Reply to Club Volleyball - rate your club pros/cons

Forum Index » Volleyball

Reply to "Club Volleyball - rate your club pros/cons"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Seeking honest opinions on the local volleyball clubs. Which ones have over 12 players, have bad coaches or only trying to take your money. Additionally, which ones have great coaches and your daughters had positive experiences. [/quote]

Tier 1
Metro Travel - If your daughter is a freak athlete, look here. Good coaches at pretty much every level, hyper-competitive atmosphere.

Tier 2
Paramount - High-level teams with almost Metro-level athletes, but coaches who scream a lot at the kids
Virginia Elite - Travel-only teams, are almost exclusively interested in height/athleticism, don't mind taking some lumps at younger ages for purposes of development, very expensive.
Virginia Juniors - High-level teams, pretty strong coaches
Maryland Juniors (travel) - Have their own facility that's pretty easily accessible if you live in Maryland, pretty deep coaching staff

Tier 3
Loudoun Elite - New-ish program, competitive but don't know a ton about them
MVSA - Good option at younger ages (their 12 & under director is the head coach of an elite HS program), not so great at older ages
ECP Chesapeake - Mostly good coaches, also better with younger age groups (14s and down), absorbed MOJO recently
St. James - Best facility hands down, expensive, okay coaches
Metro (regional) - They typically have North (Columbia/Frederick), East (PG County), Central (Montgomery/DC), and South (NOVA), depending on where you live. Good coaches, less travel and pressure.
Maryland Juniors (regional) - Same deal as the more advanced teams.
American - Good option if you live out in the NOVA suburbs.
Liberty Elite - Good option if you live in Frederick.
Vienna Elite - Some teams can be pretty good, others pretty bad.
Libero - New club, hadn't heard about the weight thing until this thread.

Tier 4
Braddock Road - Inconsistent coaching quality
Monument - Seen lots of complaints about club direction here.
No Panic - Inconsistent quality.
NVVA - Have really slipped in recent years. Used to be Tier 2 once upon a time.
X-Factor - New, good option for kids who just want to play and not have much pressure.

Everything else below that.[/quote]

+1000 this is a near-perfect summary. The only thing I would add -  there is a lot of instability in the DMV region volleyball club's right now. Some of  that seems to be a post-COVID shakeup , but also volleyball clubs rise and fall everywhere.  NVVA and Top Team are excellent examples of how rapidly clubs, even from Tier 2, can decline.

So I'm looking at this in terms of which volleyball clubs on-the-rise vs. clubs on the decline.  Word on the street (aka around Cassel's) seems to be that some clubs are hemorrhaging talent to Metro/Paramount while others are more quietly building home-gown teams that successfully compete for National bids.

Most Stable Powerhouse: Metro

Relatively Stable:  Paramount, MD Juniors, MVSA

On the Rise:  Liberty Elite, East Coast Power (ECP), Virginia Volleyball Academy (VAVA), Vienna Elite  -- see national bid numbers & aes win rates in past two years versus those in group below:

On the Decline:  Virginia Elite, Virginia Juniors, St James

Interested to hear what others think!

[/quote]

This isn't a bad list, but its missing clubs and is very general. First, the Tier 1/2 clubs listed mostly offer only a single team at each age group, that's 60 players out of more than 1200 players of that age in the CHRVA region.  They aren't an option to 95% of club players.  And almost none of their players (with the exception of MD Jrs, maybe) came up through their own development program -- they were all recruited from other clubs.  Metro/Paramount are always going after best talent at other clubs -- and they have spots open because players decide to leave or are getting cut.  This year feels the same as any other year in that respect.

Second, measuring on bids is not good. There are 120+ teams in the CHRVA region for each age group, 3-4 get bids including through USAV regional qualifiers. For the top players, those things may matter, but for the vast majority of players its unlikely to be part of the conversation.  And AES is even worse -- an 90% win team that plays club-level matches will rank above a 60% win team that only plays open.

Finally, inconsistent coaching quality is the norm, not the exception -- and it impacts every club. There aren't enough good coaches available, and coaching club is a huge commitment for little to no pay.

The best way to figure out the club for you is to go to clinics, talk to coaches, talk to parents of current club players, etc. With a little careful listening, you can tell pretty quickly if a club is or isn't a fit. If the coach is good and the players are a good social and athletic fit for your child, then the club is probably going to be good for you.

FYI: If you want a different way to rank clubs, you can also look at the high-level HS varsity programs in the DMV region, and where their players come from.  Its a good way to figure out where the talent is being developed and/or where it lands once its developed.  The top independent schools are all recruiting from the same club talent pool, and a lot of their players predominately come from a small number of clubs -- Metro, MD Jrs, MOCO, Paramount, VA Elite, with a few ECP, MVSA and VA Juniors too.  You can look at public schools too, but club location has a huge impact there (e.g. Langley has lots of VA Elite).
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics