Motion Volleyball Supports Director's Battle with Cancer

Mike Pridavka, Dave Goetzel and Dave Strackbein are volleyball parents who, as a group, formed Motion Volleyball Program (a.k.a. MVP) during the summer of 2012. 

These ambitious parents teamed up with an excellent coach, Kurt Derenne, and launched the club's first team, a 16U squad.

As club directors, these three learned that organizing a team, creating a handbook, training, entering tournaments, finding players, creating a web site and all the other club-director jobs was a lot more work than it looked from the outside. They developed a deep appreciation for what other club directors and coaches go through with their 12-14 teams. Especially since they sometimes found it difficult to do their "real" jobs even with just one team!

The club was running smoothly until the program was blindsided by the news that Dave Goetzel was diagnosed with cancer. Everyone was shocked and saddened that Goetzel would be away from the team for significant periods while going through chemotherapy treatment. 

Added to the worries and fears associated with a cancer diagnosis was Dave's concern he may not be able to make it to the tournaments. His daughter, Brittany, was on the team. 

Goetzel had put his heart and soul into forming this club, so Pridavka and Strackbein made it their mission to keep Dave connected to the team he worked so hard to create. 

They experimented with an iPad app called Event-Cast (http://www.event-cast.com), which allows users to stream sports and other events live via the internet for an hourly fee. Dave Strackbein called the owner of Event-Cast, Ed Seitz,  to see if there was a way to modify the app. After Seitz and Strackbein made several changes to the Event-Cast software and the Motion Volleyball Program (http://www.motionvolleyball.org) web site, they were broadcasting! 

It was a huge relief for Dave and his family. He was able to focus on his battle with cancer and still watch the team and participate in their season!

Since then, the broadcasting capability has taken on a life of its own. Parents, grandparents, and friends of MVP players are now able to register and request access to live and archived video of matches when they cannot be there in person. College coaches are also embracing the concept and subscribing to the video feed. It has allowed them stretch their recruiting budget and maximize their precious time. 

Please join the members, friends, and family of the Motion Volleyball Program in wishing Dave Goetzel and everyone else in the Badger Region volleyball community that is battling cancer BEST WISHES and a return to the court as soon as possible.