Volleyball club- recap and thoughts
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Anonymous
Do you know how hard it is to get an Open Bid in general, let alone for a CHRVA Region team? |
Hopefully, it will help someone get a better "lay of the land" that is CHRVA.
Anonymous
Yes |
Anonymous
Although I believe it takes certain players (aka ‘favorite’ or ‘better’ players) to win more matches and have better outcome, I totally agree with this post. Ends don’t always justify the means. I do wish these top clubs will spend more time on developing all players - it’s definitely not easy to achieve, but I sincerely hope there’s a way. |
FPYCparent
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In no way am I suggesting that players at Paramount (regardless of the team) are NOT deserving of the playing time they got during the season. I just wanted to inform anyone interested that some players travelled to qualifiers last season (multiple events, perhaps) and did not get on the court. So, players and families have to have realistic expectations given the expenses involved. This is a "business" decision for family ... and likely isn't unique to players considering any club that attracts players at the highest level.
Here's another story that may be worth sharing ... and one that I did NOT independently confirm. A Paramount player reached out to a college coach ahead of time to share her team's Triple Crown NIT court schedule. (The player knew that the college coach would also be at the event.) I believe (but again, I cannot confirm) that the Paramount coach was made aware that this college coach would be at the court for the opportunity to see the player in competition. The college coach showed up while Paramount was on the court, but the player was never put into the match. ... Someone also mentioned the Paramount team that got an Open bid to USAV last season. Without going back and checking results (it looks like AES has already flushed some things), I think that team got the Open bid at a qualifier later in the season (NEQ, maybe?). That team did not make it to the Gold bracket (well, not in the top 4) at that event. However, because five of the top eight or so finishers had already earned Open bids at previous qualifiers, the bids trickled down to the three teams remaining in the top eight that didn't already have an Open bid. Since those "newly-qualified" teams were all getting Open bids, I don't even think the Silver bracket matches were even played. The Gold matches were played. Someone please correct me if my facts are wrong. Nonetheless, that Paramount team had to be good enough to even get to that point. That team just didn't get the Open bid with a top 3 finish at a qualifier. |
Anonymous
I would not share stories that are not confirmed. What if it is just a made up story to drive people away from the club? Plus, I feel like you offered enough personal information on this forum for the club to identify your DD. I am not saying that they are crawling on dcum to figure out what people are saying about the club, but they might. If the coaches are so subjective about who they play and are so petty about who they don't play, your DD might suffer some consequences. |
Anonymous
My daughter formerly played for the mojo team for 2 years (national/black team) and it was a terrible experience. A majority of the coaches are incredibly immature, unprofessional, and can be down right nasty. I chalked up the first year to bad luck but we experienced the same thing last year. My daughter got plenty of playing time but i noticed she was developing a significant amount of anxiety about likely stemming from the coaches. When they start losing the coaches would say things like "you're so lazy, you just don't care", the communication from the coaches was pretty terrible and my daughter indicated the practices were typically "boring and the coaches were not typically engaged". At the end of the season, I provided the owner, Mahraya with feedback about the coaches and her response was that "my daughter needed to get used to that type of coaching bc volleyball coaches are notoriously. mean". Just a little information, Mojo was around years ago but they merged with East Coast Power 2 years ago but Mahraya had a falling out with the owner of ECP so they restarted Mojo again. The owner bad mouthed ECP instead of taking the high road and that stuck with me. In the past, they have promised players certain positions but not upheld the offer. Lastly, she decides all the teams and does not allow the coaches to make individual changes and honestly her favorites are pretty bad -hence why they never win... I would stay far far away from this club. |
Anonymous
That shows a lot of immaturity for a club volleyball coach. We had coaches on rec teams who had a better attitude: they were encouraging their players even as they were making a lot of mistakes. When you put down players, they shut down and make even more mistakes. Soon the whole team is demoralized and most likely lose, so it's even easier to cast blame. The coaching culture needs to change if they want to be more successful. |
Anonymous
It is not at all uncommon for players of recruiting age to invite college college coaches to watch them play at a tournament and that player to not be put into a match, especially for teams playing in Open. With teams with more than about 10 players, it's pretty likely that several players won't get a chance to play in any given match. I've talked to multiple college coaches about this exact situation, and most of them say it doesn't matter much to them at all. They still can learn a lot about a player from watching them warm up, how they conduct themselves on the sideline, and how they interact with coaches/parents. Do they take warm ups seriously? Are they pouting because because they aren't in a match or are they cheering and supporting their team? Also, if a college coach watches a team play they are going to know better than most of us how good the players on the team are. If your DD isn't playing behind a player who is an obvious power conference prospect, the collegiate coach will understand that. They also understand that if a player is on a highly competitive team, that even the bench players are likely outstanding players. If a coach is interested, they will come back and watch another match. If they are really interested, they will come to a club team practice or make other arrangements to see them play. It's really important to keep in mind that colleges are looking for a whole person to be on their team, hopefully for at least 4 years. They care about more than just a player's performance at a tournament. A big part of the recruiting process is getting to know a player as a person and student, which means conversations with the players (and sometimes their parents), visits to the school (both official and unofficial) and an evaluation of their academics. Paramount and Metro Travel consistently have most (if not all) of their 18s team recruited to play in college. With up to 15 girls on these teams in some years, this means that all of the non-starters are also being recruited without always being on the court at tournaments. |
