Moco thoughts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Based on our experience, not doing the fall training with MOCO reduces your chances of making a team. Participation in the fall training might show some sort of commitment to the club. But that's not all: they get to know the players during the fall training program and they give the participants additional rope. We know one player who was offered a spot on a MOCO team, even though she could not show up at the tryouts (because of an injury). The offer was based entirely on her participation at the fall training.

That's just not fair.

Not sure if the injured player had played for MOCO in a prior season, but picking teams is a difficult balancing act for the clubs. Most clubs generally have some loyalty to players who played for them in the prior season and that makes sense. Starting the season with a core group that has played together before is definitely an advantage. But it’s also a good idea to add new players to the team, hopefully to help the overall team improve. But that can lead to situations where players who played for a club for one or more seasons don’t get offers which is a difficult thing to do.

The important thing for parents and prospective players to know that every season is not empty roster that is picked solely on how a player performs at tryouts. Returners, players a club has gotten to know through clinics or high school volleyball, and other factors are all as important (if not more) than what happens at tryouts. So have a few options for potential clubs and make an effort to have your DD get to know those clubs (and vice versa) before tryouts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Based on our experience, not doing the fall training with MOCO reduces your chances of making a team. Participation in the fall training might show some sort of commitment to the club. But that's not all: they get to know the players during the fall training program and they give the participants additional rope. We know one player who was offered a spot on a MOCO team, even though she could not show up at the tryouts (because of an injury). The offer was based entirely on her participation at the fall training.

That's just not fair.

Actually, I'd suggest its exactly the opposite. Player plays for weeks with a club. The club sees her play and asks her to tryout. Player gets injured before tryouts. Now she can't tryout for the club she was playing for or for any other club.

If it was your DD who was in that situation, what would you expect the fair treatment to be? She wants to play club, she's worked hard during the fall and apparently is good enough to make a team. Would you want the club to say "Sorry, we aren't interested" because you missed the 1 day of tryouts after they saw her play for several months?

What if a player is sick on tryout day? What if they get hurt 5 minutes into tryouts? What if a family emergency arises that stop the player from getting to tryouts? What if it's your DD that misses tryouts because of any of those situations? We've heard stories about all of those circumstances and if a club has seen your DD play before and are interested in her, most clubs will work with the family to figure out options. But if you haven't shown any interest in the club or the club hasn't shown interest in you then the club might not be as accommodating. That's why its important to attend fall clinics for any club you have interest in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the estimated open date for the MOCO club prep open? Does it fill as fast as The Fall Training did?

Most volleyball activities fill up pretty quickly. Too many parents with a lot of money in this area. You can sign up for the waitlists and you may be lucky: some clubs add another session or another team if they see demand and they can wiggle more players in. They won't say no to more money.

I understand that part but how quickly is pretty quickly? Minutes, Seconds, Hours.

Depends on the club. On the MD side, MVSA and MOCO activities tend to fill up very quickly. Sometimes in a day or less.

You shouldn't have that problem with MOCO club prep sessions though because as the PP said you request times then they send out emails a few days before the session telling you if you have a spot or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a daughter in that age group and for some reason she has the impression that MoCo is really toxic so wont try out there. Maybe she knows someone on the one team that PP mentioned is toxic? Or maybe her friend is just a complainer? Not clear to me. This is probably worth about as much as a bad Yello review so take it for what it is.

It is toxic. A few of the coaches are good but most are mid and a few are really bad and foster toxic environments. They are pretty open about who their favorites are on most teams and just tell all many of the other girls who are already on their teams that aside from practices and tournaments during club season, they should pay for private lessons from the owners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a daughter in that age group and for some reason she has the impression that MoCo is really toxic so wont try out there. Maybe she knows someone on the one team that PP mentioned is toxic? Or maybe her friend is just a complainer? Not clear to me. This is probably worth about as much as a bad Yello review so take it for what it is.

We switched into MOCO after a truly bad experience at another club-mean girls, entitled parents, etc. We were hyper sensitive to toxic behaviors. No club is perfect but MOCO was way better than where we came from. Our experience in MOCO was actually the opposite-a new player came into the club and halfway through the season turned mean and somewhat toxic. etc. They got a pretty clear message from the coach and club to stop it. The next year they weren't invited back. The parents then spent the next season at another club complaining to anyone that would listen (and a lot who wouldn't) about how she had a terrible experience and was treated horribly. It was a pretty typical parent response, trash someone else instead of admitting that your DD was the cause of the issues. We were happy to see them go and MOCO did the right thing.

