Spirit Volleyball Club in Elyria, Ohio (https://www.spiritvbc.com/) disseminated information and details about a required, scheduled tournament taking place on March 2nd, 2025 in Maumee, Ohio to its coaches, which was then communicated from the coaches to team members and their parents via official channels on a sanctioned communication application (GroupMe), up to and including the day before the tournament. This communication included details on the location of the tournament, required arrival times, and official links to the tournament schedule.
In addition to this, Spirit Volleyball Club wished the teams luck on their official Facebook channel on (https://www.facebook.com/SpiritVolleyball) (screenshots available).
As per the information and instructions provided by Spirit Volleyball Club, the families of these team members made plans to be present in Maumee, Ohio early the morning of March 2nd.
Many of these families booked and paid for hotel rooms in advance, and made the trip from the Cleveland area to Maumee on March 1st, to ensure their daughters would be in attendance at the venue on time, as specified by Spirit Volleyball Club.
The morning of the tournament, chaos ensued as word made its way through GroupMe that Spirit Volleyball Club's owner, Ryan Varndell, had been informed via a January 26th email (screenshots available) by Maumee's director, Zach Lewis, that the tournament had been cancelled.
This was NOT COMMUNICATED to the coaches by Ryan Varndell, and therefore none of the parents or team members had any idea. As a result, everyone made the trip to Maumee, many staying overnight, only to arrive to an empty parking lot early that morning.
I, as a single parent, spent over $250 between hotel, food, gas and tolls for the four-hour round trip drive.
I (as well as many other parents) have subsequently reached out to Ryan Varndell as well as Stephanie Skacan (Assistant Director) several times with ZERO response. read more