Volleyball club- recap and thoughts

[Anonymous]

FPYCparent wrote:So, with my 10th grade/varsity VB kid considering new clubs for the upcoming season, I'm wondering what questions I should have that could only be answered by other parents.

For example,

Which parents are totally nuts?
What if I'm the parent that's totally nuts?
How are families with younger, non-VB kids balancing things out?
Are there parents that volunteer to handle the video recording/streaming/sharing? ... And are they any good?
Any carpooling to practices?
Who manages the wine sign-up list for tournaments? :p
How serious are players and parents about getting recruited to college? (On a scale from "If it happens, it happens" to "My kid will start at Nebraska on Day 1.")
How would you rate the club's resources for the college recruiting process?

Having only completed one club season, what questions should I be considering?

First of all, you won't found out the answers to all of your questions until you get on a team. It will take over a course of the season to find out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone here know anything about VAVA?

Sam who founded the club is a really nice guy and coached my daughter at one point. Only good things to say about him

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone here know anything about VAVA?

Sam who founded the club is a really nice guy and coached my daughter at one point. Only good things to say about him

Agree with the above sentiment about Coach Sam. Also, Coach E is excellent as well. They do not yell or scream so DD thrived under their coaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is mojo likely to be any better that ECP? Aren’t they the same people?

Yep, SAME people.

I don't think that's accurate or fair.

Mojo coaches and leadership were established and well-respected in the DC area long before ECP came into the picture. ECPDC coaches that came from Arlington Elite and The St. James were solid as well.

The major issues with ECPDC began last year during the 2022-23 season. From the volleyball gossip mill, the problems are attributed to either A) 3 Step Sports National corporate leadership or B) the influx of Delaware coaches and director (Chris Smith) just not meshing with the local group. Either way, the merger between corporate franchise, Delaware, and DC local coaches did not work out. The DC local coaches are now back with Mojo. Former Delaware coaches seem to be with Renaissance.

Being a DC volleyball parent with older kids, I know the Mojo/St James coaches and hate to see them smeared. My kids owe a lot of their skills and confidence to Mojo.
N
I'm inclined to give the Renaissance coaches the benefit of the doubt as well. Unlike 3 Step Sports, the coaches do not profit personally from clinic or registration fees that are not refunded.

Then consider your family fortunate that you got to see the pretty side.
Mojo coaches and directors play such obvious favorites and have no problem taking your money for clinics and even inviting you to invite only to add a few extra bodies. But when you go to tryout day and they suddenly avoid eye contact and immediately put you on the “thanks for coming” court without even pretending to observe your tryout, you know you were just one of the suckers.
I’m sure other clubs are the same way in making up their rosters in advance, but those clubs do a much better job of trying to make it appear that the tryout is a tryout.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone here know anything about VAVA?

Sam who founded the club is a really nice guy and coached my daughter at one point. Only good things to say about him

Agree with the above sentiment about Coach Sam. Also, Coach E is excellent as well. They do not yell or scream so DD thrived under their coaching.

I wonder what happened to the partnership. Coach E is now the 18s coach for Loudoun Elite.

https://www.loudounelitevb.com/ericmartin

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is mojo likely to be any better that ECP? Aren’t they the same people?

Yep, SAME people.

I don't think that's accurate or fair.

Mojo coaches and leadership were established and well-respected in the DC area long before ECP came into the picture. ECPDC coaches that came from Arlington Elite and The St. James were solid as well.

The major issues with ECPDC began last year during the 2022-23 season. From the volleyball gossip mill, the problems are attributed to either A) 3 Step Sports National corporate leadership or B) the influx of Delaware coaches and director (Chris Smith) just not meshing with the local group. Either way, the merger between corporate franchise, Delaware, and DC local coaches did not work out. The DC local coaches are now back with Mojo. Former Delaware coaches seem to be with Renaissance.

Being a DC volleyball parent with older kids, I know the Mojo/St James coaches and hate to see them smeared. My kids owe a lot of their skills and confidence to Mojo.
N
I'm inclined to give the Renaissance coaches the benefit of the doubt as well. Unlike 3 Step Sports, the coaches do not profit personally from clinic or registration fees that are not refunded.

Then consider your family fortunate that you got to see the pretty side.
Mojo coaches and directors play such obvious favorites and have no problem taking your money for clinics and even inviting you to invite only to add a few extra bodies. But when you go to tryout day and they suddenly avoid eye contact and immediately put you on the “thanks for coming” court without even pretending to observe your tryout, you know you were just one of the suckers.
I’m sure other clubs are the same way in making up their rosters in advance, but those clubs do a much better job of trying to make it appear that the tryout is a tryout.

Unfortunately, it's like this with all clubs. They are not supposed to, but they do verbally communicate with certain players at these prep clinics about playing for their club. You can observe the interactions whenever a coach comes over and talk to these certain players.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is mojo likely to be any better that ECP? Aren’t they the same people?

Yep, SAME people.

I don't think that's accurate or fair.

Mojo coaches and leadership were established and well-respected in the DC area long before ECP came into the picture. ECPDC coaches that came from Arlington Elite and The St. James were solid as well.

The major issues with ECPDC began last year during the 2022-23 season. From the volleyball gossip mill, the problems are attributed to either A) 3 Step Sports National corporate leadership or B) the influx of Delaware coaches and director (Chris Smith) just not meshing with the local group. Either way, the merger between corporate franchise, Delaware, and DC local coaches did not work out. The DC local coaches are now back with Mojo. Former Delaware coaches seem to be with Renaissance.

