Volleyball club- recap and thoughts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like there a Mean Girls like lot brewing between big volleyball clubs in this area. When did it become so dramatic? My daughter did one of the lesser clubs and had a horrible experience. Tried a few more clinics and then got over it. I’m glad- what a toxic sport. I think the coaches are the ones that make it so.

If you want the Ultimate Mean Girls Volleyball Experience go to a Mojo pre-tryout clinic and then the tryout. Mean Girls and Mean Girl Coaches make for meanest girls at tournaments, right down to intentionally unsportsmanlike behaviors during matches and tournaments.

DP and please elaborate. My daughter went to a pre tryout and liked it. She’s registered for tryouts. Other than the price being much higher than any other club, what do you mean?

[Anonymous]

*I mean the tryout price.

[Anonymous]

VA Elite posted their tryout schedule on IG. Was surprised to see the 18s tryouts footnoted as “Invitation Only”. Didn’t realize the CHRVA rules allowed for private tryouts, but this is actually allowed:https://cdn1.sportngin.com/attachments/document/0058/7505/CHRVA_Recruiting_Policy_FAQ_1_.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like there a Mean Girls like lot brewing between big volleyball clubs in this area. When did it become so dramatic? My daughter did one of the lesser clubs and had a horrible experience. Tried a few more clinics and then got over it. I’m glad- what a toxic sport. I think the coaches are the ones that make it so.

If you want the Ultimate Mean Girls Volleyball Experience go to a Mojo pre-tryout clinic and then the tryout. Mean Girls and Mean Girl Coaches make for meanest girls at tournaments, right down to intentionally unsportsmanlike behaviors during matches and tournaments.

I think you will find mean girls and cliques pretty much everywhere. And I don't mean just every volleyball club, but pretty much every sport. You will always have the girls with crop tops, fake eyelashes, and weekly manicure sessions believing that they are superior to those dressed more modestly and braving the world with their natural eyelashes and without nail polish. Our team had one of those cliques with the "cool" girls being very obvious in their disdain of the others in the team. They would not even put their hands around the other players as they were going to the middle of the court to celebrate a point (the same attitude was visible in the team pictures). They were pretty insufferable, but hopefully they will change as they age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like there a Mean Girls like lot brewing between big volleyball clubs in this area. When did it become so dramatic? My daughter did one of the lesser clubs and had a horrible experience. Tried a few more clinics and then got over it. I’m glad- what a toxic sport. I think the coaches are the ones that make it so.

If you want the Ultimate Mean Girls Volleyball Experience go to a Mojo pre-tryout clinic and then the tryout. Mean Girls and Mean Girl Coaches make for meanest girls at tournaments, right down to intentionally unsportsmanlike behaviors during matches and tournaments.

I think you will find mean girls and cliques pretty much everywhere. And I don't mean just every volleyball club, but pretty much every sport. You will always have the girls with crop tops, fake eyelashes, and weekly manicure sessions believing that they are superior to those dressed more modestly and braving the world with their natural eyelashes and without nail polish. Our team had one of those cliques with the "cool" girls being very obvious in their disdain of the others in the team. They would not even put their hands around the other players as they were going to the middle of the court to celebrate a point (the same attitude was visible in the team pictures). They were pretty insufferable, but hopefully they will change as they age.

+1

Unfortunately, cliques and "mean girls" are part of the pre-teen and teenage girl experience. It's definitely not unique to volleyball. Over the course of my DD's club volleyball experience she's played for several clubs and every team has had varying degrees of drama - mostly minor, temporary things, but on one occasion a club director had to intervene and get parents involved. I think it's human nature for a larger group to self divide into smaller groups and sometimes that results in conflict. Some coaches are better at managing it than others. A coach (regardless of sport) should be reinforcing the idea that the individuals on a team don't need to be friends, but they do need to be good teammates. And they should be very clear about what being a good teammate means. Refusing to high five certain players or not touching them in a huddle (if that's the team culture) is not acceptable and a coach should correct that behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like there a Mean Girls like lot brewing between big volleyball clubs in this area. When did it become so dramatic? My daughter did one of the lesser clubs and had a horrible experience. Tried a few more clinics and then got over it. I’m glad- what a toxic sport. I think the coaches are the ones that make it so.

