Volleyball Action
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Anonymous
A different thread mentioned that the papers handed out had the word "Invite" on them (apparently other players could see it). I am not sure how Vienna Elite operates, but this is quite a strange approach for a club to invite players to their "invite only" clinics. Probably they wanted to make some of the players feel special and likely achieved that goal. But they didn't think it through because they also generated a lot of embarrassment among the players who did not receive the invites. Is this the best way to end a clinic? Just get the girls in a circle, cheer "Vienna Elite" and send them home. Later, you can pick your favorites and send them the invite by email. If you want a good image for your club, you don't let the girls get out of a clinic with a bad taste in their mouths. |
Anonymous
Can you please post the website? |
Anonymous
https://legacyvba.sportngin.com/page/show/8695357-try-out-registration Good luck! Come back tell us how it went - there's been a lot of talk about Legacy on this thread and I am curious how much of it is prophetic. I will definitely keep an eye on Legacy to see whether their teams perform at a level worthy of qualifiers. |
Anonymous
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I was poking around AES to see what teams were registered at some of the early season tournaments and noticed what appears to be another new club. Or at least one I’ve never heard of. Anyone know anything about Eclipse?
https://eclipsevball.com/ |
Anonymous
More reasonable fees than other clubs in VA, but still higher than well-established clubs in MD. I feel like they do a lot of unnecessary travel outside of the area. With the level of players they will likely get, local tournaments would be sufficient (but probably the coaches want to travel, so the players must pay up). At least they don't take their newbie teams to the qualifiers. |
Anonymous
Looking at the schedule, seems pretty similar to what the MVSA 1s teams do. At least everything is within driving distance. It's interesting a new club is planning an 18s team since players who aren't continuing with volleyball in college often stop playing club to leave the second half of their senior year more free for other things. Maybe it will be more a combined 17-18s team. |
Anonymous
Are you going to tell me that the schedule of top MVSA teams is the standard that other clubs should follow? I would not complain if they would follow the pricing model, but... How do you justify going to the same tournaments with a rookie team? Why not follow the schedule of a regional MVSA team? Would you rather meet their top teams and get aced every other serve, or meet one of their regional team and manage to do some rallies? Some of the top MVSA teams play one age up in some tournaments because they want a better challenge than what they get at their age level. How is a rookie team in a newly formed club even comparable? |
Anonymous
Wasn't an endorsement or criticism of the schedule - just an observation. I think it's at least a more reasonable schedule than a new club that is planning on Big South, Music City, NEQ, etc. In my opinion, Volley By the James, CHC, and East Coast Championships are all fun tournaments and much less competitive than big qualifiers. You can see (in AES or SportWrench) Eclipse registered to play in the club division at Volley by the James and in the Select division at ECC so they aren't coming out of the gate thinking they're going to be competing with the top teams. While I agree that a new club should start out small and build up to a more challenging schedule, I think 3 teams and all tournaments within driving distance is a lot more reasonable than other new clubs that have been discussed in this thread. As for the pricing, it is obviously higher than MVSA or VolleyViet, but it seems like a steal compared to say Loudoun Elite, whose 16s second team has a pretty similar schedule to Eclipse's 16s for $2500 more. Maybe they have way cooler backpacks. |
Anonymous
I would reserve the word "steal" for the players who make MVSA or VolleyViet. You cannot say "steal" with a straight face when the parents have to fork 4-5k into a sports team. They could have come up with a regional schedule to save money and lower fees. It's not like you go somewhere and do what tourists do: you see the inside of the venue and that of the hotel room because at the end of each day you are exhausted and you may have to wake up early the next day. Which is cooler - the inside of the Richmond Convention Center or the inside of the St. James? Of course the inside of the St. James: I can drive back home, sleep in my bed, and not pay a few more hundreds of dollars for the hotel. In these circumstances, you can also lower the club fees because you don't spend money on coach travel (money that also comes from the parents). |
Anonymous
Sure, but that's a different style of club. It sounds like your preferred type of club is one that goes to mostly one day tournaments (or local multi-day tournaments) and prioritizes keeping costs low. And that's valid and if that's is what you are looking for, I agree it's probably hard to find because there are not a lot of clubs that are operated like that. I disagree that there are not valuable experiences that happen at travel tournaments beyond playing volleyball. Sure you are not going to do a ton of sightseeing, but I think there is value in downtime spent with teammates at meals or in hotels. Also, I personally have enjoyed time spent with my DD at tournaments, especially traveling on long car rides or on flights on the way to faraway tournaments. I know I will miss those times when club volleyball comes to an end. |
Anonymous
Well, that's the type of club that is rare in this area. Most of our clubs behave as if the players are going to get recruited and need exposure and far away games. In reality, we have a handful of clubs that really perform at that level (and only their top teams). They need to get real: most of our teams have plenty of local, legit competition. I also like to travel with my family, but we need a destination and things to do at that destination. If the destination is a rec center / convention center and the thing to do is volleyball, thank you, but no thank you. I can do that locally and use the money for real travel (not travel for the sake of traveling). I am not sure how you enjoy the travel to tournaments because for us it's always stressful. We usually make it to the hotel pretty late at night. Ideally you catch a morning wave, even though breakfast is always some crappy fast food. Lunch is crappy convention center food. But at least you have some time in the evening to go out for dinner with the other families. Afternoon wave gives you enough time to have some decent breakfast, but you are screwed for lunch and dinner. Not much of this is quality time. And you pay through the nose for meaningless travel. |
Anonymous
There are a number of clubs that use the lure of travel and the chance at recruiting as their primary marketing and to justify higher prices. IMO, families should completely ignore it. If you are good enough to get recruited, you will eventually find your way to a club that matches your abilities, and those teams do need to travel. Traveling gives them more challenging competition and variation in teams (otherwise they would play the same 8-10 teams every tournament). There is also an argument to be made that certain travel tournaments do help with recruiting. As teams get older there is also some justification for more travel because there are fewer teams at U16-U18, and fewer local tournament options. But traveling just to travel at the U12-U15 levels and especially going to tournaments where the team can't be competitive, is really hard to justify. A travel schedule that matches their ability level of the team is important. There are some clubs that do this well, limiting their travel tournaments to 1-2 per year, supplementing those with 2-3 local larger tournaments and the rest as local one day small tournaments. Unfortunately, this approach is much more common on the MD side than the VA side. However, there are clubs that take this approach in both areas. |
Anonymous
NP and i understand how some feel that way. But I loved the travel. My family and I generally love to travel in general. DH and I would take turns who would go. Each had valuable alone time with a teen, which is rare these days. When I stayed home I went out to dinner and had some time with my kid who wasn’t in volleyball. When I was away I liked the long road trips, getting in late and sometimes eating dinner at Wawa in the middle of nowhere since nothing was open and we were hungry on the road, the frantic early mornings, hanging out with the other parents, and getting back exhausted. DD and I both missed a little work and school and we are fortunate that we can do this. We are excited to do it all over again and hope she makes a team with travel. |
Anonymous
We have a different view of what travel is. I don't mind getting tired while sightseeing, walking through a city, hiking, etc. I would drive pretty far to see new places or for new experiences. For example, I took my teenager to see the eclipse: the drive was brutal and more tiring than any volleyball tournament we've been to. But we got to experience something new and worthwhile. It is good that the eclipse doesn't come 10+ times in 6 months though because I would get tired of it pretty quickly. It would just be more of the same, exactly like a volleyball tournament. Which can be done locally with less wasted time and money. |
Anonymous
While I am on the side that thinks there is value in traveling for a volleyball tournament, I can certainly understand the other point of view. What I don't understand is what the debate is about. If I think it's a worthwhile investment of money and time for my DD to play for a club that travels a lot, what's the problem? If you don't feel the same way, then don't make that choice. Maybe there are less options for clubs that don't travel a ton, but there are options. And if you feel like even going to Richmond is too far and your DD isn't interested in collegiate volleyball, maybe a league or something other than club volleyball would be a better option anyway. |