Why and How to Introduce Your Kid to Club Volleyball: A Parent’s Real Experience
Rainy Saturday last March, I pulled into the gravel parking lot of the community gym at 8 a.m., bad gas station coffee sloshing in my cup, and my 12-year-old Lila picking at a crumbly blueberry granola bar in the passenger seat. She’d spent the fall playing rec volleyball at the city park, and her rec coach had sent out an email inviting kids to local club tryouts. I’d spent the week before scrolling through parent forums, panicking: I’d heard club volleyball was for rich, hyper-competitive families, that it cost thousands, took every weekend, and chewed up kids who weren’t already prodigies. But Lila had begged to go, so I’d signed her up.
The gym smelled like old rubber floor and warm Gatorade. There were 28 kids her age stretching at one end, and a line of parents pressed against the opposite wall, most of them quiet, scrolling through work emails. I overheard one woman behind me say her daughter had been playing club for three years, and they spent almost $5,000 a year on fees and travel. I tucked my credit card back into my wallet and mentally started planning how I’d tell Lila it just wasn’t in the cards if she made the team.
She went in, tied her neon pink hair up, and I watched from the sidelines. She wasn’t the best. She tripped over her own feet during a footwork drill, missed three overhand passes in a row, and when the coach lined everyone up for spike practice, hers hit the net every time. But when they split into scrimmages, I noticed something different. Every time someone on her team got a point, she cheered so loud I could hear her across the gym. When someone messed up, she patted them on the back before they could even get upset. And she was smiling the whole hour. At the end, when she walked out, her shirt was soaked through with sweat, and she said, “That was way more fun than rec. Can I do it?”
I didn’t know it then, but I’d bought into the biggest myth about club volleyball: that it’s only for elite kids gunning for college scholarships. Over the past six months, I’ve learned there’s a whole middle ground for kids who just like playing more than the once-a-week rec league offers, and it’s way more accessible than I thought.
First, I had no idea most clubs have multiple tiers of teams. We ended up joining a local club that has a developmental team for new players, instead of the top travel team that flies to out-of-state tournaments every month. Our team meets once a week for two hours after school, and we only have one tournament a month, all within an hour and a half of home. The full season fee is a third of what the elite team costs, and the club let me split it into eight monthly payments instead of making me pay it all up front. That’s the first thing I tell other parents now: ask about developmental or entry-level teams before you rule club out entirely. Most clubs want more kids playing the sport, they don’t just cater to the top 10% of players.
The second trick I stumbled on is don’t buy all new gear right away. I almost dropped $100 on new shoes and kneepads before I thought to check the local club volleyball parent Facebook group. I got a barely used pair of name-brand volleyball shoes for $25, and a set of kneepads for $5. If Lila decides to quit next year, I haven’t lost hundreds of dollars on stuff that’ll just sit in the back of the closet. Most clubs also let you do a two-week trial before you pay any fees, so you can test it out and see if your kid likes it before you commit any money.
It’s not all perfect. Last month, we had a tournament on a Saturday morning when Lila had a history test the next day. She studied flash cards in the car between matches, and still got a B, which was fine, but I worried for a week it would drag down her grade. Sometimes she comes home sore and grumpy, and says practice was stupid and she never wants to go back. But what I’ve noticed that I didn’t expect is she’s gotten better at managing her own time. She knows if she doesn’t finish her homework before practice on Tuesdays, she has to stay up late to get it done, so she’s stopped scrolling TikTok for an hour after school before starting her work. That’s a side effect I never saw coming.
I also caught myself early on asking her “how did you play?” the second she walked out of the gym. It made her tense up right away, because she knew I was asking if she’d been good enough, if the coach liked her. Now I always ask first “what was the silliest thing that happened at practice today?” That gets her talking, and it shifts the focus from how good she is to whether she had fun. If she wants to talk about messing up a play, or how the coach gave her a new tip, she will, but she doesn’t feel like I’m judging her performance before she even says hello.
We’re halfway through the season now, and I don’t know if Lila will want to play again next year. Some weeks she can’t wait for Tuesday practice, and other weeks she says she’d rather stay home and draw. I let her skip once when she had a really bad headache mid-season, no guilt, no lecture about sticking with commitments. It doesn’t have to be forever, and it doesn’t have to lead to a college scholarship or a trophy. For right now, it’s just her thing: a place where she gets to run around, laugh with friends from three different middle schools, and mess up without anyone caring if she’s the best. I was scared to try it, but I’m glad we did.
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