Introducing Your Kid to Club Volleyball: What I Learned After My Daughter’s First Season
6 a.m. and the gym parking lot is already half full. I pull into a spot closest to the door, and my coffee sloshes over the edge of the travel mug, soaking the thigh of my gray sweatpants. My 12-year-old Lila blinks awake in the passenger seat, her new knee pads digging into her side where she stuffed them in her backpack. “What if I’m terrible?” she says, picking at a loose thread on her practice shirt. I tell her that’s the point of practice, but I’m thinking the same thing. We’d only done rec volleyball before, and everything I’d heard about club made it sound like a whole different, way more intense world.
We got here because after rec season ended, Lila kept dragging her volleyball to the kitchen while I made dinner, bouncing it off the wall when I wasn’t looking, and kept asking if there was a way to play more than just three months a year. I’d been putting it off because I’d seen the Facebook threads: parents complaining about $1,000 season fees, tournaments three hours away every other weekend, coaches yelling at 11-year-olds for missing a serve. I didn’t want to turn a fun hobby into something that stressed all of us out. But Lila kept asking, so I looked up local clubs, and found one that had a four-week trial for new players, no full commitment required. That sold me, so we signed up.
When we walked into that first practice, the gym smelled like rubber floor wax and old socks, and the coach was a part-time high school PE teacher who’d played college ball a few years back. He came over and introduced himself to Lila, didn’t care that she couldn’t pass a ball into the marked target the first 20 tries. I sat in the cold bleachers next to Karen, another parent whose daughter was in her second season, and she told me eight out of 10 first-year kids can barely get a serve over the net. The division we joined was for new players, and they didn’t even keep score for the first half of the season. That’s when I realized I’d been picturing the wrong version of club volleyball—most clubs don’t shove new kids straight into cutthroat competitive teams.
Our first tournament was two hours away, a full Saturday of back-to-back games. Lila’s team made it to the final match of the first bracket, and with two points left to win, Lila got a perfect set right at the net. She jumped to hit, and smacked it straight into the net. Game over. She walked off the court, eyes shiny, and sat on the end of the bench away from everyone. Before I could even climb down from the bleachers to talk to her, the 13-year-old team captain sat down next to her, pulled a sour watermelon candy out of her bag, and handed it over. “I did the exact same thing at my first tournament,” she said. “I still think about it sometimes. It’s fine, we get ‘em next time.” That’s the part I never expected: the kids don’t just learn how to bump and set. They learn how to lose and how to comfort each other, stuff I can’t really teach her sitting at our kitchen table.
It’s changed our everyday routine in small, mostly good ways. Lila has practice every Wednesday night from 6 to 8, so she has to finish her homework before we leave, instead of dragging it out until after dinner like she used to. At first she complained, but now she just does her math and reading in the 20-minute car ride if she has to, and she stopped staying up scrolling TikTok until 10 p.m. most nights. I don’t have to nag her half as much as I used to about getting work done—she knows if it’s not done, she can’t go to practice.
It’s not all smooth, of course. Last month, Lila missed practice to go to her grandma’s 70th birthday, which we’d planned months before the club released the practice schedule. The coach benched her for the whole next tournament. Lila cried in the car after we got the email, said it wasn’t fair. I asked her what she thought was more important: being at grandma’s birthday or playing in the tournament. She said grandma’s, so she just had to sit that one out. She cheered on her team the whole day, and by the time we drove home, she’d already moved on.
When other parents ask me if they should introduce their kid to club volleyball, I don’t give them some big speech about it building character. I just tell them the small, practical things I wish someone had told me before we started. First, always take the trial first. Don’t sign a full year contract right off the bat. Most clubs offer trials for $50 to $100, which is a tiny fraction of the full season cost, so if your kid hates it, you’re not out hundreds of dollars. Second, don’t let anyone pressure you into the top competitive division your first season. Developmental teams for new players play fewer tournaments, focus on skill building instead of winning, and usually cost 30 to 40% less than the top tiers. Third, don’t feel like you have to stay and watch every minute of practice. I sat through the whole first month hovering in the bleachers, and I noticed Lila kept glancing over at me every time she messed up. Once I started leaving 15 minutes in to run errands or get coffee, and just came back at the end, she relaxed way more. Most clubs allow that, and it takes pressure off both of you. Fourth, ask about payment plans or scholarships if cost is a concern. I was shocked when our club let me split the full fee into nine monthly payments with no extra interest, which made it way easier to fit into our budget than paying all at once. A lot of clubs have need-based discounts too, you just have to ask.
Next week is our last tournament of the season. Some Sundays I still hit snooze three times when I have to drive an hour for a game, and I’ve had to reschedule more than one brunch with my sister because of a conflicting match. Lila still misses more serves than she makes, and she still forgets to pack her water bottle half the time. She says she wants to play again next year, and I think we’ll do it. I don’t know if she’ll end up playing in high school, or get a college spot, or any of the big things people talk about with club sports. Right now, it’s just something she likes doing, something that teaches her small, useful lessons she can’t get from a textbook. It’s not perfect, but it’s working for us right now.
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