What to Expect When You Introduce Your Kid to Club Volleyball: A Parent’s Real Experience
The Saturday of my 12-year-old Lila’s first club volleyball tryout found us parked at a gas station off the highway, 10 minutes late, me digging crumpled dollar bills out of my cupholder while she sucked on a blue raspberry slushie that was already dripping down her wrist. She’d quit rec soccer three months earlier, declaring that “no one cares if we win or try, it’s just running around for an hour,” and had spent the rest of the summer camped on the couch scrolling TikTok, refusing all my suggestions for new activities. My coworker whose daughter played had begged me to bring her to the open tryout, so I’d caved, already mentally writing off the $20 tryout fee as another lost cause.
I sat in the bleachers with the other parents while the girls worked out, most of them chatting about regional out-of-state tournaments and brand-new club gear. I checked my work email, half-planning to slip out for a coffee before it ended, and waited for the text that Lila wanted to leave early. When they let parents in for the final 10 minutes of scrimmage, I leaned forward surprised. Lila was jumping higher than I’d ever seen her move, laughing when she shanked a hit into the bleachers, and high-fiving every other girl on her side of the net even when they missed. When she got in the car after, she wiped sweat off her forehead and said, “I want to do this. I don’t care if I don’t make the top team.”
I’d always heard club volleyball was this hyper-intense world of overbearing parents and burnout, where only the most talented, most privileged kids survive. What I’ve learned over the last eight months is that it can also be a really good fit for kids who’ve outgrown the anything-goes vibe of rec sports, but don’t have designs on a college scholarship. It’s not for every kid, of course, but there are small, low-friction ways to test it out that don’t require breaking the bank or committing to years of your weekends.
The first thing I tell other parents asking about it is to skip the fancy gear at first. I see so many new parents dropping hundreds on custom branded knee pads, signature volleyball shoes, and monogrammed equipment bags before their kid even knows if they’ll show up to practice after the first month. I bought Lila a $15 pair of basic neoprene knee pads from Target, got a used team bag from an older player on Facebook Marketplace for $10, and borrowed a practice ball from the club for the first three months. She still uses that original pair of knee pads, even with a small hole in the side, because she’s used to how they fit. She outgrew her first pair of athletic shoes six months in anyway, so dropping big money upfront would have just been a waste.
The second thing is to start small, even if your kid is athletic. Most clubs have development teams for new players that only do local tournaments within an hour’s drive, practice twice a week instead of four, and cost a fraction of the elite travel teams. Our team’s season fee is $325, which includes all practice time and tournament entry, a far cry from the $2,000+ I was expecting for club sports. If Lila decides she loves it next year, she can try out for a higher-level team. If she quits, we haven’t lost thousands of dollars or half our year’s vacation time to out-of-state tournaments.
Before we signed the forms, I sat down with Lila and pulled up the full team calendar on my laptop. We counted every practice and tournament, and wrote down the things she’d have to miss: one after-school art club meeting a month, the occasional birthday party on a tournament weekend. We worked out a trade: she could skip one practice a month if she had a big school event, and she was okay with giving up some weekend time. I didn’t just sign her up and tell her she had to follow the schedule; that’s the mistake I see most parents make, and it’s why so many kids end up resenting the sport before they even give it a chance.
It hasn’t been all smooth. Last month, we spent an eight-hour day at a local tournament, and Lila only got 10 minutes of total play time across two sets. She cried into her cheesy gordita crunch in the fast food parking lot on the way home, saying she wanted to quit. I didn’t march into the gym to yell at the coach, and I didn’t tell her she was the best player and the coach was wrong. I just asked her if she still wanted more play time, and if so, what she thought she could work on. She wiped her eyes and said the other girl who played her position was better at digging low balls, so that’s why she got more time.
We started going to the park near our house for 15 minutes after dinner three nights a week. I toss the ball at the ground for her to dig, and we joke about how bad my tosses are. Last weekend, she played three full sets at our most recent tournament, and even dug three hard hits that won our team two points. She still complains about practice on school nights when she has homework to finish, and she still forgets her water bottle half the time.
This weekend, we have to leave the house at 6 a.m. for a tournament two hours away, and I still need to pack granola bars and extra hair ties. I don’t know if she’ll still want to play next year, and I’m okay with that. A lot of parents act like introducing your kid to club volleyball is either going to land them a college scholarship or ruin their love of sports forever. I think it’s just something to try, if your kid is curious. It doesn’t have to be forever, it just has to be something they do right now that makes them come home sore, hungry, and talking over dinner about the silly thing their teammate said in the huddle. That’s enough for me.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » What to Expect When You Introduce Your Kid to Club Volleyball: A Parent’s Real Experience