Club Volleyball - rate your club pros/cons

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Um, to the person who wrote the last 5 posts before this very last one by FCYPparent, you do know we can tell you wrote all 5 of those posts, right? And that you are what used to be called here "sockpuppeting", where you pretend to be different people agreeing with your own post?

I wrote one of those posts, and one only. Just for clarification. No idea about the other 4.

We must have struck a nerve here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Um, to the person who wrote the last 5 posts before this very last one by FCYPparent, you do know we can tell you wrote all 5 of those posts, right? And that you are what used to be called here "sockpuppeting", where you pretend to be different people agreeing with your own post?

You are wrong. I wrote only 1 post but I guess the 4 other posts you are referring to have the same mutual feelings about the club.

Sure ok. But it wasn't what was said that showed it, and it still is pretty evident. Let's move on but just know... sometimes there are very clear ways to tell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Um, to the person who wrote the last 5 posts before this very last one by FCYPparent, you do know we can tell you wrote all 5 of those posts, right? And that you are what used to be called here "sockpuppeting", where you pretend to be different people agreeing with your own post?

You are wrong. I wrote only 1 post but I guess the 4 other posts you are referring to have the same mutual feelings about the club.

Sure ok. But it wasn't what was said that showed it, and it still is pretty evident. Let's move on but just know... sometimes there are very clear ways to tell.

In the event you are talking about the comment being in the blue box, I think you fill find if you reply to the first comment your reply will be in the blue box too. I posted a response based on our experience there, and given the amount of families leaving, people don’t need to make up fake postings. The reality is unfortunate, given how great a club Jnrs used to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Um, to the person who wrote the last 5 posts before this very last one by FCYPparent, you do know we can tell you wrote all 5 of those posts, right? And that you are what used to be called here "sockpuppeting", where you pretend to be different people agreeing with your own post?

You are wrong. I wrote only 1 post but I guess the 4 other posts you are referring to have the same mutual feelings about the club.

Sure ok. But it wasn't what was said that showed it, and it still is pretty evident. Let's move on but just know... sometimes there are very clear ways to tell.

In the event you are talking about the comment being in the blue box, I think you fill find if you reply to the first comment your reply will be in the blue box too. I posted a response based on our experience there, and given the amount of families leaving, people don’t need to make up fake postings. The reality is unfortunate, given how great a club Jnrs used to be.

Yet somehow... everybody else in 17 pages of comments didn't end up with their comments in the blue box, but then 5 comments with similar language all ended up making the same error. Whatever, maybe it was only 1 person replying to themselves and a couple others were original. 3 of 5 definitely look like same person, including last 2 agreeing with themself, but the beautiful thing about DCUM is the conversation goes on whether you convince anyone it was 5 different people or not. And my family has no experience with the clubs being dissed or the clubs being held up in those posts, so I don't really care what other people think of what you've said either. I just found it curious that you'd reply to yourself.

Anyway, back to volleyball....

[Anonymous]

Regarding VA Juniors Director and Recruiting Director becoming increasingly well-known for telling lies and playing games with players and families. Ask around Cassel's a bit, and the stories become all too similar and common.

Although there is a lot of nonsense to wade through on DCUM, a few years into Club Volleyball, I generally wish I had paid more attention to the negative experiences repeatedly shared about certain club leadership. This is true across multiple clubs. I should also have paid attention to how many coaches have left an organization in recent years, only to keep coaching somewhere else locally. I could have saved my child a lot of heartaches and wasted time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Regarding VA Juniors Director and Recruiting Director becoming increasingly well-known for telling lies and playing games with players and families. Ask around Cassel's a bit, and the stories become all too similar and common.

Although there is a lot of nonsense to wade through on DCUM, a few years into Club Volleyball, I generally wish I had paid more attention to the negative experiences repeatedly shared about certain club leadership. This is true across multiple clubs. I should also have paid attention to how many coaches have left an organization in recent years, only to keep coaching somewhere else locally. I could have saved my child a lot of heartaches and wasted time.

