of NJ high school volleyball. It has been a wonderful and educational ride over the past three years. We made a pact when we set out to re-launch the site that we would need to reach some key metrics before 2021 ended to show we are making an impact in our efforts and that our fan base sees value in our content. Unfortunately, we have fallen short in our journey.

This has been a total passion project in our reinstatement. The game of volleyball is dear to our hearts and we were driven to revitalize the site when the community needed it the most. Since 2019, we wanted NJP to be a safe oasis for players to visit during a tumultuous world. And once COVID hit, we ramped up our efforts to try to bring a different approach to volleyball in NJ. One that would keep players engaged with analytics, player profiles, rankings, and what we thought was a lot of fun and more out of the box content that would keep players interest piqued. Some of this was certainly embraced. But even our best efforts came across to some much different than the intent.

So time spent on the website will be dramatically reduced going forward. We so appreciate the support we received from so many players and certainly some coaches and clubs. For those that we were not able to live up to expectations, we wish you all well and appreciate the feedback.

Our goal has always been to support the growth of volleyball in NJ. We felt very fortunate with our NJ hockey efforts over the years. Prior to our emergence, there were 8 NJ players that played in the NHL since 1917. When we were done, 21 more players were added to the NHL and scores of others are playing semi-pro in the ECHL, USHL and AHL. Did it have anything to do with us? I guess we will never know. One of our goals with volleyball was to raise the awareness of NJ players being recruited for D1 and D3 college. Despite NJ continuing to move up in player participation, now 3rd largest of any state for boys, and 17th for girls, the amount of players being recruited are totally disproportionate. We know this will change in time, but we hoped to be a firestarter for that effort.

There are a few people we would really like to thank for their efforts in regards to the website:

Carlo Edra – Coach has been there since day 1 and always willing to share his knowledge with us and support our efforts. Our learning curve was vastly improved with Coach Carlo providing insights.

Charlie Maxwell – Coach Charlie has been a great historian for us and his knowledge and guidance was truly appreciated.

Josh Wilets – Josh began blogging with us and has grown into one of the authorities on NJ volleyball, especially in Morris County and North Jersey. He has a very bright future…

Anthony Sabia – Coach has been a great resource for us to bounce things off of as well as supply tournament information.

Joe and Gage Worsley – It is always great to see young and talented players take a leadership role in the sport that they love. Both Joe and Gage have gone above and beyond in supporting our efforts. It is so greatly appreciated.

And many, many others. Thanks to everyone that supported us…

For what we set out to do, we will continue to try to support our overall mission, one person at a time… email us at njpowerranking@gmail.com if we can help in any way… and watch for some sporadic posts in 2022 and beyond!

Gary at NJP