I've heard coach Paul saying that life is too short to spend time with people you don't like (this was during a parent meeting). He warned that players who create drama will not receive an offer at the next tryouts. They have the same approach with the parents (they do not welcome drama parents). Interestingly, they said that the same apply to the coaches. If this was true, you would expect very little drama in Moco. From the outside, I cannot tell whether this is the case or not, probably some Moco parents can comment.

Coach Paul is great, and he's a great salesman for the club. Too bad you pretty much never lay eyes on him for the entire club season unless you are in the age group he is coaching that year. Otherwise, you might just pass him once or twice walking between courts at a tournament, but that's it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Based on our experience, not doing the fall training with MOCO reduces your chances of making a team. Participation in the fall training might show some sort of commitment to the club. But that's not all: they get to know the players during the fall training program and they give the participants additional rope. We know one player who was offered a spot on a MOCO team, even though she could not show up at the tryouts (because of an injury). The offer was based entirely on her participation at the fall training.

That's just not fair.

Not sure if the injured player had played for MOCO in a prior season, but picking teams is a difficult balancing act for the clubs. Most clubs generally have some loyalty to players who played for them in the prior season and that makes sense. Starting the season with a core group that has played together before is definitely an advantage. But it’s also a good idea to add new players to the team, hopefully to help the overall team improve. But that can lead to situations where players who played for a club for one or more seasons don’t get offers which is a difficult thing to do.

The important thing for parents and prospective players to know that every season is not empty roster that is picked solely on how a player performs at tryouts. Returners, players a club has gotten to know through clinics or high school volleyball, and other factors are all as important (if not more) than what happens at tryouts. So have a few options for potential clubs and make an effort to have your DD get to know those clubs (and vice versa) before tryouts.

The thing the bolded part of your statement leaves out that is probably the MOST determinative of who ends up on the team after tryouts is that if girls who the coaches have never laid eyes on ever in their lives show up at tryouts and slay the tryouts - like truly stand out as really good or great - there are very few teams that will say no to those players just to keep familiar alumni players on the team. MOCO is one of many clubs who, if you go back through the last couple of years of post-tryout reports/complaints from parents, you'll see several posts of parents having been told their girl was definitely going to be put on X team, but then tryouts come and go and they get no offer, or they get an offer for a lower tier team in the club like a Rec team. You show up super well at tryouts, most clubs will fill the roster with whoever they think shined brightest and usually only really hold spots for their tried and true superstars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a daughter in that age group and for some reason she has the impression that MoCo is really toxic so wont try out there. Maybe she knows someone on the one team that PP mentioned is toxic? Or maybe her friend is just a complainer? Not clear to me. This is probably worth about as much as a bad Yello review so take it for what it is.

It is toxic. A few of the coaches are good but most are mid and a few are really bad and foster toxic environments. They are pretty open about who their favorites are on most teams and just tell all many of the other girls who are already on their teams that aside from practices and tournaments during club season, they should pay for private lessons from the owners.

We've played at a number of different clubs. MOCO wasn't toxic for us (especially compared to our earlier club). Never had a coach tell us that they needed to pay for private lessons from the owners -- especially since the owner generally runs clinics and does very few if any private lessons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Based on our experience, not doing the fall training with MOCO reduces your chances of making a team. Participation in the fall training might show some sort of commitment to the club. But that's not all: they get to know the players during the fall training program and they give the participants additional rope. We know one player who was offered a spot on a MOCO team, even though she could not show up at the tryouts (because of an injury). The offer was based entirely on her participation at the fall training.

That's just not fair.

Not sure if the injured player had played for MOCO in a prior season, but picking teams is a difficult balancing act for the clubs. Most clubs generally have some loyalty to players who played for them in the prior season and that makes sense. Starting the season with a core group that has played together before is definitely an advantage. But it’s also a good idea to add new players to the team, hopefully to help the overall team improve. But that can lead to situations where players who played for a club for one or more seasons don’t get offers which is a difficult thing to do.