If you want the Ultimate Mean Girls Volleyball Experience go to a Mojo pre-tryout clinic and then the tryout. Mean Girls and Mean Girl Coaches make for meanest girls at tournaments, right down to intentionally unsportsmanlike behaviors during matches and tournaments.

I think you will find mean girls and cliques pretty much everywhere. And I don't mean just every volleyball club, but pretty much every sport. You will always have the girls with crop tops, fake eyelashes, and weekly manicure sessions believing that they are superior to those dressed more modestly and braving the world with their natural eyelashes and without nail polish. Our team had one of those cliques with the "cool" girls being very obvious in their disdain of the others in the team. They would not even put their hands around the other players as they were going to the middle of the court to celebrate a point (the same attitude was visible in the team pictures). They were pretty insufferable, but hopefully they will change as they age.

You can wear crop tops and nail polish and not be a mean girl. I find this post offensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like there a Mean Girls like lot brewing between big volleyball clubs in this area. When did it become so dramatic? My daughter did one of the lesser clubs and had a horrible experience. Tried a few more clinics and then got over it. I’m glad- what a toxic sport. I think the coaches are the ones that make it so.

If you want the Ultimate Mean Girls Volleyball Experience go to a Mojo pre-tryout clinic and then the tryout. Mean Girls and Mean Girl Coaches make for meanest girls at tournaments, right down to intentionally unsportsmanlike behaviors during matches and tournaments.

I think you will find mean girls and cliques pretty much everywhere. And I don't mean just every volleyball club, but pretty much every sport. You will always have the girls with crop tops, fake eyelashes, and weekly manicure sessions believing that they are superior to those dressed more modestly and braving the world with their natural eyelashes and without nail polish. Our team had one of those cliques with the "cool" girls being very obvious in their disdain of the others in the team. They would not even put their hands around the other players as they were going to the middle of the court to celebrate a point (the same attitude was visible in the team pictures). They were pretty insufferable, but hopefully they will change as they age.

You can wear crop tops and nail polish and not be a mean girl. I find this post offensive.

How about crop tops, nail polish and fake eye lashes? Kidding aside, you are too easily offended and you should toughen up. I should not really care that you got offended for nothing, but here is a reading lesson: nothing in the original post implied that ALL the girls with crop tops, fake eyelashes, and weekly manicure sessions believe they are better. You probably know that a lot of them do look down on the "general population", but you decided to get offended because getting offended is so fashionable these days.

[Anonymous]

Hi! Anyone have thoughts on Monument or BRYC American & National teams? Any feedback on training environment, coaches, team vibe, etc. would be helpful. Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like there a Mean Girls like lot brewing between big volleyball clubs in this area. When did it become so dramatic? My daughter did one of the lesser clubs and had a horrible experience. Tried a few more clinics and then got over it. I’m glad- what a toxic sport. I think the coaches are the ones that make it so.

If you want the Ultimate Mean Girls Volleyball Experience go to a Mojo pre-tryout clinic and then the tryout. Mean Girls and Mean Girl Coaches make for meanest girls at tournaments, right down to intentionally unsportsmanlike behaviors during matches and tournaments.

DP and please elaborate. My daughter went to a pre tryout and liked it. She’s registered for tryouts. Other than the price being much higher than any other club, what do you mean?

Not the PP, but we have seen the same cliquey mean girl crap with certain Mojo teams and coaches. I have personally seen unsportsmanlike behavior from some of their players and coaches. At one tournament, the Mojo girls were not taking their turn at scoring seriously - mocking the opposing teams (pointing and laughing at players making mistakes or errors, eating, checking phones) and worst of all missing score keeping points in the process. When the coach of one playing team, as well as parents, pointed out the several-point errors in their scoring, instead of apologizing and fixing it and taking it more seriously the Mojo girls continued to more dramatically eat/check phones, point, sneer and smirk at the parents and other coaches and continued their mocking and laughing about it. Even worse, at one point the Mojo coach joined in laughing with them and apparently thought it was funny that the playing teams coaches were upset by this.

It was very unprofessional. To the contrary, my DD’s team was taught by coaches to take line judging and score keeping very seriously- a job. They don’t eat, don’t use phones, certainly don’t giggle and mock the teams/players on the court. They act professionally and make sure things are accurate. If their coach saw them behaving any differently those girls would be sitting out the next match.

