Volleyball club- recap and thoughts
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Anonymous
I really like this club. Strong coaching and good culture. They are good at skill development. |
Anonymous
| Does anyone have any insight on Columbia Volleyball Club (CVA)? How difficult to get on a team or is it basically only coach nicks favorites? |
Anonymous
Team level isn’t too advanced but they only carry one team per age (except for 1 age group?) so it could get difficult to get on a team only because they don’t offer many teams per age. |
Anonymous
Actually, most clubs do separate girls out during clinics. At least the majority of the ones I’ve been to with my DD. |
Anonymous
If the club has two courts or more courts available virtually every club will separate players at some point during a clinic. If you have a wide range of skill levels in the clinic you especially have to separate. But there are good ways and bad ways to do it. We've done a lot of pre-tryout sessions and a lot of the clubs are really bad at this. Some of the worst offenses: - Sending players to lower courts and none of the coaches will work with them or even watch. - Pulling players aside before the clinic even starts and telling them to go the upper court (some clinics had them sorted before they even walked into the gym) - Players grouping together into teams and making it clear that they don't want anyone else playing with them -- even if a coach tells that player to go with that group - Coaches pulling players to the sideline that they are interested in and having a discussion about trying out for their club -- in front of multiple other players who they aren't interested in. - Players in specific positions never leaving the court even when the drill/game has a rotation/wave system. Our DD was on the top court at most of these clubs and had coaches telling her they were interested, and she left every one saying "this isn't where I want to play." Ironically, the one club clinic where she ended up on the lower court is the club she wants to play for the most. Why? Because the coaches were clear about why there were different courts. The lower court was for skills work with the goal of improving their skill very quickly. The upper court was gameplay for players that already had the skill. And the lower court was staffed and watched by the coaches for DD age group. By the end of the session both courts were running the same scrimmage - the upper court was just running it faster and more consistently. It was the only session where she came out a significantly better player than she was when she went in. It also helped that all the club's players from last year were genuinely welcoming new players into their teams/groups. I'm sure some players left that gym knowing that they weren't going to make a team with the club. But I don't think any of them could say the club didn't take the time to really try to help them get better. |
Anonymous
It depends on the level of the players in the clinics. It is difficult to work with players that are at very different levels - especially beginners, who don't know their role and/or how to transition during games. If they accept everyone into clinics, they typically end up with an "advanced" court and a "beginner" court. This is ideal for all the players because you want to be on the court where everyone has about your skill level. The beginner players might feel bad in that environment, but they would not be able to keep up on the advanced court. I would argue that the beginner players do don benefit much from those clinics and likely overpaid to be there. We've been to clinics where everyone was at a very similar level. The players were still divided on two courts, but the teams were mostly self-selected based on prior friendships / club memberships. Moving players from one court to the other would have not made a lot of difference. This is the ideal clinic and we hope to find more of them in the future. |
Anonymous
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CVA parent here! Not sure Coach Nicks? CVA is a great club if you are looking for a club to pour technical skills into your player. You always know where you stand. There are 3 evaluations of players and while you may not be ready to hear the truth, it is definitely out of wanting you to succeed and pushing you toward your absolute best.
There are 3 practices and 3 academies a week. Last year my daughter had practice 4 days a week. If your player wants to play in college at any level CVA works with you hands on to get there. People in big clubs are paying $$ for recruiting. CVA is doing the work with you as part of a team effort to get you to your best fit! Check out the Instagram Coffee w/ Coach Mike! |
Anonymous
| There are 2 14s and 2 15s teams this year! |
Anonymous
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Every Metro Travel player parent will tell you after they leave the club that they did all of the work for recruiting or paid a service. Metro has connections and will send a letter to the coach on your behalf but that is it! Paramount pretty much the same. When you are recruited they take credit for it. They do not want to really post anything other than D1 whether it is a good fit for your player or not. Commit does not equal scholarship!!!
The only CHRVA club I know that actively gets all of their players recruited hands on is CVA. Last years 18 mostly went D1 or D2 and so far all of last club seasons 17s have committed before they even play 18s. There are CVA players playing along side of Metro travel players at some of these mid D1 schools. They will find a fit for anyone who wants to play next level. Check out the CVA Instagram live from today. |
Anonymous
Let's avoid the blatant marketing posts. That's not the point of this thread. Its also not a good look when clubs come onto the forum and bash other clubs, and it never ends well for the club that does it. And are you absolutely sure every one of the 17s have committed -- all 13 of them? Because if they have there are some that haven't announced it publicly. Does CVA think its appropriate to announce commitments before the players do? |
Anonymous
Not sure what "actively" gets players recruited means, but I can say for certain that college coaches are primarily interested in interacting with the athletes themselves. They don't want emails or contacts from parents, paid recruiting services, or club recruiting coordinators. They want to talk to the players. I have heard from multiple college coaches who get hundreds of emails from interested players that they don't give as much weight to an email that isn't from the player themselves (and they can tell the emails that all have the same formatting were drafted by recruiting services even if they are from a player's email address). If they like a player after speaking with them, working with them at a camp. watching them play, or watching film, they may want to talk to their coach or club director, but the idea that a club or other paid service can do all the work to get recruited is not accurate. And to be clear, I don't mean to say that a club or recruiting service can't be helpful. They absolutely can have relationships with college coaches that might result in a player getting looked at that might have been otherwise overlooked. And they can help navigate the process and advise on what programs might be appropriate for the particular athlete's level of play. And of course college coaches know which clubs attract good athletes and prepares them to play in college. All of that said, while parents, clubs, and paid services can help and support in the process, the burden is on the player to put in the work to get recruited, both on the court and off. |
Anonymous
Just out of curiosity: are you talking about MOCO here? We had the same vibe there during the pre-tryout clinics. We had a pretty good experience with MVSA as well (probably the best experience in the way they split the teams, in terms of competitiveness), but some of the MVSA players were really unfriendly. They would cut each other a lot of slack, but they would be pretty mean when "outsiders" would make mistakes on the court. |
Anonymous
| What percentage of those invited to try out clinics are accepted? |
Anonymous
That's a question that cannot be answered with the information provided. Every club has a different philosophy for tryout clinics. The best answer would be that it depends on the club. The lower tier clubs would probably send offers to many players that show up at their tryout clinics, but some of their offers will not be accepted. Other clubs can only make offers only to 25% of the players they invited to their tryout clinics. You need to be more specific to receive a more informative answer. |
Anonymous
No standard, but the math can give you a rough idea. Most teams take somewhere around 12 (the USAV max on a roster is 15) so if there are 30 girls at an invite clinic for a particular team, then less than half. Other things to look at if you are trying to predict would be how many players from last season seem to be trying out for the team. It's a pretty safe bet that the majority of returners would be given an offer (although not always). An invite to a clinic means the player is on the list of players that might get offers, but it is in no way a sure thing, especially on a really competitive team. |