The important thing for parents and prospective players to know that every season is not empty roster that is picked solely on how a player performs at tryouts. Returners, players a club has gotten to know through clinics or high school volleyball, and other factors are all as important (if not more) than what happens at tryouts. So have a few options for potential clubs and make an effort to have your DD get to know those clubs (and vice versa) before tryouts.

The injured player came from a different club (she was not a MOCO returner). Apparently she made a good impression during the fall training program, which was enough for the coaches to offer her a spot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a daughter in that age group and for some reason she has the impression that MoCo is really toxic so wont try out there. Maybe she knows someone on the one team that PP mentioned is toxic? Or maybe her friend is just a complainer? Not clear to me. This is probably worth about as much as a bad Yello review so take it for what it is.

It is toxic. A few of the coaches are good but most are mid and a few are really bad and foster toxic environments. They are pretty open about who their favorites are on most teams and just tell all many of the other girls who are already on their teams that aside from practices and tournaments during club season, they should pay for private lessons from the owners.

We've played at a number of different clubs. MOCO wasn't toxic for us (especially compared to our earlier club). Never had a coach tell us that they needed to pay for private lessons from the owners -- especially since the owner generally runs clinics and does very few if any private lessons.

That's good, there have been many who've posted in the last few years about having decent seasons with them. Both things can be true: some families and teams can have a good time and a good experience; and overall there can still be horrible communication with parents, lots of favoritism, and on some teams very bad coaches and/or a toxic environment. The tough thing is if you haven't played with them before and don't know the coaches when you try out, you've got no way of knowing which experience you're going to have. No club is perfect, but some are way way better than others and have much better coaches and much better cultures. And are often a lot harder to get onto as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a daughter in that age group and for some reason she has the impression that MoCo is really toxic so wont try out there. Maybe she knows someone on the one team that PP mentioned is toxic? Or maybe her friend is just a complainer? Not clear to me. This is probably worth about as much as a bad Yello review so take it for what it is.

It is toxic. A few of the coaches are good but most are mid and a few are really bad and foster toxic environments. They are pretty open about who their favorites are on most teams and just tell all many of the other girls who are already on their teams that aside from practices and tournaments during club season, they should pay for private lessons from the owners.

We've played at a number of different clubs. MOCO wasn't toxic for us (especially compared to our earlier club). Never had a coach tell us that they needed to pay for private lessons from the owners -- especially since the owner generally runs clinics and does very few if any private lessons.

That's good, there have been many who've posted in the last few years about having decent seasons with them. Both things can be true: some families and teams can have a good time and a good experience; and overall there can still be horrible communication with parents, lots of favoritism, and on some teams very bad coaches and/or a toxic environment. The tough thing is if you haven't played with them before and don't know the coaches when you try out, you've got no way of knowing which experience you're going to have. No club is perfect, but some are way way better than others and have much better coaches and much better cultures. And are often a lot harder to get onto as well.

+1 to both things being true. Any club with hundreds of players is bound to have someone that is upset with them at some point. Eventually you have to look at the general trend and hope your specific team works out well. This was discussed on some other threads and one of the biggest indicators of issues at a club is how many players leave of their own choice every year. The comparison between Metro and Paramount was eye opening, with Paramount losing something like half of their players going in to last season and apparently the culture was a big driver of the exits.

Living on the MD side we've had experience with MEVC, MOCO and MVSA. All three clubs are hard to get into and all three seem to keep a lot of their players every year. I don't know the numbers but I'd bet all three clubs keep 70%+ of their players. That can make it hard to make a team if you are coming from the outside but it also shows the majority of players liked those clubs enough to stay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a daughter in that age group and for some reason she has the impression that MoCo is really toxic so wont try out there. Maybe she knows someone on the one team that PP mentioned is toxic? Or maybe her friend is just a complainer? Not clear to me. This is probably worth about as much as a bad Yello review so take it for what it is.

It is toxic. A few of the coaches are good but most are mid and a few are really bad and foster toxic environments. They are pretty open about who their favorites are on most teams and just tell all many of the other girls who are already on their teams that aside from practices and tournaments during club season, they should pay for private lessons from the owners.

