Anonymous wrote:Club coach here with a (hopefully) helpful explanation.

Assuming 12 athletes, the "ideal" roster construction is roughly as follows:
- 2-3 setters
- 3 who can play middle
- 2 liberos/DSs, maybe 3 if you had a preponderance of them at tryouts
- 5-6 pin hitters, at least 3 of whom are capable of playing six rotations
Usually you want some overlap (middles who can also play RS, setters who can also DS or hit, etc.), but something like that. Most club coaches with a roster approximating this one will wind up playing 9-10 girls in any particular set, usually with back row setters subbing for front row RSs and at least one OH playing all six rotations. If you DS an outside and/or have a serving sub for a middle (or DS both outsides), you will run out of subs somewhere on your third trip around the net, which at 15s and higher is a distinct possibility (14s and younger usually have at least one or two long serving runs that preclude that third cycle, although I saw that the second set of one of the 14 Open semifinals this past weekend went all the way to 40-38!!!!!).

Even if you're playing 10/12 in one set, it's impossible to get them close to equal time. Any number of things could be the reason (non-exhaustive): the team could get stuck in one rotation for awhile or side out really quickly; someone could have missed practice or rolled their ankle recently; a player or players could be learning a new position and not be ready for primetime yet; they could be someone who practices well but panics or shuts down in games, or dwells on that first error so much that they let it become four or five; or they might be developing slower than the coaches hoped in a key way that matters a lot for their position. These are teenagers, not automatons, and their growth and development is neither inexorably upward nor in anything resembling a straight line. There are innumerable variables at play. If the player(s) hasn't/haven't developed as quickly as their teammates and are not able to be put in a role where they can have some measure of success, the rest of the team can lose morale if that player is force-fed into a spot where they can't hide a little and/or they hurt the overall play. Even at lower levels of club, everyone wants to win and be successful to some degree (and every coach and team measures that differently, even within the same club or the same level).

Anyway, it's not quite as simple as saying "everyone should have equal playing time" (that's what rec is for) or "everyone should play in every match" (for the record, I almost always play everyone on my roster a minimum of three rotations every other set, at least in pool play, because I believe that game development and practice development are equally important). The coaches are juggling a lot of balls too. They absolutely should have had a discussion about playing time and how to earn it before the first practice, and it's always okay to ask (the player should ask first, *not* the parent) how one can earn more court time, although as someone mentioned most clubs have an explicit rule against doing this at a tournament because of the odds of emotions running high on either end (they also might have language in place about having a third party present, such as the club or age group director). If you ask, you should get an honest answer, and if you don't, then definitely take your business elsewhere next year.

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Anonymous wrote: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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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?

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.

Sounds nice in theory, but the types of teams being discussed here don’t always have strong options to fill every spot. While 10 players is probably a decent roster size for a team that isn’t super competitive (definitely no more than 12), every team needs a certain number for each position. On a team with 10 players, you’d probably want 2 setters, 2-3 middles, 1-2 L/DS, and then a mix of pin hitters, hopefully at least 2 that can play all 6 rotations and 1-2 that can play right side.

Setters in particular are in high demand, so a coach might not have 2 equally strong options to pick from during tryouts. And having only 1 setter can be a disaster if that player gets hurt, sick, or otherwise becomes unavailable.

I also agree with the observation that even for teams that have a lot of newer or less skilled players that should be focused on development, there is always pressure to try to win, particularly from parents. The reality is that letting everyone gets reasonable amounts of playing time and trying to win are not always compatible.