Being a DC volleyball parent with older kids, I know the Mojo/St James coaches and hate to see them smeared. My kids owe a lot of their skills and confidence to Mojo.
N
I'm inclined to give the Renaissance coaches the benefit of the doubt as well. Unlike 3 Step Sports, the coaches do not profit personally from clinic or registration fees that are not refunded.

Then consider your family fortunate that you got to see the pretty side.
Mojo coaches and directors play such obvious favorites and have no problem taking your money for clinics and even inviting you to invite only to add a few extra bodies. But when you go to tryout day and they suddenly avoid eye contact and immediately put you on the “thanks for coming” court without even pretending to observe your tryout, you know you were just one of the suckers.
I’m sure other clubs are the same way in making up their rosters in advance, but those clubs do a much better job of trying to make it appear that the tryout is a tryout.

+1. I could have written this.

[Anonymous]

So where does a kid go when they are too good for rec, but not good enough to make the club teams? Do they just stop playing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So where does a kid go when they are too good for rec, but not good enough to make the club teams? Do they just stop playing?

This is always a tough situation and it happens a lot. There are a few ways to deal with these situations:

First, if your kid is too good for rec they likely could make a club team somewhere -- in most age groups, there are usually 40-50 teams within a 45 minute drive of the DMV area. It just may not be a convenient location for your family. The clubs that continue to run main tryouts late in the tryout period (Monday-Wednesday) are almost always looking for players.

Second, a lot of intermediate clinics are more advanced than rec league play. Consider finding a club near you that offers something other than beginner clinics. Good clinic coaches will still make the clinic fun -- playing games and scrimmages that allow competition, but also adjust the level of play based on the fundamentals of the players. It is absolutely worth driving 1-2x a week to a good clinic program that has proven it can develop fundamentals.

Third, if your MS has a team absolutely try out for it. MS volleyball in the area is inconsistent in quality, but at least they are playing. If you have a HS age kid, they absolutely need to try out -- hopefully they make JV and get two months of 5 day a week practices (also variable quality though).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, with my 10th grade/varsity VB kid considering new clubs for the upcoming season, I'm wondering what questions I should have that could only be answered by other parents.

First of all, you won't found out the answers to all of your questions until you get on a team. It will take over a course of the season to find out.

You can't answer all of the questions before you play on a team, but there are some you can get answers to:

Anonymous wrote: Are there parents that volunteer to handle the video recording/streaming/sharing? ... And are they any good?

Ask the club if they use HUDL or an equivalent video highlight/stat platform. For streaming, ask if they have a streaming platform -- clubs that do use mostly Facebook or Youtube, but HUDL can now too.

Anonymous wrote:How serious are players and parents about getting recruited to college? (On a scale from "If it happens, it happens" to "My kid will start at Nebraska on Day 1.")

The answer to this is on Instagram -- follow the club. If they constantly post about past players in college or current commits, its very likely the parents have a high expectation that their DD will get recruited too. By U15-16, most players who aren't playing in college don't get offers to join clubs that have recruiting as their primary goal/marketing approach.

If your DD is thinking "maybe" on playing in college, playing with a bunch of future college players may be great for her. Or it may burn her out as she competes with players that really want to go D1, and coaches who really want their players to go D1.

Anonymous wrote:How would you rate the club's resources for the college recruiting process?

Don't assume because a club doesn't talk about their recruiting much publicly that they don't have good resources for it. There are a lot of small clubs that get players recruited, but it gets lost in the sea of announcements from the recruiting focused clubs. You can ask this well before tryouts, and even ask to talk to other parents that are going through the recruiting process right now with the club. Our club was smaller, but we still had players go on to play in college every year. I don't think I ever saw social media posts about it.

Anonymous wrote:Which parents are totally nuts?
What if I'm the parent that's totally nuts?

All of us are nuts, its just a question of it your personal "nuts" fits well with their "nuts"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So where does a kid go when they are too good for rec, but not good enough to make the club teams? Do they just stop playing?

Here are a couple options.

1) Become a practice player for a club. There are clubs that will offer 1 or 2 practice player spots for a big discount. This will save a lot of money and your child will get to develop volleyball skills in order to play at the club level next season. You have to go to the club tryouts and also contact the club director about your interests to being a practice player.

2) Pink Shirt Academy at No Panic Club for 11-15 years old. Also inexpensive way to develop volleyball skills.
https://www.nopanicvolleyball.com/program/pink-shirt-academy-11-15/1456

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So where does a kid go when they are too good for rec, but not good enough to make the club teams? Do they just stop playing?

My daughter played on the Galaxy League for NVVA. She could have made a club team somewhere but it was nice that it was only an 8 week commitment at a time. She wasn’t ready to commit to an entire club season then, which is another factor.

[Anonymous]

Paramount is ambitiously expanding with two teams for 11s and 12s. Are there enough talented kids at this level? Usually kids are just starting out at the rec. league.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Paramount is ambitiously expanding with two teams for 11s and 12s. Are there enough talented kids at this level? Usually kids are just starting out at the rec. league.

Paramount’s clinics have been PACKED. The crowded clinics combined with the fact they have a new 8-court facility is probably the impetus for that ambition. I’m glad there’s finally another club besides MVSA that is trying to grow the game in our area in the U10-U12 age groups.

[Anonymous]

MEVC and MOCO also has U10-12 teams.