Club Player Cut from HS Team - Where Can She Play?

[Anonymous]

My DD is a club player who unfortunately - but not surprisingly - didn’t make her HS team - the HS coaches, who also coach at private clubs, have a history of selecting players who also play at their clubs and clearly politics involved. Sadly, with 12 players on the roster and 100s of girls at tryouts - the politics happened. Again.

Any advice on a competitive program she can play in this Fall? Or what she can do to keep us skills for club tryouts in October? She doesn’t want to play rec or even “select” rec bc the level of play is so low (underhand serving, randomly rotating instead strategic rotations, etc) and she doesn’t want to lose her skills after playing at college programs all summer.

Appreciate any suggestions. So much conflict of interest with HS programs. And allowing 8th graders to tryout also doesn’t help the politics.

[Anonymous]

There's a Paramount coach who runs VA Rise. She has a new training program for HS students.

https://www.virginiarisevolleyball.com/custom_pages/112220/all-skills-clinics

[Anonymous]

What county are you in?

[Anonymous]

I feel you Op. It happens often (and other sports too).

Can your DD ask the coach to be a practice- player? You still show up to daily practice, practice like they're on the team, keep their skills going, etc, but don't attend games.

Or can your DD ask to be the team manager? They also practice alongside the team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel you Op. It happens often (and other sports too).

Can your DD ask the coach to be a practice- player? You still show up to daily practice, practice like they're on the team, keep their skills going, etc, but don't attend games.

Or can your DD ask to be the team manager? They also practice alongside the team.

Op here. This is what I think she should do, but she’s understandably humiliated and upset. There’s also some mean girl dynamic happening.

[Anonymous]

What school has "hundreds"'of girls trying out for volleyball? The most popular sport at our giant public has around 150 kids tryout.

[Anonymous]

Team Managers don't practice with the teams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What school has "hundreds"'of girls trying out for volleyball? The most popular sport at our giant public has around 150 kids tryout.

Most of the large FX County and MoCo schools have hundreds of girls trying out for VB especially since they also allow 8th grade girls to try out.

[Anonymous]

Don’t know about this year but last year our APS HS had about 80-100 girls try out for VB and yes there was a lot of politics and 8th graders making teams bc of coaches who knew them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Team Managers don't practice with the teams.

Unfortunately they do. Our HS has a deep bench and practices are pretty crowded. Having a few extra players doesn't matter much for some of the drills. However, when higher-level drills are player-focused, the team managers are wasting practice time. They are not near the level where they would benefit from those drills and everyone sits around looking at them shanking balls left and right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t know about this year but last year our APS HS had about 80-100 girls try out for VB and yes there was a lot of politics and 8th graders making teams bc of coaches who knew them.

Make a formal complaint with the athletic director, including the perceived conflict of interest. If they receive enough complaints, they will probably investigate. This move may ruin your DD chances at playing HS volleyball, but the culture won't change if everyone is complaisant.

[Anonymous]

Some of the top HS teams in this area are harder to make than club teams. Langley and Yorktown to name a couple. We know excellent players who were cut from both. Also a LOT of favoritism toward clubs there. St James and VA Elite specifically. It’s very insular.

[Anonymous]

NP - but OP I wanted to just let you know that this is happening a lot. It happened to my DD last year, so she didn’t even bother to try out for her HS VB team this year. She is focusing on summer training, private lessons, and then club clinics when they start up in the Fall. She plays for a top club, which matters a lot more, because the season is so much longer. Yes it was frustrating to see girls who were weaker players making the HS team when she was acting every serve and killing every hit at tryouts. And then those girls in their little club clique would mock my DD. But tell your DD to hold her head up high and know that her club team will likely kick their asses soon!

[Anonymous]

There are lots of club fall leagues if she still wants to pmay

[Anonymous]

If she wants to eventually play on her HS team can she try out for one of the teams that her HS seems to pull from?