Nationwide Youth Volleyball Festival Names Phoenix Home, Welcoming 6,000 Players to the Phoenix Convention Center with Medical Coverage by a Local Orthopedic Practice

PHOENIX, June 22, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Phoenix is named home to the 2011 Volleyball Festival taking place at the Phoenix Convention Center from June 23 through June 27, 2011. Club volleyball teams from around the world come to play, including Arizona hometown favorites as well as near and far reaching places like California, Illinois, Texas, New Mexico, Washington, Virginia, Idaho, American Samoa, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Canada and Brazil. Phoenix will welcome 540 teams, 6,000 athletes, 1,500 parents, 2,000 coaches, 110 officials, 60 sports medicine professionals and 60 administrative personnel. Continuing to serve the Valley and the Volleyball Festival, The CORE Institute, headquartered in Phoenix, donates their medical and administrative team to provide comprehensive medical coverage for the duration of the Festival. The event comes to a close with a competitive finals round that is nationally televised with world-class commentators on June 27, 2011 on FOX Sports.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110622/DC25002LOGO )

The history of the Volleyball Festival began in 1983 when Dave and Bernice Epperson were living in Laguna Niguel with their daughters who were competitive volleyball players. They wanted to create an event that would help parents and youth athletes compete on a national level in a West Coast location. In 1986, the Volleyball Festival put on its first all-girls tournament at UC Davis in Davis, California. A sign of its early success, the number of participating teams grew from 120 total teams in 1985 to 190 teams in 1986.

With this rapid growth, there was also a need to expand into multiple locations to accommodate the many female youth athletes that continued to participate. In 2004, the Festival moved to Reno, Nevada to take advantage of a newly renovated convention center that held 75 courts. This helped reduce the number of total venues to three.  Finally in 2009, the Volleyball Festival found a home in Phoenix that could bring together all of the teams for the first time since the 1980's. This week, the Phoenix Convention Center will be transformed to create 107 courts for play and plenty of hospitality accommodations for youth athletes and parents. With so many athletes under one roof, finding a way to care for them also became complicated. The Volleyball Festival enlisted the largest orthopedic group in Phoenix, The CORE Institute, to donate their time and resources to make the Volleyball Festival a success.

For more information please visit www.volleyballfestival.com or www.thecoreinstitute.com

About The CORE Institute

The Center for Orthopedic Research and Education, The CORE Institute® began practicing in 2005 to deliver comprehensive orthopedic care, one patient at a time. Their fellowship-trained physicians provide specialized care in the areas of surgical, non-surgical and rehabilitative hip, knee, shoulder, elbow and ankle procedures, joint replacement, sports medicine, arthroscopy, fracture management, orthopedic traumatology, hand and wrist procedures, complex articular cartilage restoration, musculoskeletal oncology, foot and ankle reconstruction, physical medicine and rehabilitation, comprehensive spine care and pain management. The CORE Institute team is dedicated to providing technologically advanced surgical techniques and rehabilitation in seven locations in Arizona. With state-of-the-art research labs, less-invasive surgery, on-site MRI and physical therapy, The CORE Institute provides excellence in patient care to tens of thousands of patients around the world each year.

SOURCE The CORE Institute