USA Volleyball (USAV)
The USAV has three levels of programing that they refer to as the USA Beach Volleyball Athlete Pipeline. These programs are USA National Beach Tour, High Performance Beach and the National team. in 2018, USAV restructured their beach tour and combined the Junior Beach Tour (JBT) with the American Beach Tour (ABT) to form the USA National Beach Tour. The new tour will offer tournaments for both juniors and adults and offers players the opportunity to earn bids/invitations to the National Beach Tour Junior Championships (NBTJC) and the Adult Beach National Championships (ABNC). The NBT is sanctioned by USAV and is a joint effort between USAV and the 40 regions across the US. The goal of NBT is to offer regional beach events for both juniors and adult members of USAV, culminating with a national championship. Juniors have two different opportunities to earn a bid to the NBTJC, which are through Beach Regional Qualifiers (BRQs) and Beach National Qualifiers (BNQs). These tournaments are open to both boys and girls between the ages of 10 – 18 and you must be a member of USA Volleyball. The High Performance Beach Program is USAV’s most prestigious Junior Beach Program and is one of the premier international pipeline programs in the world. The goal of the HP program is to help identify Olympic potential in boys and girls ages U13 – U19 and Men and Women ages U21 – U23. There are four levels in the HP Program the highest level being USAV Junior Beach National Team. This team is made up of athletes from all over the country who through tryout were hand selected to compete for the HP National team. Select athletes from this level will compete in FIVB and NORCECA competitions internationally. The second level is USAV Beach HP Teams, these teams are regionally selected by each of USAV’s regions. One must be hand selected after being observed either in a tryout, tournament or both. These athletes will train with the regions team and attend HP Team Camp and will have the opportunity to qualify for the USAV HP Championships. The third level is USAV Beach Elite Development Camps. These athletes participate only in the camp experience or training phase of the program and they are not able to participate or qualify for the USAV HP Championships, however they are encouraged to participate in the NBT. The final level is the USAV Beach Advance Skills Camps and they too are camp only athletes who are encourage to participate in the NBT.