Anonymous
I agree with a lot of this. Coaches definitely look at the whole player and consider a lot more than just their performance in one match or one tournament. They’ll also request game film and sometimes even practice film along with seeing players in person. But watching a player play live gives coaches tons of info: what’s their volleyball IQ? how do they handle specific pressure situations? How do they interact with teammates? Do they want the ball when it matters, or do they give up the lead to other players? How do they recover from mistakes? You really can’t see any of this in practice film or even in game film. That’s why they come to tournaments. And I think it’s safe to say no college coach at a good program is ever recruiting a player based on how they perform in warmups. If a club coach knows an interested college coach will be on a court to watch someone, and then doesn’t give the player any playing time, it speaks volumes about both the coaches’ priorities and the clubs priorities. Often, those players are playing for those clubs because of the recruiting potential. The clubs market heavily on it—you see posts literally every day about their recruits on instagram, et al. But when the time comes to let the player play in front of the college they are interested in, the focus is suddenly more on winning than recruiting. |
Anonymous
The Mojo director is so obnoxious -we went to one of their tryouts last year and I pulled my daughter early. They daughter's friend plays for them and she just happened to land on a team with a good coach but she said she would run away fast if she learned she was going to be coached by the director. The parent of this daughter indicated she was down right uncomfortable to watch. |
Anonymous
PP here. I understand how you might have read it that way, but I didn't mean to suggest that a college coach was going to make an offer to a player that they have never seen play. Just that it's not an uncommon situation for a college coach to come watch a player and them not make it into the match. A player needs to do their part to make a good impression in that situation and wait for the coach gets to see them play in another match. And to be clear, I have absolutely seen club coaches put certain players into a match in order to allow a particular college coach to watch them play. I have also seen 30+ college coaches around a match at a tournament (e.g., Metro 16 Travel vs Mintonette in the semifinal at JVA Summerfest in June) and it really wouldn't be feasible for a club coach to manage getting every player into a match in that kind of scenario. |
Anonymous
That's fair. Are you talking about the quarterfinal last year? Mintonette usually has a much smaller roster than Metro (10-11) and tends to play their full roster, or at least have when we played them. Its much harder for Metro and Paramount to do that carrying 15 players on a roster. Having 30 coaches around a court happens sometimes. It even happens outside of open level competitions. We've been on courts with that many coaches in lower level pool play at qualifiers. In those situations most players understand you can't please everyone. Its much more common though to have 5 or fewer coaches on a court. Its good that some coaches make the attempt to get players in when the coaches are there. Unless you are in an outlier situation like you described it shouldn't be hard to do unless the coaches' only focus is winning (and that assumes that the players they put in would cause the outcome of the match to change, which often isn't the case). However, there are a number of examples of players who play for VA Elite, Metro or Paramount who attend qualifiers, have coaches coming to watch them, and then don't play in the matches that the coaches will be there -- or in any match during the tournament. Earlier posts in this thread confirm that as well. That's directly contrary to the marketing those clubs focus on. |
Anonymous
You're right - it was the quarterfinal. And coaches were definitely there to look at players from both teams, especially considering that match was just 2 weeks before June 15. Looking in AES, that Mintonette team had 11 players on the roster (as an aside, that team won the AAU 16 Open National Championship and their assistant coach was current Ohio State star Emily Londot) so you're also correct it would be easier for them to get most of their players in the match. I also agree that for Paramount, Metro Travel, and VA Elite, in many matches putting in a non-starter or two is not likely to impact the outcome of the match, with the strength of the players on the bench. Given that these teams don't always achieve the levels of success they are hoping for, you would expect them to be more open to trying different lineups or giving other players a chance, but it does often seem like they settle on a starting lineup early in the season and don't deviate from that too much. |
Anonymous
NP but yes obviously there are outliers as to what the specific girls are wearing or what the latest trend is……but the principle is still the same. The girls wearing/saying/doing all the trendy things are typically more of the mean girl crowd than not. And if this hits too close to home, you might want to examine not how your DD treats her friends but try observing how she treats or speaks to girls who are not so trendy. |
Anonymous
Yes it’s nice to be “chosen” but I encourage you to take note of what happens to the girls they aren’t trying to recruit during those clinics. I’m not sure they are even aware of how distasteful it is. Maybe they think other clubs do the same “separate the wheat from the chaff” thing during clinics, but they don’t. |