My daughter will not try out for Mojo bc of this. Some of the Mojo players also acted similarly off the court during HS season. Showboating to losing team, sneering, etc.

We have seen teams like paramount and metro travel crush lower ranked teams and they never ever act so unprofessionally toward their opponents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like NVVA is looking for a volleyball director. I see many local volleyball folks on here, so perhaps some interest... Just passing it along.

https://www.nvvacareers.com/volleyball-director

Does anybody know what happened at NVVA over the past few years? Looking at the historicals, it seems like their club teams were generally doing well only 2-3 yrs ago, but they don't even show up on AES last year.

My understanding is that several years ago NVVA was disqualified from CHRVA bc they made at least one offer to players before official CHRVA tryout period and got busted. When the disqualification period ended, they opted not to rejoin as an eff-off to the CHRVA. NVVAs top level teams have always been pretty good, but looks like they are taking a different approach going forward and focusing more on rec play and development.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like there a Mean Girls like lot brewing between big volleyball clubs in this area. When did it become so dramatic? My daughter did one of the lesser clubs and had a horrible experience. Tried a few more clinics and then got over it. I’m glad- what a toxic sport. I think the coaches are the ones that make it so.

If you want the Ultimate Mean Girls Volleyball Experience go to a Mojo pre-tryout clinic and then the tryout. Mean Girls and Mean Girl Coaches make for meanest girls at tournaments, right down to intentionally unsportsmanlike behaviors during matches and tournaments.

I think you will find mean girls and cliques pretty much everywhere. And I don't mean just every volleyball club, but pretty much every sport. You will always have the girls with crop tops, fake eyelashes, and weekly manicure sessions believing that they are superior to those dressed more modestly and braving the world with their natural eyelashes and without nail polish. Our team had one of those cliques with the "cool" girls being very obvious in their disdain of the others in the team. They would not even put their hands around the other players as they were going to the middle of the court to celebrate a point (the same attitude was visible in the team pictures). They were pretty insufferable, but hopefully they will change as they age.

You can wear crop tops and nail polish and not be a mean girl. I find this post offensive.

How about crop tops, nail polish and fake eye lashes? Kidding aside, you are too easily offended and you should toughen up. I should not really care that you got offended for nothing, but here is a reading lesson: nothing in the original post implied that ALL the girls with crop tops, fake eyelashes, and weekly manicure sessions believe they are better. You probably know that a lot of them do look down on the "general population", but you decided to get offended because getting offended is so fashionable these days.

Don’t forget the nail tips! It always kills me to see club VB players with their dangerously long nails. You wanna lose an entire nail bed and bleed out on the court? Go for it! Lol.

[Anonymous]

Looking for feedback on Vienna Elite. They aren’t mentioned much in these threads. Culture? Competitiveness?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like there a Mean Girls like lot brewing between big volleyball clubs in this area. When did it become so dramatic? My daughter did one of the lesser clubs and had a horrible experience. Tried a few more clinics and then got over it. I’m glad- what a toxic sport. I think the coaches are the ones that make it so.

If you want the Ultimate Mean Girls Volleyball Experience go to a Mojo pre-tryout clinic and then the tryout. Mean Girls and Mean Girl Coaches make for meanest girls at tournaments, right down to intentionally unsportsmanlike behaviors during matches and tournaments.

DP and please elaborate. My daughter went to a pre tryout and liked it. She’s registered for tryouts. Other than the price being much higher than any other club, what do you mean?

Not the PP, but we have seen the same cliquey mean girl crap with certain Mojo teams and coaches. I have personally seen unsportsmanlike behavior from some of their players and coaches. At one tournament, the Mojo girls were not taking their turn at scoring seriously - mocking the opposing teams (pointing and laughing at players making mistakes or errors, eating, checking phones) and worst of all missing score keeping points in the process. When the coach of one playing team, as well as parents, pointed out the several-point errors in their scoring, instead of apologizing and fixing it and taking it more seriously the Mojo girls continued to more dramatically eat/check phones, point, sneer and smirk at the parents and other coaches and continued their mocking and laughing about it. Even worse, at one point the Mojo coach joined in laughing with them and apparently thought it was funny that the playing teams coaches were upset by this.

