 What's up you guys welcome back to my channel. My name is Coach Coco and I love volleyball so much so my channels filled with tips tricks hacks and Anything you could ever need to know about volleyball So today I want to talk about something that's very important to me And I can dare say it is the one of the strongest reasons why I started my channel And it's something that I've seen the cusp of a couple of months ago But I didn't really see it dive too deep and I think that it's important for a lot of players And it's important for a lot of us because Volleyball is a sport where there is a huge lack of representation And if you don't know what that means because I know a lot of you guys are young and a lot of you guys are in middle school You're approaching high school. You may be in high school or even in college. Hey girl but volleyball has a huge lack of respect representation and that means that volleyball is not the most diverse sport and Me being a woman of color I have been through several different volleyball experiences where I have been the only woman of color I have been on teams where I have been the only woman of color And I can say that my volleyball experiences while unique not necessarily they always haven't been very positive And I know that some of you all will connect with this conversation and some of you won't But I think it's a conversation that needs to be had because volleyball is a sport that anyone can play And everyone can play it doesn't matter your gender your sexual orientation your religion I think that volleyball has the potential to be a unifier in a lot of different ways But unless the conversation happens that can't happen I know that a lot of young women of color have messaged me over the years talking about how to cope with being the only woman of color or the only girl of color and Honestly, that really did break my heart and it broke my heart because I was in their place And it broke my heart because I know how it feels to be in that place and how it feels to somehow feel isolated When you're on a team with those who are supposed to be your teammates And I know that when you're on a team And you're feeling that team spirit and you're there and you're going to practice and you're showing up at games You're going to conditioning, but you still don't feel necessarily 100 connected. I was there and sometimes Even in the adult volleyball world. I'm often the only woman of color and I I know how that feels and I just want you to know that you are not alone that You do have support you are supported and I think that it is a big conversation for the coaches I think it's important for coaches to address this because your players matter every player matters and I think that You need to be able to talk to your players about how important it is for that representation Because a lot of the times when we see college teams represented. We don't see students of color We don't see asian students or latina students or we don't see students from a different minority groups I know that I get a message I get often is about the spandex conversation And I mean I can talk about the spandex conversation in another video, but a lot of a lot of players See that the spandex can be a reason why they're no longer or not able to compete And I think that that is sort of ridiculous Um, I think that anybody should be able to play and I think that a article of clothing shouldn't it shouldn't keep you from Competing but you know, I think these are conversations that the volleyball community volleyball community needs to have And if I'm going to be the catalyst for that and I'm going to be the person that starts that conversation Then so be it, but I think that I want you to know that here on my channel You're always welcome. Everybody is welcome and that I want you to feel love and community and feel like this is a place Where you can not only learn about volleyball talk to other people about volleyball, but also be who you are unashamed and I think that as we Grow as people I think that volleyball is going to continue to evolve and I would love to see evolve into something That is more accepting and more diverse and see more diversity within volleyball And not only diversity by diversity in the the ability to play different positions I saw it to talk the other day and it was really riffing and I really don't remember who her name was But a lot of people were talking about it how she was saying just because I'm black doesn't mean I have to be a middle And I felt that in my heart because I was a middle when I was playing and often when you see players of color They're not playing the libero. They're not the setter. They're almost always a attacking position Or something that is offensive and I I felt that because that goes into that conversation with diversity So I think that we need to have a larger conversation and I would love to hear you all's opinion in the comments I once again, I know that you guys are kind of young So anybody who does want to chime in I would love to have this conversation with you because I think that it's important Because we talk about volleyball. We need to talk about all of volleyball We can't skip over the parts that we don't want to talk about simply because it's hard to talk about So I know that I did a podcast we get the pancake and she's so wonderful We talked a little bit about this on the podcast if you had a chance to listen So I'm going to leave that podcast down below But if you didn't have a chance to listen I want to open up that conversation on my channel because it's important to and I think it's important for us to Understand what's going on for volleyball for everyone. So we're going to start that conversation I want you to leave a comment below your opinion because I would love to you know engage So make sure you like comment and subscribe and let's talk about it and I will see you guys next time