Why and How to Introduce Your Kid to Club Volleyball: A Parent’s Real Experience
It was 10 minutes until 12U club volleyball open tryouts last January, and my 12-year-old Lila was picking chipped light blue nail polish off her thumb in the cold bleachers of our local YMCA. I’d spent the week scrolling parent forums, panicking over everything I’d read: club volleyball is only for future college players, it’ll cost a thousand dollars minimum before the first tournament, it’ll turn fun into a chore. I’d already half-convinced myself we’d leave after 10 minutes and go get milkshakes instead.
The mom next to me heard me muttering about the cost, laughed, and said her kid was in her second year on a developmental team, and it was cheaper than the private soccer lessons her older son had taken. I relaxed a little, but Lila still wouldn’t talk to me, just stared at the other girls stretching on the court. None of them knew her; she’d only ever played rec league soccer before, and she’d quit that a few months prior because she said it was “the same thing every week.”
When tryouts ended, she came out, hair matted to her neck, socks slipping down her ankles, grinning. She said the coach let her try setting even when she dropped the ball three times in a row, and a girl on the tryout team shared her extra water when Lila forgot hers. I was surprised. I thought she’d hate being the newbie.
I think a lot of parents hold off on introducing their kids to club sports like volleyball because of all the scary rumors. I know I did. I assumed you had to have years of experience, a huge budget, and a kid that lives and breathes sports just to walk in the door. What I learned is, most local clubs have entire divisions for brand new players, and you don’t have to jump in all at once. The first thing I’d tell any parent considering this is: start with a trial, not a full season. Almost every club I looked at after that first tryout offers $10 to $20 one-off open play sessions or a two-week trial for new players, so you don’t have to commit thousands of dollars before you know if your kid even likes it. When we signed Lila up, we only paid for the first three months of practice, not the entire season, just in case.
Another thing people don’t tell you is you don’t need all the top gear right away. I saw a lot of parents at that first tryout with $80 custom kneepads and $100 professional volleyballs, but I checked the club’s parent Facebook group and got a barely used pair of kneepads for $10, and the coach let Lila borrow a practice ball for the first month. We didn’t buy the custom team hoodie or the fancy branded volleyball bag until she’d been playing for three months and said she wanted to keep going. That saved us almost $200 upfront, and took the pressure off if she decided to quit a few weeks in.
The first two months were messy. She forgot her water bottle twice, tripped over her own feet during practice in front of everyone, and came home crying after her first tournament because she only got to play two sets the whole day. We sat on the porch after, eating popsicles, and I didn’t tell her she needed to work harder or that she’d get more playing time next time. I just asked her three straight questions: do you want to quit, do you want to switch to a team that’s just for people who play for fun, or do you want to stay on this team even if you don’t play much right now? She thought for a minute, twisting her popsicle stick between her fingers, and said she still liked going to practice because the other girls let her sit with them at snack time, and she liked the feeling when she finally got a serve over the net. So she stayed.
I started noticing small changes at school, too. Lila has always been the kind of kid who shuts down if she gets a bad grade, convinced she’s just bad at the subject. A few months into volleyball, she brought home a C on a math test, and instead of crumpling it up and hiding it in her backpack, she shrugged and said “I messed up ten serves in a row at practice last week. I’ll just practice the problems more next time.” That’s the thing no one talks about with club volleyball for new kids: it’s not about getting a college scholarship. It’s about learning how to mess up in front of people and keep going, how to be the newbie and not hate it.
I was also worried about practice taking over homework and family time. We worked out a simple rule that works for us: any homework due the next day gets done before practice. If we don’t have time after school, she does it in the car on the 20 minute drive to the gym, which works fine for most worksheets and reading assignments. We also told the coach from the start that Lila does art club one afternoon a week and we want to keep one weekend day free for family dinners and her friends’ birthday parties, so we skip one practice a week and one tournament a month. Most coaches for developmental teams are fine with that; they know new players have other interests, they just want kids who show up when they can.
It’s been almost 10 months now. Lila still isn’t the best player on her team. She still double hits the ball more often than not, and her serve only goes over the net about half the time. Last week we started looking at teams for next season, and she said she doesn’t want to move up to the more competitive division, even though the coach asked her. She wants to stay on the developmental team, keep doing art club, and keep having free time to ride bikes with her friends on weekends.
We don’t know if she’ll play volleyball in high school, or if she’ll quit next year. That’s okay. For right now, it’s something she likes that gets her off her phone, gets her working with other kids, and teaches her small things she doesn’t get from math class or art club. If you’ve been thinking about introducing your kid to club volleyball but are scared of all the hype, I’d say just go to one open trial. You don’t have to commit to anything more than that.
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