We've played at a number of different clubs. MOCO wasn't toxic for us (especially compared to our earlier club). Never had a coach tell us that they needed to pay for private lessons from the owners -- especially since the owner generally runs clinics and does very few if any private lessons.

That's good, there have been many who've posted in the last few years about having decent seasons with them. Both things can be true: some families and teams can have a good time and a good experience; and overall there can still be horrible communication with parents, lots of favoritism, and on some teams very bad coaches and/or a toxic environment. The tough thing is if you haven't played with them before and don't know the coaches when you try out, you've got no way of knowing which experience you're going to have. No club is perfect, but some are way way better than others and have much better coaches and much better cultures. And are often a lot harder to get onto as well.

+1 to both things being true. Any club with hundreds of players is bound to have someone that is upset with them at some point. Eventually you have to look at the general trend and hope your specific team works out well. This was discussed on some other threads and one of the biggest indicators of issues at a club is how many players leave of their own choice every year. The comparison between Metro and Paramount was eye opening, with Paramount losing something like half of their players going in to last season and apparently the culture was a big driver of the exits.

Living on the MD side we've had experience with MEVC, MOCO and MVSA. All three clubs are hard to get into and all three seem to keep a lot of their players every year. I don't know the numbers but I'd bet all three clubs keep 70%+ of their players. That can make it hard to make a team if you are coming from the outside but it also shows the majority of players liked those clubs enough to stay.

Not true at all on those 3 keeping the majority of players because they want to stay. We have personal experience with MVSA and MOCO. MVSA most players definitely want to stay with because they win the most and have a better culture than most (and are pretty affordable on top of winning so much). The majority of those staying at MOCO tried out for other clubs every year, and would've jumped ship if they had a good choice but didn't get other offers. If they got another offer the next year, they were gone. MEVC is the one we know the least about personally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a daughter in that age group and for some reason she has the impression that MoCo is really toxic so wont try out there. Maybe she knows someone on the one team that PP mentioned is toxic? Or maybe her friend is just a complainer? Not clear to me. This is probably worth about as much as a bad Yello review so take it for what it is.

It is toxic. A few of the coaches are good but most are mid and a few are really bad and foster toxic environments. They are pretty open about who their favorites are on most teams and just tell all many of the other girls who are already on their teams that aside from practices and tournaments during club season, they should pay for private lessons from the owners.

We've played at a number of different clubs. MOCO wasn't toxic for us (especially compared to our earlier club). Never had a coach tell us that they needed to pay for private lessons from the owners -- especially since the owner generally runs clinics and does very few if any private lessons.

That's good, there have been many who've posted in the last few years about having decent seasons with them. Both things can be true: some families and teams can have a good time and a good experience; and overall there can still be horrible communication with parents, lots of favoritism, and on some teams very bad coaches and/or a toxic environment. The tough thing is if you haven't played with them before and don't know the coaches when you try out, you've got no way of knowing which experience you're going to have. No club is perfect, but some are way way better than others and have much better coaches and much better cultures. And are often a lot harder to get onto as well.

+1 to both things being true. Any club with hundreds of players is bound to have someone that is upset with them at some point. Eventually you have to look at the general trend and hope your specific team works out well. This was discussed on some other threads and one of the biggest indicators of issues at a club is how many players leave of their own choice every year. The comparison between Metro and Paramount was eye opening, with Paramount losing something like half of their players going in to last season and apparently the culture was a big driver of the exits.

Living on the MD side we've had experience with MEVC, MOCO and MVSA. All three clubs are hard to get into and all three seem to keep a lot of their players every year. I don't know the numbers but I'd bet all three clubs keep 70%+ of their players. That can make it hard to make a team if you are coming from the outside but it also shows the majority of players liked those clubs enough to stay.

Not true at all on those 3 keeping the majority of players because they want to stay. We have personal experience with MVSA and MOCO. MVSA most players definitely want to stay with because they win the most and have a better culture than most (and are pretty affordable on top of winning so much). The majority of those staying at MOCO tried out for other clubs every year, and would've jumped ship if they had a good choice but didn't get other offers. If they got another offer the next year, they were gone. MEVC is the one we know the least about personally.

Everyone tries out for multiple clubs. Some years it feels like we should just carpool between MVSA, MOCO and MEVC tryouts to save the hassle of driving them around. When we played for MVSA my DD saw all but one of her teammates at either a MOCO or MEVC tryout. Same when we played for MOCO. Almost all of the players on both of those teams had offers from both MVSA & MOCO. When we played for MOCO a number of players turned down MVSA offers and vice-versa when we played for MVSA.

For what you say to be true you'd have to believe that most MOCO players weren't good enough to get offers from other clubs and are just sticking around because they have no other good options. That's seems like an extreme statement given that even the lowest level MOCO teams tend to be at least in the middle of the CHRVA rankings or above and winning around 50% their matches per AES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a daughter in that age group and for some reason she has the impression that MoCo is really toxic so wont try out there. Maybe she knows someone on the one team that PP mentioned is toxic? Or maybe her friend is just a complainer? Not clear to me. This is probably worth about as much as a bad Yello review so take it for what it is.

It is toxic. A few of the coaches are good but most are mid and a few are really bad and foster toxic environments. They are pretty open about who their favorites are on most teams and just tell all many of the other girls who are already on their teams that aside from practices and tournaments during club season, they should pay for private lessons from the owners.

We've played at a number of different clubs. MOCO wasn't toxic for us (especially compared to our earlier club). Never had a coach tell us that they needed to pay for private lessons from the owners -- especially since the owner generally runs clinics and does very few if any private lessons.

That's good, there have been many who've posted in the last few years about having decent seasons with them. Both things can be true: some families and teams can have a good time and a good experience; and overall there can still be horrible communication with parents, lots of favoritism, and on some teams very bad coaches and/or a toxic environment. The tough thing is if you haven't played with them before and don't know the coaches when you try out, you've got no way of knowing which experience you're going to have. No club is perfect, but some are way way better than others and have much better coaches and much better cultures. And are often a lot harder to get onto as well.

+1 to both things being true. Any club with hundreds of players is bound to have someone that is upset with them at some point. Eventually you have to look at the general trend and hope your specific team works out well. This was discussed on some other threads and one of the biggest indicators of issues at a club is how many players leave of their own choice every year. The comparison between Metro and Paramount was eye opening, with Paramount losing something like half of their players going in to last season and apparently the culture was a big driver of the exits.

Living on the MD side we've had experience with MEVC, MOCO and MVSA. All three clubs are hard to get into and all three seem to keep a lot of their players every year. I don't know the numbers but I'd bet all three clubs keep 70%+ of their players. That can make it hard to make a team if you are coming from the outside but it also shows the majority of players liked those clubs enough to stay.

Not true at all on those 3 keeping the majority of players because they want to stay. We have personal experience with MVSA and MOCO. MVSA most players definitely want to stay with because they win the most and have a better culture than most (and are pretty affordable on top of winning so much). The majority of those staying at MOCO tried out for other clubs every year, and would've jumped ship if they had a good choice but didn't get other offers. If they got another offer the next year, they were gone. MEVC is the one we know the least about personally.

Everyone tries out for multiple clubs. Some years it feels like we should just carpool between MVSA, MOCO and MEVC tryouts to save the hassle of driving them around. When we played for MVSA my DD saw all but one of her teammates at either a MOCO or MEVC tryout. Same when we played for MOCO. Almost all of the players on both of those teams had offers from both MVSA & MOCO. When we played for MOCO a number of players turned down MVSA offers and vice-versa when we played for MVSA.

For what you say to be true you'd have to believe that most MOCO players weren't good enough to get offers from other clubs and are just sticking around because they have no other good options. That's seems like an extreme statement given that even the lowest level MOCO teams tend to be at least in the middle of the CHRVA rankings or above and winning around 50% their matches per AES.

Getting multiple offers is nice, but not all offers are equal. Some players may have the option to pick between MOCO1 and MVSA2 or MVSA3, which makes it a tough choice. You have to consider the politics as well - once you reject an offer, the club may become more reluctant in offering you a (good) spot in the future. Many players who are dumped by MVSA or MOCO may never have the chance to return and they have to find another home. You must be a really good player to hop around to any club and receive offers from all of them. Most average players know that hopping around is not a good option for them.