Gulbranson to coach for national youth team

Erikka Gulbranson, the Vanguard University women’s volleyball coach,

will take some time off from preparing for the upcoming season with

the Lions, but it will not be time away from the game or from

coaching.

Gulbranson, entering her third season at Vanguard, has been

selected as the first assistant coach for the USA girls youth

national volleyball team that will compete for the Federation of

International Volleyball under-18 world championship in Poland from

August 9-17.

Coaches for the national team were selected based upon time spent

coaching within the USA system as well as strict evaluations from the

U.S. staff and coaches. Gulbranson worked with the national youth

team head coach, Shelton Collier, during the summer of 2002 in the

High Performance camp program.

“This is really an amazing experience for any coach,” Gulbranson

said. “Coach Collier requested that I return to help him coach in the

world championships in Poland, and sometime next fall I will be

traveling within the FIVB to Zambia, Bahrain, Botswana or the Sudan

to complete World League training so that I will be qualified to be

an official international level coach.”

The Americans earned an automatic bid to the 2003 girls under-18

world championship after winning the gold medal at the NORCECA youth

girls volleyball championships in Salt Lake City, Utah, last summer.

The 2003 FIVB world championship was recently moved from Kenya to

Poland where 16 teams from around the world will battle for the

title. Defending champion China, which won the last tournament held

in Croatia in 2001, will compete as well as Poland, the tournament

host.

Members of the USA girls youth national training team began

preparations for the biannual international event at the United

States Olympic training center in Lake Placid, N.Y. Preparations

include scrimmages against the Canadian youth national team who will

be in Lake Placid from today through Aug. 2.

During that time Coach Collier and his staff, Rich Zeciski, Ted

Wade, and Gulbranson, will determine which 12 players will travel to

Poland to compete in the world championship. The players not selected

will go to Montreal, Quebec, to participate in the national teams

Championship Cup against Canada’s provincial national champions.

Zeciski will serve as the head coach of the team that travels to

Montreal, while Gulbranson and Wade will assist Collier in Poland.