Why I Finally Signed My Kid Up for Club Volleyball (And What No One Told Me Before I Did)
Last May, I was standing in the grocery store parking lot holding a melting carton of mint chocolate chip when my 12-year-old Lila slouched into the passenger seat and said she didn’t want rec league volleyball anymore. Not because she hated playing—because half the girls on her team spent the whole set gossiping by the net and didn’t even bother to move when the ball came their way. “I just want to play with people who actually care,” she said, picking at the frayed cuff of her rec jersey.
I’d been ignoring the club volleyball flyers taped to the rec center bulletin board for months. In my head, club volleyball was for the kind of parents who have custom team bags, drive big SUVs with the player’s name printed on the back window, and yell so loud at refs you can hear them through the gym walls. I’m the mom who forgets to pack extra socks for practice and can never remember which side of the net we’re supposed to be on. That couldn’t be us, right?
But I asked around, found a low-key club attached to the rec center that doesn’t do cross-country travel or crazy 6-hour practice weeks, and figured I’d go to the first parent meeting just to check it out. I showed up 10 minutes early, grabbed the only empty chair at the front of the room, and it turned out that was the chair reserved for the team mom. Everyone filed in and stared for a second while I mumbled an apology and scrambled to the back, and I spilled my iced coffee all over my light wash jeans mid-scramble. I spent the whole meeting sitting on a crumpled paper towel trying not to drip on the floor. That should have been my first sign it was going to be messy. It was.
Practices are 7 to 9 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which means I haul my 8-year-old Jax along with me every time. He dumps his Lego all over the YMCA lobby carpet that smells like old gym socks and chlorine, and half the time I’m chasing him down the hallway when he decides to go stare at the dead fish in the front desk aquarium. The costs add up way faster than anyone tells you, too. I budgeted $300 for the whole season, and we’re already at almost $600, and that doesn’t count all the gas station chips and granola bars I buy on the way to tournaments. No one mentioned the $80 uniform fee that’s separate from registration, or the $10 day pass you have to buy just to get in the gym for tournaments, or the monthly $15 chip-in for the coach’s gas. I almost walked out when they handed me the list of extra fees. But Lila was bouncing on her heels next to me, so I wrote the check.
I’ve seen the bad side everyone warns you about, don’t get me wrong. Last month I was at a tournament at a rural high school, and I watched a dad yell so loud at his 13-year-old daughter for missing two serves in a row that she started crying right there on the court. The ref had to ask him to leave. I sat there holding my warm Gatorade thinking, this is exactly why I didn’t want to do this. This is the stuff that ruins sports for kids, turns something fun into a chore everyone hates.
But 10 minutes later, Lila’s team was up for match point, and she went up for a hit that got blocked straight into the bleachers. She fell right on her butt, and before I could even stand up to check if she was okay, all four of her teammates ran over. One pulled her up, another wiped the dirt off her back, another teased her about the hair sticking up all over her head, and they got back in line. No one blamed her. No one made a big dramatic fuss. They just did that thing teams do, that I never saw in rec league. It stuck with me.
I still don’t know all the lingo, by the way. I called a dump shot a dink shot for two months straight before another parent corrected me while we were chatting between games. I laughed and said I was still learning, but I still mix them up half the time. No one cares, least of all Lila. She just likes that everyone shows up to play. She comes home and practices her serve in the driveway after dinner even when her forearms are all red and sore from digging. Last week she showed me a huge purple bruise on her hip from diving for a ball, like it was a trophy she earned.
Two weekends ago, we drove two hours to a tournament in the middle of nowhere, the kind of town where the only thing off the highway is a Walmart and a gas station with a broken soda machine. Lila’s team lost all four games, by a lot. She got in the car after, didn’t say a word, just put her head on the seat and fell asleep before we even hit the highway. I got a green chile burrito from that gas station, and it gave me heartburn all the way home. I sat there driving in the dark thinking, what are we even doing here? This is stupid, we’re wasting time and money, she’s just upset. When we got home, she woke up, asked if we could stop for ice cream, and while we were eating it on the porch, she said “I messed up my back row positioning a lot, but coach said I’m getting better. Next tournament will be better.” I didn’t expect that. I thought she’d want to quit.
I’m still on the fence a lot of the time. I’ve missed three book club meetings, my house is always a mess because we’re never home on weekends, I still haven’t washed Lila’s uniform from last week because I keep forgetting. It’s not for everyone. If your kid doesn’t beg to play more, don’t force it. If you can’t swing the extra cash, don’t stress about it. But if you’re like me, sitting on the fence, scared it’s all just crazy competitive parent nonsense, it doesn’t have to be. Yeah, there’s some of that. There’s also messy car rides, bad gas station burritos, bruises that turn into bragging rights, and your kid coming home tired and happy in a way I don’t see very often anymore.
I’m not going to tell you it’s the best decision I ever made. It’s just a decision, a messy one, that’s working out for us right now. That’s enough.
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