Juniors is a total dumpster fire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Although there is a lot of nonsense to wade through on DCUM, a few years into Club Volleyball, I generally wish I had paid more attention to the negative experiences repeatedly shared about certain club leadership. This is true across multiple clubs. I should also have paid attention to how many coaches have left an organization in recent years, only to keep coaching somewhere else locally. I could have saved my child a lot of heartaches and wasted time.

Yes we're pretty new to all this and paying rapt attention, though also taking a lot of things with huge sacks of salt. But already, this year being our first round of doing the tryout circuit, I'm so grateful for these conversations, because reading here made us tryout for a specific club we knew nothing about, then also the popular ones, and when faced with a choice (we know, we're super lucky), we'd seen enough we loved in the less popular club (or lower tiered club) that we made a choice that - just going on general reputation, most people would not have made. And we hope we're setting our DD up for better coaching and a better all around experience in her first more intense year of club playing.

So thank you to everyone who weighs in! Even the few kinda "too axe-to-grind-y" posts are helpful in several ways. There is a LOT of experience here, and those of us newer to all this chaos truly can benefit from your wisdom, so thank you!

[Anonymous]

Juniors lost most of their top girls in the club this season to Metro. They are losing all their good coaches and are bringing in inexperienced young coaches.

[Anonymous]

Take a look on https://volleyballclubreviews.com/

Quite useful

[Anonymous]

FPYCparent wrote:Thanks for the feedback on Coach Somerville. Given the general agreement on the club tiers early on in the thread, it seems he's been a part of some Tier 1 and 2 organizations. He is indeed at The St. James now.

...

Onto another question related to tryouts ...

Do many clubs do reach/jump assessments (standing reach, block jump, approach, etc.)? Of the tryouts I observed, I *think* only one (a Tier 4) attempted to take those measurements. Is this the kind of thing that many/most clubs would do ... if they weren't overrun with tryout attendees in a "normal" year?

Some measurement references are offered here: https://www.ncsasports.org/womens-volleyball/recruiting-guidelines

Yes, the main clubs Metro, Paramount, VAE all test and publish on their website. There are certain other clubs that don’t publish measurements on their website but encourage their kids to downright lie about their jump measurements on their social media posts/recruiting websites. Several kids can’t barely get off the ground and are promoting themselves as being able to jump over 10ft. Realistically, anything over 9’8 is pretty good but you can really notice a 10 foot jumper and those that ‘enhance’ their measurements by a good 6 inches just make themselves look foolish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Take a look on https://volleyballclubreviews.com/

Quite useful

Wow, this seems like an interesting website, a "Yelp" for volleyball clubs. But just glancing through the forums, it seems a bit sparse. Does one need to register to be a member?

A second point of observation is that it seems this is primarily for clubs in Northern Virginia. There are also clubs on the Maryland side too . Or did I miss it somehow?

Thanks for sharing!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Take a look on https://volleyballclubreviews.com/

Quite useful

I remember looking at that website during the tryout process last tryout cycle. I found it strange that the only club seemingly on that website is Metro... which makes me think it's a Metro parent that started that website. Why else would there be the option to write a review on every club, with the exception of Metro?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take a look on https://volleyballclubreviews.com/

Quite useful

I remember looking at that website during the tryout process last tryout cycle. I found it strange that the only club seemingly on that website is Metro... which makes me think it's a Metro parent that started that website. Why else would there be the option to write a review on every club, with the exception of Metro?

Yeah I appreciate links like this being posted, but this one in particular wasn't helpful to me. We're also in Maryland.

Speaking of which, I wish people would stop calling VAJrs "Jrs" or "Juniors", there's a MD Jrs too and though I don't know much about them, I do know most of the bad stuff being said about VA Jrs shouldn't automatically apply to MD Jrs or any other Jrs that might be out there.

[Anonymous]

Same PP ^^ Meant to also say yes, the link seems very Metro-centric. Interesting observation about being able to review any club EXCEPT Metro!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Take a look on https://volleyballclubreviews.com/

Quite useful

Interesting that Metro is NOT on this list….. why is that? Not very useful IMO at all but it could be once clubs on this list get more than 2 or 3 reviews per club.