Should You Let Your Kid Try Club Volleyball? A First-Time Parent’s Honest Guide
Last October, I stood in a damp high school parking lot at 6:45 a.m., holding a half-eaten blueberry frozen waffle I’d grabbed off the counter on the way out, waiting for my 12-year-old Mia to finish her first club volleyball tryout. I’d spent the 20-minute drive scrolling through parent forums, reading horror stories about $3,000 annual fees, screaming coaches, and kids quitting sports entirely by 14 because of burnout. Mia had only played one season of rec league volleyball, where she spent half the time picking dandelions along the back of the court and chatting with her best friend on the bench. But she’d begged for three weeks straight to try club, so I’d signed her up, mostly to stop hearing about it at dinner.
The gym door banged open, and she barreled out, socks bunched around her ankles, sweat soaking through the back of her oversized rec league t-shirt, and yelled “I got in! B team!” before launching into a hug that got waffle crumbs all over my gray hoodie. I hugged her back, already mentally calculating how much this was going to cost, how many weekends I’d lose.
The first three months were messier than I expected. I forgot her knee pads for the first practice and had to run to the nearest Target, panicking the whole way that I’d ruined her first day with the team. The coach had a spare pair she could borrow, and Mia didn’t even think it was a big deal. Our first tournament was two hours away, with an 8 a.m. start, so we left the house at 5:30, coffee burning my hand through the cup holder, and a cooler full of Gatorade and granola bars rolling around the back seat. I sat on a rickety folding chair for 8 hours that day, watching her team lose three straight games, and listened to one parent yell at a referee for a bad call so loud my ears rang. But most of the other parents were just like me: half-checked work emails between sets, shared extra chips when someone forgot their snack, complained about the $10 entrance fee per person.
On the drive home that day, Mia stared out the window for 20 minutes, and I waited for the “I quit” speech I was expecting. Instead she said, “I missed three serves in the last game. Can I ask coach if I can stay 10 minutes late next practice to work on them?” I almost crashed the car. Mia was the kid who quit soccer after one season because it rained at one game, quit piano because she didn’t want to practice 10 minutes a day, quit art club because the kid next to her used her favorite marker. I never thought I’d hear her say she wanted to put in extra work on her own.
What I didn’t know before I signed Mia up is that club volleyball doesn’t have to be the all-or-nothing commitment people make it out to be. A lot of first-time parents like me assume every club team is the elite national team that travels across the country and costs a small fortune. But almost every local club has developmental or entry-level teams for kids who just want to play more than rec league, without the crazy time and cost. Mia’s team only practices twice a week for an hour and a half, and only does four local tournaments a season. The total cost was less than $800 for the whole season, and the club let me split it into six monthly payments instead of paying all at once. I never even thought to ask about payment plans before, but almost every club offers them for entry-level teams.
Before you sign up, just email the coach and ask one specific question: what’s your playing time policy for new players? A lot of parents hold back because they don’t want their kid sitting the whole bench. For entry-level teams, most coaches rotate everyone in evenly, and will tell you that up front. Mia plays at least half of every set, no exceptions, which was non-negotiable for me. I didn’t want to pay money just to have her watch from the bench all day.
You also don’t need all the fancy gear everyone talks about. Everyone online raves about $100 composite balls and $50 knee pads, but Mia uses a $30 ball I got on Amazon and $12 knee pads from Target, and no one has said a word. Most clubs provide the uniform and any other gear you need for tournaments, so don’t go out and spend a couple hundred dollars on stuff before you even get on the team.
I was also worried club would put too much pressure on her, but it’s done the opposite for her confidence. She’s always been shy, the kind of kid who wouldn’t raise her hand in class even if she knew the answer. On the court, she has to call for the ball when it’s heading her way, high five her teammates after a bad play, and ask the coach for help when she’s struggling. Last month at the end-of-season potluck, she got up and said a quick thank you to the coach in front of the whole team, and she didn’t even hide behind my leg when she was done. That’s something I never would have seen six months ago.
It’s not all great, of course. We’ve missed three family birthday parties and two of her little brother’s soccer games because of practices and tournaments. Sometimes she has to do her math homework in the car on the way to practice, and there are mornings she drags herself out of bed at 7 a.m. on Saturday complaining she’s tired. Last month she told me she didn’t want to go to practice, she just wanted to stay home and watch a movie with her brother. I let her. I used to think you had to make every single practice or you’d get kicked off the team, but I texted the coach, and she said it was totally fine. It’s okay to let them take a break if they need it, even for a silly reason. That’s something I wish someone had told me before I started.
We’re signing up for next season, if Mia still wants to. She’s been talking about trying to move up to the A team next year, but she says even if she doesn’t, she’s happy where she is. I still stand in cold parking lots early in the morning, still forget snacks sometimes, still get stressed about scheduling around practice. But for my kid who used to quit everything the second it got hard, it’s been worth it. I don’t know if she’ll play in high school, or college, or even stick with it for more than another year. But right now, it’s working for us.
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