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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think the competitive pressure even for developmental teams is not only coming from the club but also from parents and even players themselves. There is typically a larger aspirational imbalance. I don’t think it is as straightforward to manage all these tradeoffs as we may think.[/quote]

Agreed. Even parents on less competitive or developmental teams want to win. It’s far too simplistic to think the answer is setter 1 plays set 1, setter 2 plays set 2, and so on. It’s a nice thought in theory, but then reality sets in. Even within the same team, parents and players will have very different views of who the team should aspire to be. It’s all complicated and competitive, even in places you would expect to be focused on development. Such is life these days in many places? [/quote]

Here is an easy way out for the club: if setter 2 is not competitive enough to play, then don't make an offer. Or even better: don't place on the roster any player who is only good enough to ride the bench. Stop blaming the parents and the players. They suffer the consequences of poor club decisions during tryouts. [/quote]

A club needs more than 1 setter, for example. It makes sense that a club would offer a setter that may not be as good as the other setter and hope that through practice and some game time she will improve. And if the option for setter 2 is riding the bench or not making a team, she may choose to ride the bench.

I personally think that all the players should get playtime during the seeding games at tournaments but not during the playoff brackets. And I don’t know how players or families know which teams are developmental and which ones aren’t. I do think parents and players should familiarize themselves with volleyball rotations and realize that certain positions will always have less playtime than other positions.[/quote]

For several years now, I see the same Metro players on the court and the same players riding the bench. They clearly know what they are getting into and they are fine. On the other hand, families new to volleyball don't know what they are getting into and it is unreasonable to expect them to familiarize themselves with rotations. It takes the players a good part of the season to learn their rotations (unless they played the same rotation in a prior season). Some parents barely navigate the tournament and need help figuring out the schedule and the court numbers. They try to make it there to see their kids play, not to learn rotations. Again: stop shifting the blame to the parents and players, when the blame is clearly with the poor club decisions during tryouts. [/quote]
Metro Travel teams are a different type of team than what is being discussed here. They make it very clear that their primary objective is getting open bids and getting players recruited to play in college. Many of the Metro Travel teams have 15 players on the roster, meaning 4 or 5 of those players are probably not getting into matches regularly. But in most cases, players/parents go into the season knowing that is a possibility. If the goal is for a player to get recruited to play in college (especially D1), then being a bench player on a Metro Travel team can be a better option than being a star on a less high profile team.  Last year's 18 Travel team had all 15 of their players go on to play D1 in college. Could those players who were on the bench but still got recruited to play D1 have made it that level even without playing for Metro Travel?  Probably, but the proven track record of getting players to D1 is hard to dispute and it's understandable why players/parents might make that choice.  [/quote]

You are simply making the same point I was making. Metro players know what they are getting into. This thread is not about players on teams in the top 25% of the rankings. [/quote]

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