Why and How to Introduce Your Kid to Club Volleyball: A Parent’s Real Experience
6 a.m. on a rainy Saturday in October, I sat in my parked car outside the local middle school gym, wiping decaf coffee off my jeans and listening to my 12-year-old daughter Lila twist her neon pink knee pad back and forth in her lap. She’d finished one season of rec volleyball a month earlier, and spent the entire car ride home from the final game saying she never wanted to play again. Half her team spent practice chasing each other around the court instead of running drills, and the coach never bothered to teach anyone how to serve overhand. But a week later, she brought home a flyer for a beginner club volleyball team and asked if she could try out. I’d had the same thought every parent has when they hear “club volleyball”: Isn’t that for really serious kids? Isn’t it expensive? Doesn’t it take over every single weekend?
I went into it assuming I’d be turning her down, but I figured one tryout couldn’t hurt. I’d heard so many horror stories from other parents: screaming coaches, parents fighting in the bleachers, $5,000 annual fees that go toward out-of-state tournaments. But when I walked in, the tryout was nothing like that. The coach was a high school math teacher who’d been coaching beginner club for 10 years, she greeted every kid by name before we even started. She split them into small groups, and when Lila messed up her first three passes, she just walked over, adjusted her arm position, and told her to try again. No yelling, no pulling her aside to embarrass her in front of everyone. By the end of the two-hour tryout, Lila was red-faced and grinning, and she dove for a ball that had already gone out of bounds just because she wanted to try.
That’s when I realized I’d had it all wrong. Most people only hear about the elite national clubs that compete for college scholarships, but almost every area has local recreational club divisions for kids who just want to play more than they do in rec league. I’d spent weeks scrolling through club websites panicking about cost, until the coach told me their beginner division was $350 for the whole season, that includes all practices and local tournaments, no extra travel fees unless you choose to go to out-of-state ones. That’s less than we spent on Lila’s gymnastics classes a year before, which she quit after three months.
I made a few small mistakes at the start that other parents can avoid, honestly. First, I almost bought all the fancy gear right away: a custom volleyball, new athletic shoes, a branded team bag. The coach told me to hold off. We borrowed a pair of knee pads from a neighbor whose kid had outgrown hers, bought a basic $30 volleyball from Target, and used the backpack Lila already had for school. We only bought the branded gear after she’d been there a month and said she wanted to stick with it. Second, I didn’t know you could do a trial before committing. Most beginner clubs offer a 2-week trial for $20 or less, so your kid can see if they like the practice schedule and the team before you pay the full fee. If they hate it, you’re out 20 bucks, not thousands. Third, always ask the coach what their priority is for new kids before you sign. If they start talking about tournament rankings and college scholarships right away, that’s not the team for a kid trying club for the first time. Our coach said her main goal is that every kid leaves the season wanting to come back next year, which was exactly what I wanted to hear.
It hasn’t been all smooth. Lila forgot her knee pads twice in the first month, and I had to drive 20 minutes back home to get them, making us late. One Saturday in January, we drove an hour to an away tournament, and Lila got motion sick halfway there, and we almost missed her first game. She came off the court crying once after she missed the final serve that would have won their game, and I almost told her we could quit right then if she wanted. But before I could say anything, her two teammates came over and put their arms around her and said it was their fault for missing the passes before, and they’d get it next time. That’s something I never saw in rec league. Everyone was so focused on not hurting feelings that no one ever actually had to work through a loss together.
Last month, Lila’s team took 4th place out of 6 teams at their end-of-season tournament. They didn’t get medals, just small participation ribbons. After the game, the whole team went out for ice cream at the little dairy bar down the road from the gym, and Lila got a vanilla sundae with rainbow sprinkles, and showed me the braided friendship bracelet her team captain made her. On the drive home, she said it was the best season of any sport she’d ever played.
We’re signing up for next season, and Lila wants to move up to the slightly more competitive division. I’m a little nervous about the extra practices and the longer travel for some tournaments, but we’re going to try it. Some Saturdays I still drag myself out of bed at 5:30 a.m. and grumble about how I could be sleeping in or drinking coffee on my porch instead of sitting on cold bleachers for three hours. But I also know that Lila’s learned more about showing up for a team, handling messing up, and pushing herself a little harder than she ever did when everything was easy and low-stakes.
We don’t know if she’ll stick with it through high school, or if she’ll quit next year and want to take up painting instead. That’s fine. If you’ve got a kid who’s curious about club volleyball, you don’t have to have it all figured out, or plan for a college athletic career, to give it a try. You just have to go to the first tryout, and see what happens.
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