One good thing about the top teams missing a tournament now and again to participate in international competition is that we get to see some new faces in the top spots. This past weekend while Kessy and Ross were winning the World Championships, the AVP tour crowned a new champion in Coney Island.

Carrie Dodd, 35, and Dianne DeNecochea, 41, defeated Jennifer Fopma and Brittany Hochevar to become the oldest pair, men or women, to win an AVP title with a combined age of 76 years, nine months and three days.

OK, so it is not the record you dream of breaking as a child, but it is still a record and an amazing feat. Dianne and Carrie took out their younger competitors for their first win as a pair and proved that you can keep improving no matter what your age. Congratulations, ladies. You've still got it!

Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser forfeited one of their matches at the FIVB's World Championships last week due in part to Todd's back pain, but also to protest the FIVB's decision about bonus pool money, which is half the money the players receive from FIVB events.

According to Todd's blog, the FIVB has dealt the U.S. players a serious blow and he wants people to know it.

Rogers says the FIVB agreed late last year to distribute 70% of a player's total bonus pool money if the player attended four international events. They could earn the rest if they attended more tournaments.

But after Beijing, the handover of power from FIVB President Ruben Acosta to Jizhong Wei after Beijing led to more changes in leadership. Ari Graca, the President of the South American Volleyball Confederation and the Brazilian Volleyball Federation became FIVB Vice President.

Rogers says that in March, Graca arbitrarily decided that players would have to attend several more FIVB tournaments to receive just half of the pool money. Makes sense from the FIVB standpoint of getting more players to attend FIVB events. But according to Rogers, the new rules hurt only the American players.

Does he have a point? Definitely. Brazil and the U.S. have the strongest domestic tours and it is no coincidence that the two countries dominate the medals at every Olympics. Conveniently, Brazil's tour takes place in a different part of the year so it is not in conflict with the FIVB season. But the American players will have to miss several AVP events to comply with the new rules which would hurt the league significantly.

Though there has never been any love lost between the FIVB and AVP, it seemed the players and national bodies had finally come to some sort of agreement. It would be a shame to take relations back to square one.

Halfway through World League pool play, the U.S. men are sitting pretty atop Pool A with a 5-1 record. Currently they are third in points behind Brazil (undefeated) and Cuba (5-1.)

After a shaky opening match loss to the Netherlands, the young U.S. squad settled down and rattled off five wins. They'll see each of the other three teams twice more before the end of pool play and there is no reason why they can't end up with an 11-1 record.

Olympic MVP Clay Stanley rejoined the team in San Jose and played sparingly, but managed to rattle off three service aces in a row at one point against China's libero. He will likely be a difference-maker as the tournament progresses and as the U.S. team fights to defend their 2008 title.

Surely our nation's greatest strength is its diversity. Folks from every nation make the U.S. their home and they add to the fabric of our experience.

But is our nation's greatest strength also our national team's biggest disadvantage? The fact that Americans come from all over the world could be the very reason why we can't seem to get our act together in the fan department the way other nations can. Because when it comes down to it, it seems that you can change a person's location, but you can't change their loyalties.

It is totally understandable to me. If I suddenly decided to make Brazil my home, I would certainly not be able to cheer for the Brazilian team when the Americans came to town. I would make sure the next generation of my family cheered for the American teams as well.

But the difference is that we would be a handful of Americans in an enormous Brazilian arena. Our lone chants of "U-S-A! U-S-A!" would likely go unnoticed under the singing, dancing, drumming and cheering of the dedicated Brazil fans.

We may be the only country where it doesn't matter who we play against or which city we choose to play them in, our opponents will always be able to find a crowd of die hards who will beat the drums and sometimes out-cheer the home team's fans. And chances are, they're more easily reachable and more organized than we are.

This past weekend in San Jose, CA, the men's team played China. With a huge Chinese population in the Bay Area, it is no surprise that our opponent's fans came out in force. The Chinese media pumped the match for weeks beforehand and covered the results afterward. The mainstream Bay Area media? Not so much.

But the ability to fill the San Jose Event Center is likely one of the reasons that the Bay Area was chosen for the match. Men's volleyball in the U.S. is hurting, with many collegiate programs cut and many others on the chopping block. Thank goodness for the gold in Beijing for renewing interest or who knows where we'd be.

The result last weekend was a great bipartisan crowd which was near capacity on night one and sold out on night two. If we had relied on just USA Volleyball fans, our team would likely have played in a half empty arena. Maybe we should be grateful. We may not be able to get an arena chock full of fans who cheer for us, but we can still fill an arena with fans. That's something.

Next weekend when the men's team heads to China, they'll be lucky to see ten Americans in the crowd. The Chinese fans will be making so much noise, they will not be able to hear themselves think. The same will happen in just about every country to which they travel.

Should we be taking notes? What would it take to get enthusiasm and dedication like that within our own shores?