Introducing Kids to Club Volleyball: What I Learned From My 12-Year-Old’s First Season
The coffee sloshed out of my reusable mug onto my gray sweatshirt as I pulled into the potholed parking lot of the rec center at 7 a.m. last September. My 12-year-old Lila, who’d spent the entire previous month complaining that rec league volleyball was “too chill, no one even tries to get better,” was folded into the backseat, headphones in, refusing to move. “What if I suck?” she mumbled when I pulled them out. “What if all the other girls have been playing together for years and I’m the only new person?” I’d spent the week scrolling through message boards full of parents talking about thousand-dollar club fees and overbearing coaches, and I’ll admit I was wondering the same thing. But I’d promised her we’d try the open trial, so I handed her a crumpled pack of wet wipes for her arms and nudged her out of the car.
The gym smelled like old rubber floor mats and cherry Gatorade, just like every gym I’d ever been in. Most of the girls were already warmed up, wearing matching club warmups with logos printed on the chest. Lila’s shirt was a hand-me-down rec league one with a hole at the elbow that she’d refused to replace. The coach waved her over, she tucked her hair behind her ears and jogged over, and I went to sit on the bleachers with the other parents. A woman next to me leaned over and said her daughter had tried three different clubs before finding the right fit, which I hadn’t even considered— I thought you picked one and you were stuck.
The first week, Lila came home with purple bruises all over her forearms from passing, and fell asleep on the couch before dinner. She replayed her bad serve over and over that night, saying she’d messed up every single one in front of the whole team. I half expected her to say she wanted to quit the next day. But the next morning, she was already packing her duffel for the next practice. A month in, she made the second tier travel team for the season, which meant we only traveled 45 minutes for tournaments instead of three hours, which was fine by both of us. After our first tournament, she sat in the car eating cold McDonald’s fries after a 9-2 loss, and told me that when she shanked a match point serve, none of the girls sighed or rolled their eyes. They just huddled around her and said “next point, Lila.” That’s when I realized I’d been thinking about club volleyball all wrong.
A lot of parents I talk to assume club volleyball is only for kids who want to play college sports or have parents with tons of extra money and time. That’s what I thought too, before we tried it. But there are a few small things I figured out that I wish someone had told me before we started. First, almost every local club offers free or low-cost open trials before official tryouts, so you don’t have to commit to a full season or pay any large fees just to see if your kid likes it. I almost filled out the full year registration form online before I called the club and they told me to just show up to the trial for $10, no strings attached. That’s an easy first step that takes all the pressure off both you and your kid. Second, don’t buy all the fancy gear right away. Lila begged me for a pair of $140 name-brand volleyball shoes the week before the first practice. I told her we’d wait a month. If she still wanted to keep going after 30 days of practice, we’d buy the shoes. If she quit, we weren’t out all that money for something she’d never use again. She ended up using my old cross-training shoes for the first month, and by the time we bought the new ones, she was sure this was something she wanted. Third, build in a guilt-free out for busy or tired weeks. We have a simple rule: Lila can skip one practice a month, no questions asked. If she has a big math test, or she’s just exhausted from a long week of school, she can stay home. We don’t fight about it, and she doesn’t have to make up a bunch of extra work. That keeps it from feeling like another chore tacked onto an already busy schedule.
I’ve noticed small changes off the court, too. Lila started middle school this year, and we moved halfway through last year, so she’s still making friends. Before club, she’d come home upset every time she messed up a presentation in class, and she’d refuse to speak up again for weeks. Now, last month she got a C on her first algebra test, and she just shrugged and said “I messed up the first half, I’ll study more for the next one.” She said it’s just like serving—one bad serve doesn’t mean the whole game is over. That’s the kind of lesson that doesn’t stick when you talk about it at the kitchen table. It sticks when she lives it every practice.
It’s not all perfect, of course. We gave up our weekly Friday pizza and movie nights to make it to practice, and some Saturdays I spend four hours sitting on bleachers reading a book because we can’t leave between matches. Last month, Lila got in a fight with one of her teammates over who got to play which position, and she came home crying saying she didn’t want to go back. I reminded her she had a free skip that month, but she decided to go to the next practice anyway, and they worked it out on their own. It’s messy, some weeks it feels like more hassle than it’s worth.
This month, we’re heading to our first regional tournament, and Lila’s the backup setter, so she won’t play much in the early rounds. She’s already talking about trying out again next year, even if she doesn’t move up to the first team. People ask me all the time if club volleyball is worth the hassle, and I don’t have a neat yes or no answer. It works for us right now, but that doesn’t mean it’ll work forever. If your kid’s been bugging you to try it, you don’t have to plan for a four-year commitment or drop a thousand dollars upfront. Just find a local trial, show up, and see what happens. That’s all any of us can do, right?
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