IESA Headlines

Volleyball State Final Printed Programs to Include Team Photos

The Illinois Elementary School Association (IESA) plans to publish photographs of all teams advancing to the 2005 Class A and Class AA seventh and eighth grade volleyball state final tournaments in the official program for each event, according to Executive Director Steve Endsley.

"This is an experiment in volleyball only for this school term (2004-05)," Endsley said. "We will evaluate the experiment upon completion of the state finals. Two factors will be significant. One is the ability of our member schools to provide us with the photographs. The other is the cost to IESA to produce the expanded programs."

If the experiment is a success, the IESA Board of Directors will determine whether we print team photos in all our athletic and activity programs where we advance teams, beginning with the 2005-06 (next) school term. Endsley said member schools entered in this year's volleyball series should arrange to take a team photo before their school begins competing in the regional, and have it ready to submit to the IESA Office once the team wins the regional.

IESA conducts state series in the following team sports and activities: baseball, softball, girls basketball, boys basketball, volleyball, scholastic bowl and cheerleading.

Here is how the process will work in the volleyball experiment this coming March (2005). Each team winning its respective regional tournament is directed to submit its team photograph and identification of all in the photograph (cutlines) to the IESA Office by the Monday following the regional. The photograph and cutlines may be submitted by first class mail or via the Internet. Schools that submit the material by mail must make sure the material is postmarked no later than the Saturday following the regional. Schools that submit the material on the Internet must do so by noon on the Monday (sectional date) following the regional.

Complete instructions regarding the experiment were included in the mailing of volleyball information to the schools entered in the state series. These instructions also are on the volleyball page at www.iesa.org. Schools may contact the IESA Office with any questions regarding the experiment.