Sports News: Spring 2001

Tuesday, May 15, 2001

MORAVIAN'S WARD TO WORK WITH USA VOLLEYBALL TEAM

BETHLEHEM, PA --- Moravian College head athletic trainer Bob Ward has been selected to work and travel for the third consecutive year with the USA Volleyball Junior National Team to a Junior World Championship qualifying meet in Sao Paulo, Brazil from May 16-20.

The tournament is a qualifier for the 2001 world championships and the top two teams will advance.  Ward traveled with the same team to a qualifying tournament in Havana, Cuba last August.

The USA Volleyball Junior National Team is a developmental team in the USA Volleyball program that reported to the USA Olympic Training Facility in Lake Placid, New York on May 1st and will practice until the tournament with two practice days in Miami, Florida before heading to South America.  Ward will work with a squad that is made up of 22 high school seniors and college freshmen from around the country.  

The Junior National Team is the third step in the USA Volleyball program.  As high school freshman and sophomores, the youths compete in the High Performance Camp and move onto the Boys' Youth National Training Team as high school juniors and seniors.  After competing on the Junior National team, they then are eligible to compete for the USA Volleyball National Team and the USA Olympic squad.

Ward, who spent two weeks during the summer of 1998 working at the USA Olympic Training Facility in Lake Placid and two weeks in August of 1999 with the Boys' Youth National Training Team at a tournament in Montreal, Canada, has been the head trainer at Moravian College since 1986.  He holds current certifications from the National Athletic Trainers Association and a Class A Certification as an athletic trainer in the State of Pennsylvania.  Ward, a 1980 graduate of East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, is also a Pennsylvania Certified paramedic.  

Prior to working at Moravian, Ward served as assistant athletics trainer at Lehigh University, head athletics trainer at Freedom High School and head athletics trainer for the American Soccer League Pennsylvania Stoners professional soccer team.