 Starlings Volleyball Club Gives All Girls a Chance to Fly—By Donna Carter Published: September, 2005  The "16s" team plays at the San Jose Convention Center at the Bay Area's biggest volleyball tournament on President's Day, 2005 In America's inner cities, most courts are for basketball or maybe criminal justice, but usually not volleyball. Starlings Volleyball Club of Oakland and its coach, Lisa Busbee-Young, are changing that. A national junior volleyball program serving more than 2,500 girls in some 35 clubs across America, Starlings clubs aren't found behind gated communities where affluent parents pay up to $8,000 a year to support their daughters' participation in USA Volleyball's Junior Olympic tournaments. Starlings clubs are on Indian reservations or in the inner cities. In Oakland, where the high school district has only a 40 percent graduation rate, the club strives to ensure that all girls get a chance to develop teamwork, good health, positive life skills, and academic achievement. The majority of the 100 or so girls who play for the Starlings on one of four teams are African American, Asian or Latina. Attrition rate is high, often due to lack of funds, but a core group of about 60 girls, aged 12 to 18, participates consistently, said Busbee-Young, who is also the local director of the program. "A lot of them deal with adverse situations at school, at home, in their day-to-day environment with their peers, with neighborhood people," Busbee-Young said. "It is even more important for them to understand communication skills and positive choices." Starlings Help Girls' Minds, Souls Sports can provide a detour around drug use and teen pregnancy, and can build self-esteem and increase the likelihood of high school graduation, according to teenpregnancy.org. Volleyball, which requires communication and cooperation, helps develop interpersonal skills, too. Starlings' website boasts that more than 150 girls have received college scholarships since 1966, when the first club formed in San Diego. Oakland's club formed in 1998, and this season, two players — Amecia Young and Tylease Robinson — earned college scholarships. Each December there are not tryouts, but "callouts", so-called because the program accepts all girls regardless of height, ability or funds. Starlings emphasizes that young women should develop all their talents, which is why the organization holds an annual Literary/Art Contest. The winner of a literary first-place prize who also won a full athletic scholarship to Alabama-State, was Oakland's Amecia Young. The 17-year-old daughter of coach Busbee-Young, Young won for a poem, excerpted here: Volleyball lets me be the girl I want to be And I don't have to worry that I am not a "he" | ||
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