What To Know When Introducing Your Kid To Club Volleyball: Tips From A First-Time Parent
The January wind bit through my jacket as I leaned against the car in the rec center parking lot, watching my 12-year-old Mia twist the drawstring of her thrifted volleyball hoodie into knots. “What if I’m bad?” she said, staring at her scuffed sneakers. The knee pads she wore were hand-me-downs from our neighbor’s 14-year-old, and the volleyball in her bag was an $8 Facebook marketplace find I’d picked up three days prior. I’d signed her up for tryouts on a whim, after all her rec volleyball friends started talking about club, and suddenly I was questioning every choice that led me here.
I’d heard all the horror stories: parents yelling at refs from the stands, $3,000 season fees, kids burning out by 14, that it was only for elite athletes gunning for college scholarships. I sat in the bleachers for two hours of tryouts, watching her hang back at first during drills, then slowly start moving faster when the assistant coach smiled and told her she didn’t have to be perfect. When the scrimmage started, she called for a low pass I thought no one would get, dove for it, and knocked her shoulder into the bleacher base. Instead of crying, she got up, brushed off her pants, and yelled “nice set” to the girl who’d sent it over. I’d never seen her do that – take a hit and keep going, out loud, in front of a room full of strangers. After tryouts, she ran out to the car, hair sweaty under her ponytail, and said “I want to do this. Even if I don’t make the top team.”
That was eight months ago, and I’ve learned most of the things I worried about were overblown, but there are small, practical things no one tells you before you start. First, entry-level club volleyball isn’t the hyper-expensive, high-pressure thing you see in viral social media clips. Most local clubs have B and C teams for kids who just want to play more than the 8-game rec season, no college scholarship required. Our season fee for Mia’s B team was $420, that included all practice time, a jersey, and six local tournaments within an hour’s drive. We didn’t have to buy custom gear or travel out of state, unless we wanted to. You don’t need to buy everything new, either – hand-me-down knee pads work fine, most secondhand sports shops sell regulation balls for half price, and the only extra thing you need is a pair of court shoes that aren’t the same sneakers you wear to class.
One easy step I wish I’d done before tryouts is spend 20 minutes watching a practice for the team level your kid would join. I didn’t do this before Mia’s tryout, but I did it a week later when we were deciding whether to accept her spot, and it told me everything I needed to know. The coach didn’t yell at the girls for missing serves, he stopped practice to walk them through footwork when half the team got it wrong, and after practice the girls all stopped to get slushies from the gas station down the street. If I’d watched a practice where the coach was only focused on winning and the kids looked stressed, I would have said no, even if Mia wanted to go. It’s a low-effort check that takes less time than grocery shopping, and it saves you from signing up for a program that doesn’t fit your kid.
Mia’s always been the quiet kid in class. She’d rather write notes than raise her hand, she’d sit with wrong math homework for a week instead of asking the teacher for help, because she didn’t want to be wrong in front of everyone. After a month of practice, she came home one day and said she’d stayed after class to ask her teacher for help with pre-algebra. “In volleyball, if you don’t yell ‘mine,’ no one knows you want the ball,” she said, peeling an orange at the dinner table. “If I don’t ask for help, I don’t get it. Duh.” I almost dropped my fork. I’d been talking to her about asking for help for two years, and a month of volleyball taught her that faster than I ever did.
It’s not all smooth sailing, of course. We rearrange our whole week for it: practice is Tuesday and Thursday nights, so we eat pre-made sandwiches or granola bars in the car on the way from school, I had to drop out of my monthly book club that meets on Thursday nights, and last month we drove three hours to a tournament, Mia sprained her ankle in the first 10 minutes, and we spent the rest of the day sitting on a hard bleacher eating $5 concession stand pizza, driving home in silence while she iced her ankle and cried. She wanted to quit that night, and I told her she could. She changed her mind three days later, after the swelling went down and her teammates texted her a group photo with her name written on their arms.
For kids nervous to try, the best thing I did was tell her upfront she could quit after the first practice if she hated it, no questions asked. It took all the pressure off – she didn’t have to worry about letting me down if it wasn’t for her. Most clubs will let you do a trial practice before you pay any fees, so always take advantage of that; don’t pay for a whole season up front before you know your kid likes the environment.
Mia’s practicing right now, as I write this, I’m sitting in the bleachers waiting for it to end. She still forgets her water bottle once a week, I still have to run out to the car to get it for her. We fight about getting homework done before practice every Tuesday. I don’t know if she’ll play next year, or if she’ll decide she’d rather do the after-school art club she’s been talking about. That’s fine. I used to think club volleyball was only for parents who want their kid to get a scholarship, or kids who live and breathe the sport. But it turns out it’s just a good thing for a lot of kids – a place to be off their phones, to learn that it’s okay to be bad at something at first, to ask for what they need. If you’re on the fence, just go watch that 20-minute practice. That’s all you have to do to start.
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