What's the benefit of Metro volleyball travel team?
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Anonymous
| I think as parents they want Metro to have better coaches ( at least should not worse than many other chrva coaches) to coach these talented athelets, to teach them good basic techniques. Instead of just have tall girls hitting from sky down to ground😀--they can do this in any clubs. |
Anonymous
Maybe all these other clubs with all the great coaches should just get more tall girls. Seems like you've found the cheat code. |
Anonymous
We may want to tone done the vitriol a little bit. Its possible for everyone to have good points. The problem with these discussions is the confirmation bias that a PP referred to. If you think Metro is great, you'll find facts to support it. If you don't, you'll find facts that don't. Unfortunately, neither side will include the facts that defeat their point. I do think the latest comments here illustrate perfectly the earlier comment "Saying "I play for Metro Travel" can be a big part of the personal identity of a player. It can be an even bigger status symbol for the parents, especially at the younger ages." That same sentiment can also apply to Paramount and to several other clubs in this region. IMO, none of it is healthy for either the player or the parent. If you are a top-level club player you should never be so locked-in to a specific top club that you wouldn't even consider playing somewhere else that the fit is better for you. The constant "Metro Great", "Metro Terrible", "Paramount Great", "Paramount Terrible" spiel does little to help families who just want to find a great place to play volleyball. I can't speak for others, but it definitely turns me off to either club because it sounds more like a religious fight focused on proving your are following the right gospel than it does an honest attempt to help others who are just looking for information. If this is the way people who play for those clubs defend them or attack their competitors in public, then what are they like in private? Moving on, both of these statements can be true: 1) Metro has the most U17 and U18 players in CHRVA that commit to play in D1, and 2) A large number of those players were developed at younger ages by other clubs before switching to Metro. Regarding 2025 college commitments, there are at least 4 missing that I'm aware of, and probably more. There's also a 2025 D3 commit who for Metro. The Blue Ridge beach commits played both beach and indoor for Blue Ridge should be included in the D1 total. I know 540 (D1), MOCO (D3) and VAVA (D3) all have college commits for 2025. I do wish CHRVA had a page that captured everyone that's college committed. But thanks for the huge effort it took to even compile your list. Adding those additional commits to the data, if you are an aspiring college volleyball player you should consider the following: D1: 15/35 = 43% of D1 are Metro D2: 0/6 = 0% of D2 are Metro D3: 1/14 = 7% of D3 are Metro All 2025 Commits: 16/55 = 29% are Metro The D2 and D3 ratios will likely change dramatically over the next three months, because D2 and D3 typically have a lot of commits in their senior year, as late as spring. These facts tell you a lot of info: 1) If you want to play D1 and want to increase your chances, making a Metro Travel team can be good. This is especially true if you want to take a shot at Power 5 volleyball. 2) If you want to play D2 or D3, other clubs may give you a better chance, at least for the class of 2025. 3) If you want to play college volleyball, there are more than a dozen clubs that have players moving on to play in college. 10 of those have D1 players. |
Anonymous
Why are we only looking at 2025 commitments? Why don't you go back the last two years, including the 2023 and 2024 classes? Both Metro and Paramount committed all their athletes to play in college in 2023 and 2024, pretty much all D1. Metro did have many more P5 commits in 2023 (whereas Paramount had zero), which lays claim to the fact that Paramount's 5th place finish at 18 Open GJNC is all that more impressive considering it's the CHRVA record and was done with not 1 P5 commit at the time. VAE has one good team, their rising 18s team, which has some solid D1 commitments. The 2025 class is known to be very weak in the CHRVA Region, with the exception of 2-3 exceptionally strong players. Metro already has several P5 commits in 2026, which is impressive. I've never seen a CHRVA team with that much size as the Metro 16 team from last season (5 or 6 girls 6'2" or taller). Kind of crazy that they could only win 2 games at Nationals. Perhaps that's why Sylvia is coaching 17s this year (to appease parents). It could also be because her three best players for rising 18s are all leaving early to go to college, and she only wants to coach the most talented team. |
Anonymous
OMG, again the "Metro doesn't have good coaches" poster. I am not sure what your problem is, but I can tell that you never miss a chance to make your point, no matter how ad nauseam. We are not a Metro family and likely will never be (could not compete with the Metro players). But you must be completely clueless to claim that Metro doesn't coach their players well. I think you need to take a hike. |
Anonymous
I think 2025 was chosen because as the current senior class, that's the most relevant to today's landscape. If you want to look back a few years to compare, feel free to compile the data for the classes of 2023 or 2024. I think you're right there are differences in the numbers of P5 commits from prior years. I also think it's likely that Paramount will have more 2025s commit D1 in the next few months which will probably make the data look more like prior years. The early 2026 commitments is also a shift this year - it used to be only the very top ranked teams who had most of their recruits committed in June or July ahead of junior year. Now it seems to have trickled down to lower ranked and non-P5 programs. Another thing that is happening more today than even two years ago that you mention, is players leaving early to go to college (or to IMG's newish volleyball program) instead of staying for the last half of their senior year/18s club season. Last season's Metro 18s had 3 of their top players from 17s (who had all been with the club since 13s) leave early for college or IMG. It seems like it paid off for at least one of those players who is now starting as a freshman for current #1 ranked Pitt. |
Anonymous
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While there is some genuinely interesting information and points of view in this thread, I can’t help but think the original post was just trolling. I mean, the gist of the original question was why is Metro Travel so great if their players only go to mediocre college teams is kind of a giveaway they were just looking to start an argument.
