Anonymous wrote:What do you recommend for a 10 year old boy with no formal training but lots of casual play (he has done a 6 week session with i9 and played at summer camp) who is tall and athletic and interested in playing on a team? Location is Fairfax.

He plays soccer year round, so is looking for something with only 1x week practice initially, as a secondary sport if that exists.

I've been looking at BRYC rec as a start but interested in other options. Im still learning the timing of seasons and when teams form too.

Boys volleyball for boys is different than girls in terms of starting age and conflicts with other sports, at least here in the DMV. Its not unusual for boys to come into volleyball later, and its also common for them to play multiple sports. Once you get to HS specialization starts to happen, but usually because of schedule conflicts. For example, if you play HS volleyball and club volleyball, both run at roughly the same time so you don't have room for another spring sport. Soccer pairs very well with volleyball because of the Summer/Fall soccer schedule and the Winter/Spring volleyball schedule.

Club clinics may be the best to place to start, rather than rec. If he's athletic and tall he'll probably find that rec leagues are too easy for him, especially at that age. Clinics usually are once a week and can be done for 3-6 weeks, letting you choose after the first round of clinics if he like the sport. At 10, mixed clinics (boys and girls) are the norm so make sure he's OK with that. Clinics teach skills much faster and a good foundation of skills is a huge boost in boys volleyball, where sometimes those skills aren't really refined until U13/U14. For example, in CHRVA boys teams can play girls teams up through U13. A lot of the time the girls will win the matches, solely from better fundamentals.

What do you recommend for a 10 year old boy with no formal training but lots of casual play (he has done a 6 week session with i9 and played at summer camp) who is tall and athletic and interested in playing on a team? Location is Fairfax.

He plays soccer year round, so is looking for something with only 1x week practice initially, as a secondary sport if that exists.

I've been looking at BRYC rec as a start but interested in other options. Im still learning the timing of seasons and when teams form too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ISO recommendations for a NoVA club that’s more competitive than MetroSouth/VaVa/NoPanic/Monument/vienna but less intense than paramount and metro travel. DD is 15 and interested in college recruiting. Not a fan of Mojo. But if we have to travel and play in multi day tournaments in PA, FL, GA, etc it’d be nice to win a few medals.

Has she played club in prior seasons? While there are plenty of girls who start playing club at 15s (often after playing on a HS team and the coach tells them they should be playing club), breaking into a more competitive team at 15s can be tough. Unless she's really tall or can touch over 10' - then ignore everything I said.

15:33. Thank you for the solid feedback. Yes DD has played HS and played club for two seasons in one of the clubs mentioned in the original post. Since she’s played for the same club (we chose it based on location convenience and familiarity) she has not considered others until now. Current club doesn’t focus on coaching the girls with advanced technique and strategies to improve to next level- many of the coaches have never played themselves.

DD recently attended a clinic at another club and it was completely different experience from her entire season - the coaches were actually forcing the girls to work hard, showing them what to do with demos, had them getting on the floor to pass and jump up, created a serving box with rope over the net for the girls to hit the sweet spot for serves, specifically training them on top spin serving, float serves, etc, timing the speed of their serves with a speed gun. It was a totally different experience rather than “let’s see who can reliably get their serve over the net.” Make sense?

She likely has a roster spot in the current club (nothing is ever guaranteed!) but she’s looking to step up to a more competitive experience. It was frustrating for her (and us!) to travel to multi-day tournaments over long holiday weekends, miss school and work, only to have teammates repeatedly serving into the net and making error after error bc some had never played volleyball before and weren’t learning or being coached. And this was supposed to be the 1s team.

So, I guess if she wants to commit to the experience again, she wants it to be more worthwhile and feel like she’s playing at the same level.

Are you willing to share the name of this new club?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 13-year-old daughter has attended clinics and camps over the last year and is playing for the Metro fall rec league. I think she has potential (she can serve overhand and knows the basics of passing and hitting), but she has never played club before and does not have a lot of playing experience. We are in close-in Montgomery County.

