What Clothes to Buy for Your Middle School Volleyball Player: Practical Tips From a Parent
I’m leaning over a rack of neon compression shorts at 9 pm on a Tuesday, two days before my daughter Lila’s first 7th grade volleyball tryouts, and my phone won’t stop buzzing. The newly formed team parent group chat is blowing up with advice: You need at least three pairs of name-brand spandex. Don’t even think about using the school-issued knee pads, they’re garbage. The girls all need high-support sports bras that cost how much? I’m holding a $42 branded Nike sports bra in one hand and a crumpled list I scribbled at work in the other, and I’m starting to wonder how a simple after-school sport turned into a $300 shopping trip.
I’d assumed we just needed a clean t-shirt and her existing sneakers. I was wrong, of course, but I was also wrong to panic buy half the athletic department that night. By the end of that first season, I’d spent close to $200 and half the stuff I bought never got worn. Two seasons later, with Lila now a B team starter who practices four days a week, I’ve figured out what actually matters, what’s a waste of money, and how this whole shopping thing ties into those weird, awkward middle school growing pains no one talks about.
First, let’s talk about the basics that everyone overbuys: compression shorts or spandex. That first year I bought three $30 pairs of Nike spandex, because the group chat said so. Lila’s 5’2” and grew an inch and a half between August and January, so two of the three pairs were too small by Christmas. The other thing no one mentioned: most practices are after school, and kids do laundry once a week on average. Two pairs is enough, because even if they don’t want to wear the same pair two days in a row, you can wash them over the weekend. And you don’t need to pay name brand prices. I buy $14 pairs from Target’s All in Motion line, and they hold up just as well as the fancy ones. The only exception: if your kid wants one nice pair for game day, that’s fine. Get that one, and two cheaper ones for practice. Lila’s rule is that the game day pair has to be a fun print, which costs a few extra dollars, but it makes her happy, and that’s worth it.
Next up, knee pads. I made the mistake of buying the thickest, most expensive pair I could find that first year, figuring more padding meant less injury. Lila wore them twice, then complained they slipped down her thighs, gave her a heat rash, and got in the way when she dove for the ball. Turns out middle school volleyball is played on polished wood gym floors, not rough outdoor concrete. You don’t need heavy-duty padding. The most popular pair among Lila and her teammates is a thin, mid-rise pair with a rubber non-slip strip at the top, that costs around $18. The only tip here is to size up one size if your kid is still growing—they’ll stay up longer, and even if they’re a little loose at first, a thick pair of socks fixes that.
Practice shirts are another easy place to waste money. Most middle schools require you to buy the official team jersey for games anyway, so you don’t need any fancy game day tops. All you need is three plain moisture-wicking t-shirts for practice. Skip the cotton—cotton gets soaked through with sweat in 15 minutes, gets heavy, and stays cold for the rest of practice. I buy three $8 plain moisture-wicking tees from Walmart every season, and Lila cuts the necklines herself if they’re too tight. Letting her adjust the clothes the way she wants cost me nothing, and it gave her a little sense of control over the whole process, which matters a lot when you’re 12 and walking into a tryout full of girls you don’t know.
Sports bras are another spot where it’s easy to overspend or buy the wrong fit. Lila was just starting to need more support when she joined the team, and I bought her a too-tight compression bra that gave her a headache by the end of the first two-hour practice. What worked for us was taking 10 minutes to get a free fitting at the local department store, even though Lila thought it was awkward at first. We got two well-fitting, supportive racerback bras for $25 each, instead of one $50 fancy one that didn’t fit right. Racerbacks don’t dig into shoulders when blocking or hitting, which is a small detail that makes a big difference, and buying two means you never have to rush to wash one before practice.
The big-ticket item is volleyball shoes, and it’s worth spending a little here, but not $120 on the top-of-the-line pair. Regular running sneakers don’t have the right grip for wood gym floors, and Lila twisted her ankle slightly the first week when she slipped trying to block a shot. But you can get a perfectly good pair of entry-level volleyball shoes for $50 to $60. Size up half a size, so they can wear thicker socks if they’re a little loose at first, and you’ll get a full season out of them even with growth spurts. Stick with moisture-wicking ankle socks, too—crew socks bunch up under knee pads and drive kids crazy.
What I didn’t expect when I started this whole process was how much of it wasn’t about the clothes. Middle schoolers are at that age where they care a lot about what their peers think, and Lila first asked for all name-brand everything because the older girls on the team had it. I almost caved, because I didn’t want her to feel out of place. Instead, we sat down with a budget: I gave her $100 total to spend on whatever she wanted, after we got the basics. She ended up picking one name-brand pair of spandex and the rest cheaper basics, and she was just as happy. It turned out, what she really wanted was a say in what she bought, not a closet full of fancy stuff.
This year, we went shopping last week, and we walked out of Target with everything she needs for under $120. I still see new parents panicking in the group chat, just like I did that first night. I don’t flood the chat with advice, but if someone DMs me, I tell them what I tell everyone: buy for right now, because your kid will be a whole new size by next season. Skip all the extra stuff people swear you need. Let your kid pick what feels good to them, because they’re the one running around the gym for two hours a day.
We still have a bag of barely worn fancy spandex and that first pair of too-thick knee pads in the back of our closet, waiting for my cousin’s daughter to try out next year. It’s not the clothes that make a good volleyball player, obviously. But having clothes that fit, don’t chafe, and feel like you makes showing up to practice a whole lot less scary. That’s the part no one tells you when you’re standing in the athletic aisle at 9 pm, panicking about the list.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » What Clothes to Buy for Your Middle School Volleyball Player: Practical Tips From a Parent