please expain the difference between metro travel vs. club league

[Anonymous]

We are somewhat new to the volleyball club scene (14U). My daughter is planning to tryout for the Metro - South FFX club this weekend and curious if this club has a good reputation. I've been hearing that many clubs at this age already have their roasters somewhat decided and verbal offers have been made to some familiar players. Is this the case with all clubs or some of the more competitive ones. TIA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are somewhat new to the volleyball club scene (14U). My daughter is planning to tryout for the Metro - South FFX club this weekend and curious if this club has a good reputation. I've been hearing that many clubs at this age already have their roasters somewhat decided and verbal offers have been made to some familiar players. Is this the case with all clubs or some of the more competitive ones. TIA.

Just to clarify, Metro South and Metro Travel are in the same club, but they have little else in common. Their 14s team was 41 out of 139 teams in the region (according to AES power rankings), which is not bad at all. Legally speaking, nobody is allowed to make any offers for any team roster before the tryouts (not even verbal). It is expected though that returning players have some advantage over the new players, especially if they delivered during the previous season. You have to be pretty good to replace one of the returning players, which is unlikely the case with a player who is starting club at 14. I suggest to have a safer alternative in the likely case that your daughter will not make Metro South.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are somewhat new to the volleyball club scene (14U). My daughter is planning to tryout for the Metro - South FFX club this weekend and curious if this club has a good reputation. I've been hearing that many clubs at this age already have their roasters somewhat decided and verbal offers have been made to some familiar players. Is this the case with all clubs or some of the more competitive ones. TIA.

Since you're asking, here's a little explanation of the club volleyball world. First, it is important to know that in the volleyball world the terms "club" and "travel" are used somewhat interchangeably. When someone talks about "club" or "travel" volleyball it means the same thing and is pretty similar to what is called "travel" teams in other sports, like soccer or baseball. These are teams that compete in tournaments throughout the region and the country. For the most part, they aren't "leagues" of club volleyball teams.

To add to the confusion, different clubs use different terminology to refer to the teams within their clubs. For Metro, their top teams are called "Travel" teams. At other clubs, they might be called "National", "Open", or "Elite" teams. Some clubs might use a particular color to designate which is their highest team. Some clubs will use terms like "Regional" or "Club" to refer to their lower level teams that don't travel as much. Some clubs just have team names that have no meaning at all. There is no standard that all clubs abide by, so don't assume that because a team is called "Travel" or "Open" that it means something specific - those terms are used differently by different clubs. Regardless of what they are called, these are all club volleyball teams.

Within club volleyball tournaments, there are different divisions which reflect the level of competition. The most common ones you will see at local tournaments are Open and Club. Open is for higher level, more competitive teams and Club is for less competitive teams. It is worth noting that clubs register for whatever division they think is appopriate, so you will sometimes see really strong teams playing in the Club division or weaker teams playing in Open. Bigger tournaments will have more divisions, but since you're just starting out that probably won't be as important for now.

Metro is one of many local volleyball clubs. Metro is one of the larger clubs in the region, but there are many others. Some of the other big clubs locally would be Paramount, Maryland Juniors, the St James, Virginia Juniors, VA Elite, MOCO, MOJO, and on and on. The majority of local clubs are part of the local USA Volleyball region which is called the Chesapeake Region Volleyball Association or CHRVA. You can get a full list of CHRVA clubs on their website https://www.chrva.org/page/show/3927283-junior-club-directory

Each club can have one or more teams, and larger clubs will have multiple teams at some (or all) age groups. Since you asked about Metro, here is how they are structured. Metro calls their top team at each age group a "Travel" team and then they have multiple "regional" teams that are formed to serve a particular geographic area. Metro has North, Central, East, South FFX, and South PW. The geographic region in Metro's case refers to where they practice. The Travel teams tend to practice in or near DC, the Central teams are DC or close in Montgomery County, the North teams are Frederick County, MD, East are PG County, South FFX is Fairfax, and South PW is Prince William county.

I could write a ton more, but hopefully this helps get you started.