In coordination with USA Volleyball’s MAAPP policy for this season, the USAV membership team and I would like to provide some additional information related to the age guidelines and suggested memberships.
For the 21-22 Season, any junior players who are turning 18 years old by 8/31/2022 will be surfaced with the 18s player membership and required to complete SafeSport training to become eligible.
The intention behind this is to avoid scenarios of players that are turning 18 during the season needing to complete SafeSport training mid-season or become ineligible. This change will prevent the need to monitor, take action, and upgrade members in this scenario.
The MAAPP policy references their age, not age category, which means that anyone turning 18 in July and August must be SafeSport trained to be eligible during that time period even though they are still classified as 17s players by USAV.
Here’s an example:
A player whose birthday is July 2nd would mean they would turn 18 during the national tournament and would become ineligible to participate if they did not have SafeSport training on July 2nd. With this age category adjustment, this player would complete the SafeSport requirement at the start of the season and no additional action would be necessary. If the player was initially only directed to the 17 & under membership they would need to be tracked manually and on or before July 2nd be given the 18s membership and complete SafeSport training to be eligible and have their 17 & under membership canceled.
If you have additional questions about this policy please contact the USA Volleyball Membership team at Membership@usav.org.