It was very unprofessional. To the contrary, my DD’s team was taught by coaches to take line judging and score keeping very seriously- a job. They don’t eat, don’t use phones, certainly don’t giggle and mock the teams/players on the court. They act professionally and make sure things are accurate. If their coach saw them behaving any differently those girls would be sitting out the next match.

My daughter will not try out for Mojo bc of this. Some of the Mojo players also acted similarly off the court during HS season. Showboating to losing team, sneering, etc.

We have seen teams like paramount and metro travel crush lower ranked teams and they never ever act so unprofessionally toward their opponents.

I agree with the sportsmanship that top teams reflect on the court: most of their girls act very mature and friendly, even as they crush their opponents. I didn't see Mojo teams winning much, so they were not typically in a position to gloat. I thought that being in that position frequently gives you a certain level of humility. I don't remember being refed by Mojo, but at this point I don't really remember everyone we played against, so remembering our refs would be a pretty tall order. I would say that our players are not allowed to use their phones while they work a game (club policy). If you want to be refed by players who pay attention to the game, you should extend the same level of courtesy to the other teams. Having a coach involved in this type of behavior is pretty outrageous.

[Anonymous]

Not the PP, but we have seen the same cliquey mean girl crap with certain Mojo teams and coaches. I have personally seen unsportsmanlike behavior from some of their players and coaches. At one tournament, the Mojo girls were not taking their turn at scoring seriously - mocking the opposing teams (pointing and laughing at players making mistakes or errors, eating, checking phones) and worst of all missing score keeping points in the process. When the coach of one playing team, as well as parents, pointed out the several-point errors in their scoring, instead of apologizing and fixing it and taking it more seriously the Mojo girls continued to more dramatically eat/check phones, point, sneer and smirk at the parents and other coaches and continued their mocking and laughing about it. Even worse, at one point the Mojo coach joined in laughing with them and apparently thought it was funny that the playing teams coaches were upset by this.

Seems to me that the easy fix is teams that exhibit unsportsmanlike conduct (be it on the court while playing, or in a support role to burden-share running the tourney) ought to be shown the door and forfeit their entry and fees. Pretty sure somewhere buried in the fine print before committing money, participating, etc., is a general overview of expected behavior. Don't understand why the folks running the tournaments would want that kind of nonsense to ruin the competition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not the PP, but we have seen the same cliquey mean girl crap with certain Mojo teams and coaches. I have personally seen unsportsmanlike behavior from some of their players and coaches. At one tournament, the Mojo girls were not taking their turn at scoring seriously - mocking the opposing teams (pointing and laughing at players making mistakes or errors, eating, checking phones) and worst of all missing score keeping points in the process. When the coach of one playing team, as well as parents, pointed out the several-point errors in their scoring, instead of apologizing and fixing it and taking it more seriously the Mojo girls continued to more dramatically eat/check phones, point, sneer and smirk at the parents and other coaches and continued their mocking and laughing about it. Even worse, at one point the Mojo coach joined in laughing with them and apparently thought it was funny that the playing teams coaches were upset by this.

Seems to me that the easy fix is teams that exhibit unsportsmanlike conduct (be it on the court while playing, or in a support role to burden-share running the tourney) ought to be shown the door and forfeit their entry and fees. Pretty sure somewhere buried in the fine print before committing money, participating, etc., is a general overview of expected behavior. Don't understand why the folks running the tournaments would want that kind of nonsense to ruin the competition.

I don't have any first hand knowledge of the MOJO behavior described, but have certainly seen plenty of disrespectful behavior and obnoxious behavior all around. Certain clubs definitely have reputations for how their coaches, players, and parents treat officials and work teams (as well as for being bad work teams). I think USAV and CHRVA recognize the problem, but I don't have the sense they have been very effective in reducing the behavior. CHRVA put a "purple card" program in place a few years ago that allows for fine to clubs for poor behavior on the part of their spectators or other affiliated with a club. https://www.chrva.org/page/show/6890541-purplecarddoc. I have seen a tournament director give a purple card to a team on one occasion and it was for parents yelling at a player line judge. The worst part was that it was in one of the flight brackets at the 2-day Chesapeake Showdown tournament so these parents were berating a 13 year old over a call that was probably a battle for 17th or 19th place out of 24 teams. It would be interesting to know whether CHRVA has fined any clubs since they put the purple card in place.