Why and How to Introduce Your Kid to Club Volleyball: A Parent’s Real Experience
Last April, I was folding a mountain of my 12-year-old Lila’s middle school gym clothes when she flopped down next to me on the couch, phone held out in my face. Her friend Mia from fall rec volleyball was trying out for a local club team, she said, and she wanted to sign up too. I paused mid-sock fold, already mentally calculating how much this would cost, how many weekends it would take away from our regular weekend hikes and my monthly book club. All I’d ever heard about club volleyball was that it was for hyper-competitive parents and kids gunning for college scholarships, not my quiet kid who’d only been playing for a year.
I texted a coworker whose older daughter had played club a few years back to ask what I was getting into, and she surprised me. She said most local clubs have entry-level teams for new players, not just elite athletes who’ve been playing since elementary school. She sent me the contact info for the director of a club 20 minutes from our house, and I called, half expecting him to tell me Lila was too new to bother. Instead, he invited us to a free open practice a week later, no commitment, no pressure to try out if she hated it.
That first open practice was messy. Lila forgot her knee pads at home, and I was ready to turn around and leave, but the director pointed to a big bin of used gear by the front desk—donations from older kids who’d outgrown them. Lila borrowed a pair that was a half-size too big, tied the straps tighter with a spare hair tie from her backpack, and headed onto the court. I sat in the parent lobby with a half-dozen other parents, all of us scrolling on our phones while our kids ran drills. One mom told me her son had been on the entry-level team for two years, and he’d never once gone to an out-of-state tournament. It was just extra playing time for kids who liked the game more than rec league could give them.
When Lila came out after an hour, her face was bright red, her socks were covered in dust, and she couldn’t stop talking about how much fun she’d had. In rec league, she said, they spent 10 minutes waiting in line just to hit the ball once. In that practice, she’d hit 20 serves in a row. She wanted to sign up for tryouts. I agreed, even though my stomach twisted a little thinking about the cost. She made the entry-level B team, and the total fee for the 8-month season was $700—way less than the $5,000 I’d braced for. Two practices a week after school, one local tournament a month at a high school gym 30 minutes away, no out-of-state travel required.
The first month was chaotic. Lila forgot her knee pads twice, I had to leave work early to drop them off, and she stayed up till 10pm cramming homework the night before it was due three weeks in a row. Instead of nagging her about it, I picked up a $5 dry-erase whiteboard from Target and hung it by the fridge. Now, every Sunday after dinner, we spend five minutes writing down that week’s practice times, tournament dates, and any gear she’ll need. She checks off each item the night before, and after a month, she started doing that part on her own. She shifted most of her homework to study hall and her off-practice days, because she figured out fast that she doesn’t have time to scroll TikTok for an hour after school if she needs to leave for practice in 45 minutes. I don’t nag her about homework anymore, which is the quiet win I never expected.
Lila has always been the shy kid who eats lunch with the same two friends and never raises her hand in class. What surprised me most was how quickly she fit in with the team. After the first tournament, she asked if three of her teammates could come over for pizza on the way home. Now they text each other silly memes between classes, and she spends half her free time on FaceTime going over new plays with her setter. Last month, her team lost the first three games of a tournament, and instead of sitting on the bench crying like she would have done a year ago when things went wrong, she gathered the team in a huddle and said, “We didn’t drive all this way to be grumpy. Let’s just have fun with the next one.” I was standing by the gym fence watching, and I didn’t even know she had that in her.
The biggest piece I can pass along to other parents considering this is that club doesn’t have to be all or nothing. A lot of us assume it’s 100% commitment or you shouldn’t bother, but our coach doesn’t bat an eye if a kid misses practice for a school play or a family trip. We had a camping trip planned back in October that overlapped with a tournament, I told Lila she could choose whatever she wanted, she picked camping, and the coach just said “Have fun, we’ll see you next week.” No drama, no threats of benching, no guilt. If cost is a barrier, just ask. I was too embarrassed to bring it up at first, but almost every entry-level club offers payment plans and need-based discounts they don’t advertise on their website. We split our fee into three monthly payments, which made it way easier to manage. And don’t buy a bunch of fancy gear upfront. Borrow from the club’s bin until you know your kid will stick with it, then buy basics as you go.
It’s almost the end of the first season now, and Lila says she wants to come back next year. I still don’t know if that’s what she’ll want. Maybe next year she’ll get into the school art club or decide she likes cross country better, and that’s fine. Even if she quits after this year, it wasn’t a waste of time or money. She didn’t get a college scholarship out of it, she didn’t become a star player. She just learned how to set her own alarm for 7am on Saturdays, how to work through a bad game with a team, how to fit the things she loves into a busy week. This weekend we have our last tournament, and I’m bringing folding chairs and a cooler of lemonade, and I’m just going to sit and watch. I don’t care if they win.
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