We have heard of MVSA, MoCo, and Metro, but I’m worried she won’t make a team given her limited experience. Can you recommend clubs where she would have a decent shot at making a 14U team that would not involve an insane commute to practices?

Check out Academy (its a fairly new club -- I think just a year or two old). Practices have been at North Chevy Chase ES.

I would not suggest Academy except as a backup. With a good overhand serve and knowing the basics of passing and hitting she can make at least the second team at Platform or MEVC. Top team might be tricky, but not impossible - it all depends who shows up at the tryouts and who finds better options this season. Go to a few clinics to check them out. Once you are there, try talking to club parents. Opinions might be biased because you will likely meet the parents who want to bring their players back and you will likely not meet the parents who decided to move on to a different club.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ISO recommendations for a NoVA club that’s more competitive than MetroSouth/VaVa/NoPanic/Monument/vienna but less intense than paramount and metro travel. DD is 15 and interested in college recruiting. Not a fan of Mojo. But if we have to travel and play in multi day tournaments in PA, FL, GA, etc it’d be nice to win a few medals.

Has she played club in prior seasons? While there are plenty of girls who start playing club at 15s (often after playing on a HS team and the coach tells them they should be playing club), breaking into a more competitive team at 15s can be tough. Unless she's really tall or can touch over 10' - then ignore everything I said.

15:33. Thank you for the solid feedback. Yes DD has played HS and played club for two seasons in one of the clubs mentioned in the original post. Since she’s played for the same club (we chose it based on location convenience and familiarity) she has not considered others until now. Current club doesn’t focus on coaching the girls with advanced technique and strategies to improve to next level- many of the coaches have never played themselves.

DD recently attended a clinic at another club and it was completely different experience from her entire season - the coaches were actually forcing the girls to work hard, showing them what to do with demos, had them getting on the floor to pass and jump up, created a serving box with rope over the net for the girls to hit the sweet spot for serves, specifically training them on top spin serving, float serves, etc, timing the speed of their serves with a speed gun. It was a totally different experience rather than “let’s see who can reliably get their serve over the net.” Make sense?

She likely has a roster spot in the current club (nothing is ever guaranteed!) but she’s looking to step up to a more competitive experience. It was frustrating for her (and us!) to travel to multi-day tournaments over long holiday weekends, miss school and work, only to have teammates repeatedly serving into the net and making error after error bc some had never played volleyball before and weren’t learning or being coached. And this was supposed to be the 1s team.

So, I guess if she wants to commit to the experience again, she wants it to be more worthwhile and feel like she’s playing at the same level.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ISO recommendations for a NoVA club that’s more competitive than MetroSouth/VaVa/NoPanic/Monument/vienna but less intense than paramount and metro travel. DD is 15 and interested in college recruiting. Not a fan of Mojo. But if we have to travel and play in multi day tournaments in PA, FL, GA, etc it’d be nice to win a few medals.

The two that come to mind are VA Elite and Virginia Juniors. Both have a good track record of some players going on to play in college, but both of them are known to be slightly less intense than Metro or Paramount. The St James Navy teams go to a lot of big tournaments but haven't had as many players commit to play in college.

A lot of the work required to play in college needs to be done by the player/parents. Playing for a club with a reputation for/experience in getting girls recruited helps but is not required. At the end of the day it's up to the individual player so pick a club that fits for your DD needs today. There is lots of good advice online about helping to get recruited. I don't think it's necessary to pay for a recruiting service either. I've heard from more than one college coach that they much prefer to hear directly from players than through some third party.

Thank you. DD definitely looked at the two clubs mentioned. But both only run one team per age group and both are pretty preordained by U15-U16 from what we have heard. She’s been to some VA elite clinics and stopped going bc the coaches seemed to focus just on the girls there in the VA elite club shirts and didn’t really give anyone else a look. I appreciate the info.