Reply to Va Elite - where are the better players?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If those players already had offers why would they move to Va Elite then? I could see moving up a notch to metro but don’t understand why they’d pay more and go through the trouble of switching. Explain pls.

Also how or what other research can be done?[/quote]
3 reasons they move after they get an offer:
1) College coach has multiple players that have committed from region and asks them to play together.  They figure out what works best and both go to that club.  At U17 the good players are well known and most good clubs will take them.
2) The club they played for when they got offers doesn't have open-level national travel teams at U18.  Either they or the college coach determine they should be playing at that level with others like them, so they move clubs.  This is why there is a consolation of talent at U18 and you see so much movement in U18 teams. 
Some clubs have very good younger teams but don't run open-level travel competitive U18 teams.  Players and coaches that are committed generally want to play at a level equivalent to their college competition level.

Paramount was the regional example of both #1 & #2 last year, with pairs of players from NYU, Hampton & VA State joining the team and 2 other commits joining as well.  VAE has had similar changes at the U17 and U18 teams in the past.

3) They are happy with the offer but want to try for something higher by using VAE recruiting.  For the list of schools provided that rarely is what happens. Most of those schools start recruiting in U16 and already have players in discussions before their junior year of HS.

For research, the best source is families of players that have gone through the process.  Asking them why they made the move, when they made it and what their experience was is very important.

[/quote]

When those players changed to paramount then they take the credit for the recruitment? And same for VAE?

What do you think about VAE for the slightly younger age groups? 15/16

Compared to training, recruitment and visibility at juniors and paramount?

I believe that Paramount only lists players in their "College Commitments" section that committed while they were playing for the club. Same with VAJRS. Metro and VAE, however, do not appear to make the distinction and simply list all commitments as their own. For example, Metro lists a class of  2025 player who committed to Penn State while playing for VAJRS as their commitment (meaning, they don't provide an asterisk indicating that this player committed prior to joining their club). They did the same thing with a 2025 Virginia Tech commit who had committed while playing for Paramount. VAE did the same for a couple of the girls who moved to their 18s team last season.  A Metro marketing tool is to say that all the players on their 18 Travel team go D1, which in many years is technically true. However, a decent number of these players commit prior to coming to Metro.

[/quote][/quote]
The amount of hand wringing about which clubs get to “take credit” for players committing to play in college is always interesting to me.

It is true that some players on Metro’s 18s are committed prior to joining the club. Last season’s Metro 18 Travel included 16 players (one who had been with the club since 16s was out for the whole season due to injury which is how they had more than 15). Of those 16, 12 were playing for Metro at the time they committed. Of the 4 that committed before coming to Metro, 3 played for Metro for multiple seasons.

Should Metro, VAE, Paramount, VAJRs, or any other club not celebrate their athletes (particularly 18s) committed to play in college, even if that commitment happened prior to them joining the club? What about clubs that helped develop fundamental skills when these top players were younger?  Tons of great players come through MVSA, Liberty Elite, MOCO, MDJRs, MOJO, etc on their club volleyball journey. Couldn’t they take some credit too, if they choose to?

What should the criteria be for a club being able to celebrate an athlete who came through their program?  The club they played for the longest? The club they were playing for at the time they committed?  The last club they played for prior to going to play in college?

The Penn State player mentioned above played 2 seasons at VAJRs (15-16), 2 seasons at MVSA (13-14), and 3 seasons at Metro (one on 12 Central and two seasons with 18 Travel). Who should get the credit?  All of those clubs played a role in getting her to a top college program.

And it must mean something that an athlete that commits to play collegiate volleyball decides to move from the club that they played for when they committed - if it was all rainbows and unicorns, why didn’t they stay? And what about when a player is at one club and commits, and their future college coach encourages them to move to a different club for next season? Yes, that actually happens.

The reality is that very few players start at one club and play their entire club career at the same club. But does it really matter?  If a club had a role in a player’s journey to collegiate volleyball isn’t it ok for them to celebrate that player’s success? Do we really expect these clubs to put an asterisk next to a player’s name on their lists of committed athletes to acknowledge any other clubs that that player might have ever played for?

At the end of the day, the focus of all of this whole club volleyball enterprise should be on the athletes. Clubs can and should celebrate the achievements of their players. Of course, that also leads to a certain amount of marketing by the clubs who are hoping to attract the generation of top players, but dwelling on the technicalities of individual players’ history and who deserves to claim a role in their success seems like a complicated and unnecessary thing to be fixated on. If a club wants to celebrate an athlete that played for them, even for just one season, why isn’t that ok?[/quote]

I completely agree with this post. I would like to see clubs celebrate their players, but bridges get broken in many cases when a player leaves for a different club. It could be the player attitude (I am too good for this club) or it could be the club resenting the move. [/quote]

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