Metro added new tryout dates
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Anonymous
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You guys are really wrapoed up on rankings and stats.
And to the point of going down rabbit holes to boot. Does it really matter (that much)? I would have thought practice location, tournament schedule, and price are things to compare abd contrast? Logistics and all? Not nitpicking if Team XYZ North for Age123 is better than Team ABC South for Age456. |
Anonymous
Like any trend analysis the time period you choose is important to the analysis. Objectively it is fair to say the following: Over the last two years of club volleyball (2024 & 2025), Metro Central was the a) The region most likely to have teams with the lowest national rank of any of the Metro teams, b) Had the most "last place" finishes in national ranking when compared to their peer group, and c) Had the least amount of variability in the data (e.g. were most consistently the lowest ranked team when compared to other regionals except Metro North (who is equally consistent in being 2nd in the group). If you expand the time period to include 2022 & 2023, you can also credibly say that Metro Central's performance has: a) Declined relative to other Metro regions, and b) has a declining trend in national ranking between between 2021 and 2025. This declining trend has occurred at the same time the overall performance of CHRVA teams has been improving relative to the rest of the country. Posting the chart that shows the decline from 2021-2025 is hard in this forum, but if you scatter plot the rankings of all Central teams by year you will see that the best national ranking for any Central team has declined by about ~600 ranks and the worst national ranking has increased by around ~1700 ranks since 2022. Said another way, in 2022 the best Central team was ranked #1281 (U18) and the worst Central team was ranked #2443. In 2025 the best team was ranked #1818, and the worst team was ranked #4159. What you can't do is use the 2022 & 2023 data to skew the average performance of 2024 & 2025 in favor of the argument that Metro Central is actually in the middle of the pack against other Metro teams. 2 years is an eternity in club volleyball especially when the clubs in Metro Central's direct geography have been expanding. There were a lot fewer teams in the central DC Metro area in 2022 than there are today. |
Anonymous
100% those things are important. Discussing one thing doesn't mean the other isn't important. And none of this means the teams are bad or wrong or to be avoided. But if you've been around volleyball for a while you know that lots of parents are confused by the relative performance of a club "1" team versus another club "1" or "2" or even "3" team. Threads like these can help parents understand the complexity and make a more informed decision. |
Anonymous
| Omg who cares?! Just enjoy playing the game! |
Anonymous
You can do that at any level you play at. But you enjoy the game more if you play at a higher level. To get at a higher level, you need to pay attention to little things like coaching, teammates, results (and implicitly rankings). It's fine if you personally don't care - not everyone has to. |
Anonymous
There are one or two people here who are obsessed. We are all about location, coaching and tournaments. So far it's been a great experience for my kiddo - despite the ranking! |
Anonymous
That's a great attitude, and you can do that and not be concerned with any of this if you play Rec or play whatever club is near you and you get onto, without worrying about the quality of the coaching, players, or ranks. But those whose girls are taking volleyball very seriously, either just because they enjoy it and want the best training and competition experiences they can get, or those who care even more and hope to be D1, D2 or D3 players, then ALL of these details are important. How deeply you did into the actual data (vs. asking here or asking around your local parent community) is up to each family, but yes, all of this matters if you're serious about volleyball. |
Anonymous
Sounds like someone is really obsessed with ranking data. That’s fine, you have proved your point ! For everyone else, please take the ranking data with a grain of salt as it is a point in time data reference for most of the clubs. With the exception of a few clubs in the area (Metro Travel is a good example), club performance has been up and down for various reasons: management changes, coach retention, facility changes, etc. Ranking from two years ago may not even close to this year prediction. Ranking from a younger group may not be the same for next year and next older group. Take the major clubs (VE, VA juniors, Vienna Elite, St. James, etc) you would be surprised how drastic ranking data change is in the last five years. |
Anonymous
+1 Also, what is written here stays visible for a long time. This all started from a PP comments on the relative comparison of Metro regionals. A poster responded back shouting "MISinformation" and "line is usually out the door" and "players offered a spot take it on the spot" statements. They also used regional rankings to try and prove their point which others pointed out was actual misleading info. You'll notice that poster and their supporters who posted just minutes after the initial response seem to have disappeared as other posters shared the facts. The original poster probably should have said "some players" to soften their Metro Central comment about offers, but the rest of it ended up being accurate and verified by data. Even that softened comment is a backed up by the fact makeup tryouts for U15 & U17 ages were held right up against the decision deadline, making it highly likely that at least some players who received offers at those tryouts either didn't have offers or were trying to upgrade from lower offers at other clubs. |