Given the number of posts about CHRVA club volleyball that already end up in a debate about Metro vs Paramount, not sure the trolling is necessary |
Anonymous
| There are good coaches and not so good coaches in any club. I saw a few metro travel players go to other club's coaches for private lessons and I also saw players go to Metro coaches for private lessons. Pick a coach that fit your needs. College coaches may not good at developing 12-16 kids but they may good at training 18s. |
Anonymous
Virginia Elite just had a player recruited to the johns hopkins university, one of the top ten academic college but in D3 division. If your kids not the top in chrva, playing for a club others than Metro may get more attentive training from club and get all round playing time which leads to better recruiting. |
Anonymous
| Can a metro parent explain how the coach travel fees are calculated? I see they are a separate fee but there’s no info or estimate of the cost over the club season. |
Anonymous
They divide the actual cost of coach travel by the number of players on the team - this includes the coaches' transportation to and from the tournament (mileage or flight, transportation from hotel to venue), lodging, and a per diem. For my DD's team this past season the total for the year was just over $2k per player for 8 tournaments requiring travel (including 4 3-day qualifiers and 4-days at GJNC). They bill you at the beginning of each month where there are tournaments requiring travel so it's higher for a month with more travel tournaments - usually March and April have most of the qualifiers but there isn't much travel in February or May. So around $250 per player, per tournament. They don't charge travel fees for Cap Hill, Charm City, regionals, or anything local. |
Anonymous
There are some really great academic schools with solid D3 volleyball. This week's D3 top 25 includes: Johns Hopkins Emory MIT Washington-St. Louis Claremont-Mudd-Scripps NYU Case Western And some of the teams that didn't quite make the top 25 include Wesleyan, Chicago, and Colby The top tier of D3 plays some high-level volleyball, although it can also be a little like high school with some conference matches being really lopsided. |
Anonymous
I think your estimate about it only coming out to $250 per tournament is low (just based on what I've heard), but let's just stick with that number for now. If you play for Metro Travel, you're also going to have to pay for the uniforms and gear, (especially if you're a new player) which is going to run you an additional $700-$1,000. Metro's base fee before all these additional expenses is typically around $4,400 for their travel teams. $4,400 (base dues)+$2,000 (coaches fees)+ $1,000= $7,400. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that number is higher than any other CHRVA club besides VA Elite. I normally wouldn't complain about this, but I think Metro acts slyly by trying to convey that they are cheaper than other clubs when in reality they are arguably the most expensive besides VAE. Plus, there aren't any other perks that are included in their fees (e.g., HUDL, additional training sessions, etc.). In fact, I've heard that if you really want to get playing time on one of Metro's Travel teams, you have to commit to doing weekly lessons with their club director (which aren't cheap). |
Anonymous
PP here. The travel fees were calculated from what we actually paid - the exact total was $2,068.25 for 8 tournaments so a few dollars more than $250 per tournament. Tournaments that don't require flights (or that have cheaper flights like Orlando) were less while some of the further or more expensive cities to fly to were more. You are correct about the uniforms - they are updated on a 3 year cycle so if you play for multiple seasons you don't have that expense every year, but they just finished a cycle so everyone will need to buy uniforms and gear this season. The last time we paid for uniforms it was around $750. They do have other merch for sale when you order the uniforms so it would be easy to spend a few hundred more if you're not careful. Last year the club dues for the older teams were $4250 - they haven't posted this season's fees but it won't be surprising if they go up a little bit. It's true there are optional weekly lessons with the club director for travel players but the cost is very reasonable compared to what we've paid for lessons elsewhere. It's definitely not true that if you don't go to lessons that you can't be a starter. In fact, from what I have seen a majority of the starters don't go. For players that aren't getting as much playing time as they'd like, going to lessons can be a way to both get more touches and demonstrate they are working hard to get better which might help in getting on the court more, but in general, our experience over the past few years is the optional lessons have little bearing on playing time. Hudl is not included but the parents on a few teams did work with the club to get it separately and it ended up being about $70 per player for the whole season. Metro doesn't have a separate recruiting coordinator, but the club director and individual coaches do provide recruiting advice and support. Your estimate of over $7k in a year in which you have to pay for uniforms is accurate, although that does include all costs through nationals which a lot of clubs don't include in their fees. Paramount's fees from last year are still posted and the top teams from 15s, 16s, and 17s were $6850. VA Juniors fees for the upcoming season are posted and they top out at $6790. Both Paramount and VA Juniors do not include coaching stipend, practice space, and other expenses through Nationals. Perhaps someone knows how much the extra month of practice and other fees actually costs. My sense is that the overall cost for Metro Travel, Paramount, and VA Juniors is pretty similar. I agree it would be nice if it were easier to compare prices between different clubs. VA Elite markets their all-inclusive pricing as equivalent to other clubs, but it doesn't really seem like it to me. VA Elite's base fees from last year ranged from $6,025-$7,490, but they have a unique model which requires you to pay for a mandatory player travel package directly to the club (over $4k for teams older than 14) that includes shared hotel rooms for players, group flights, ground transportation, costs for chaperone lodging/transportation, buses to some closer tournaments, etc. While obviously if you play at a club that doesn't include player travel you will have to pay separately for travel expenses, it's hard to do an apples to apples comparison because most parents go to tournaments anyway, so a lot of those costs that would be shared in the parents' travel end up being extra with VA Elite's model. Having players stay and travel together is probably fun for them so I assume that many VA Elite families think the extra cost is worth it. |
Anonymous
While I know they are somewhat local, 540 is not a CHRVA club. They are part of the Old Dominion region. |