Anonymous
You're funny, and also wrong about some of this. I was the MISinformation poster, and while I now see it matters which data set you're using, I did not post any data at all. So to say I used the regional rankings to justify my comment, no, I used what I knew from the years I cared about rankings in choosing teams, and from my knowledge of some specific teams' rankings. But I didn't cite any rankings or post any so no, wasn't me, so maybe don't be quite so sure of your own assumptions. |
Anonymous
+1 We had no clue our 1st year of playing club, ended up on a terrible team. They're still terrible, and also expensive! But hardly anyone mentions them here so not going to name them. But I will say that aside from definitely caring about location, and being able to map out commutes to practices and tournaments without knowing anything else, coaching and tournaments is something that is hard to gauge when you're new to club volleyball. This forum is a great place to go down rabbit holes and read anonymous posts about pretty much every angle of volleyball, but it really takes being in it to start to really learn what you care about. Now having been a volleyball parent for 7 years altogether (between 3 DDs), I can say that even just taking coaching, we now know what we'd want to know about potential new coaches as we consider teams to try out for and prioritize, but I've met other parents who also look but prioritize some coach fators differently. So for us as a family, it's a combination of reputation of the club, rankings, coaching, and only now that we have been to a bunch of tournaments, we can look at a list of tournaments and say "Ok, this has the most we think are really good, so that is a big plus for this team if DD gets an offer". But we were probaly in year 3 of club before we could distill our preferences for which tournaments were best. All that said, we also walked around tournaments when DD's team wasn't playing and now and then we saw a club that just was so good and looked so well run and we always asked parents there which club, what htey liked about it, where they practiced (big factor), and in the end we only discovered a new club we actually went to once that way, but it was a great discovery and rankings and tournaments did not tell the story of the great year we had there. So good that DD developed a lot and only didn't go back because she got onto a much better team the next year. But that club (which isn't a club anymore, sadly) was great even though not "hot". |
Anonymous
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Vajrs
My oldest DD received an offer for VAJRS but ended up going to a different club. I kept hearing mixed things about the club’s lack of communication and losing reputable coaches every year. I have a younger daughter (played basketball-tall, athletic, and transitioning to volleyball like her sister) she is interested in playing 13s next season. I heard there was not a big turnout for thirteens this season as last season. Is there a reason why? My oldest attended the clinics-the coaches seemed fine, but I did notice they are all young and new. I heard the only long term coach left after last season. Wanted to get your thoughts? |
Anonymous
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This is a little off topic for the op but there was another post where coach experience came up. Someone was questioning paramount and the limited coaching and college playing experience of many of their coaches. VAJRS seems to have a lot of coaches with college experience but maybe not as much coaching experience. Loudoun Elite OTOH seems to have pulled in coaches that are most older and many who coach in local high schools (a lot of cons on that front) and VA Elite has a lot or long term coaches and usually has 3/ team with some less
experienced recent college players. Don’t know that va jrs is much different than the paramount roster of coaches except maybe more college experience. Jury is out on what’s better. If you give less experiences / fresh out of college newer coaches a team packed with skilled players seems theyd really have to be horrible to screw that up. Someone asked if anyone had done any sort of analysis on coaches, years of experience, played in college, etc and don’t think that has happened. Might also throw in the data point about how much they are paid as a factor. The one thing that matters the most is your dd or ds experience with the coach for that season. These days club coaches are like whack a mole. Be wary though of coaches that coach more than one age group who aren’t doing it FT and teams that don’t have a solid assistant. I |
Anonymous
“ coach in local high schools (a lot of cons on that front)”. Can you elaborate on that? |
Anonymous
There are a lot of potential conflicts of interest for high school coaches who coach high school age club players. Players can feel a lot of pressure to do what their high school coaches tell them to do including being told what club the HS coach would like to see them at. They often worry that if they don't do what the coach says that it will impact their chance of making the HS team or their playing playing time. Some coaches are very aware of the potential cons and go out of their way to make sure they act fairly, but its a hard line to walk. |