Anonymous
Post 11/07/2025 11:03     Subject: Re:Metro added new tryout dates
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:This is a little off topic for the op but there was another post where coach experience came up. Someone was questioning paramount and the limited coaching and college playing experience of many of their coaches. VAJRS seems to have a lot of coaches with college experience but maybe not as much coaching experience. Loudoun Elite OTOH seems to have pulled in coaches that are most older and many who coach in local high schools (a lot of cons on that front) and VA Elite has a lot or long term coaches and usually has 3/ team with some less
experienced recent college players. Don’t know that va jrs is much different than the paramount roster of coaches except maybe more college experience. Jury is out on what’s better. If you give less experiences / fresh out of college newer coaches a team packed with skilled players seems theyd really have to be horrible to screw that up. Someone asked if anyone had done any sort of analysis on coaches, years of experience, played in college, etc and don’t think that has happened. Might also throw in the data point about how much they are paid as a factor. The one thing that matters the most is your dd or ds experience with the coach for that season. These days club coaches are like whack a mole. Be wary though of coaches that coach more than one age group who aren’t doing it FT and teams that don’t have a solid assistant. I


“ coach in local high schools (a lot of cons on that front)”. Can you elaborate on that?

There are a lot of potential conflicts of interest for high school coaches who coach high school age club players. Players can feel a lot of pressure to do what their high school coaches tell them to do including being told what club the HS coach would like to see them at. They often worry that if they don't do what the coach says that it will impact their chance of making the HS team or their playing playing time. Some coaches are very aware of the potential cons and go out of their way to make sure they act fairly, but its a hard line to walk.
Anonymous
Post 11/07/2025 10:13     Subject: Re:Metro added new tryout dates
Anonymous wrote:This is a little off topic for the op but there was another post where coach experience came up. Someone was questioning paramount and the limited coaching and college playing experience of many of their coaches. VAJRS seems to have a lot of coaches with college experience but maybe not as much coaching experience. Loudoun Elite OTOH seems to have pulled in coaches that are most older and many who coach in local high schools (a lot of cons on that front) and VA Elite has a lot or long term coaches and usually has 3/ team with some less
experienced recent college players. Don’t know that va jrs is much different than the paramount roster of coaches except maybe more college experience. Jury is out on what’s better. If you give less experiences / fresh out of college newer coaches a team packed with skilled players seems theyd really have to be horrible to screw that up. Someone asked if anyone had done any sort of analysis on coaches, years of experience, played in college, etc and don’t think that has happened. Might also throw in the data point about how much they are paid as a factor. The one thing that matters the most is your dd or ds experience with the coach for that season. These days club coaches are like whack a mole. Be wary though of coaches that coach more than one age group who aren’t doing it FT and teams that don’t have a solid assistant. I


“ coach in local high schools (a lot of cons on that front)”. Can you elaborate on that?
Anonymous
Post 11/06/2025 20:19     Subject: Re:Metro added new tryout dates
This is a little off topic for the op but there was another post where coach experience came up. Someone was questioning paramount and the limited coaching and college playing experience of many of their coaches. VAJRS seems to have a lot of coaches with college experience but maybe not as much coaching experience. Loudoun Elite OTOH seems to have pulled in coaches that are most older and many who coach in local high schools (a lot of cons on that front) and VA Elite has a lot or long term coaches and usually has 3/ team with some less
experienced recent college players. Don’t know that va jrs is much different than the paramount roster of coaches except maybe more college experience. Jury is out on what’s better. If you give less experiences / fresh out of college newer coaches a team packed with skilled players seems theyd really have to be horrible to screw that up. Someone asked if anyone had done any sort of analysis on coaches, years of experience, played in college, etc and don’t think that has happened. Might also throw in the data point about how much they are paid as a factor. The one thing that matters the most is your dd or ds experience with the coach for that season. These days club coaches are like whack a mole. Be wary though of coaches that coach more than one age group who aren’t doing it FT and teams that don’t have a solid assistant. I
Anonymous
Post 11/06/2025 15:45     Subject: Re:Metro added new tryout dates
Vajrs
My oldest DD received an offer for VAJRS but ended up going to a different club. I kept hearing mixed things about the club’s lack of communication and losing reputable coaches every year. I have a younger daughter (played basketball-tall, athletic, and transitioning to volleyball like her sister) she is interested in playing 13s next season. I heard there was not a big turnout for thirteens this season as last season. Is there a reason why? My oldest attended the clinics-the coaches seemed fine, but I did notice they are all young and new. I heard the only long term coach left after last season. Wanted to get your thoughts?
Anonymous
Post 11/06/2025 13:17     Subject: Metro added new tryout dates
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Omg who cares?! Just enjoy playing the game!


There are one or two people here who are obsessed. We are all about location, coaching and tournaments. So far it's been a great experience for my kiddo - despite the ranking!


+1
We had no clue our 1st year of playing club, ended up on a terrible team. They're still terrible, and also expensive! But hardly anyone mentions them here so not going to name them. But I will say that aside from definitely caring about location, and being able to map out commutes to practices and tournaments without knowing anything else, coaching and tournaments is something that is hard to gauge when you're new to club volleyball. This forum is a great place to go down rabbit holes and read anonymous posts about pretty much every angle of volleyball, but it really takes being in it to start to really learn what you care about.

Now having been a volleyball parent for 7 years altogether (between 3 DDs), I can say that even just taking coaching, we now know what we'd want to know about potential new coaches as we consider teams to try out for and prioritize, but I've met other parents who also look but prioritize some coach fators differently. So for us as a family, it's a combination of reputation of the club, rankings, coaching, and only now that we have been to a bunch of tournaments, we can look at a list of tournaments and say "Ok, this has the most we think are really good, so that is a big plus for this team if DD gets an offer". But we were probaly in year 3 of club before we could distill our preferences for which tournaments were best.

All that said, we also walked around tournaments when DD's team wasn't playing and now and then we saw a club that just was so good and looked so well run and we always asked parents there which club, what htey liked about it, where they practiced (big factor), and in the end we only discovered a new club we actually went to once that way, but it was a great discovery and rankings and tournaments did not tell the story of the great year we had there. So good that DD developed a lot and only didn't go back because she got onto a much better team the next year. But that club (which isn't a club anymore, sadly) was great even though not "hot".
Anonymous
Post 11/06/2025 13:08     Subject: Metro added new tryout dates
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Omg who cares?! Just enjoy playing the game!


That's a great attitude, and you can do that and not be concerned with any of this if you play Rec or play whatever club is near you and you get onto, without worrying about the quality of the coaching, players, or ranks.

But those whose girls are taking volleyball very seriously, either just because they enjoy it and want the best training and competition experiences they can get, or those who care even more and hope to be D1, D2 or D3 players, then ALL of these details are important. How deeply you did into the actual data (vs. asking here or asking around your local parent community) is up to each family, but yes, all of this matters if you're serious about volleyball.

+1

Also, what is written here stays visible for a long time. This all started from a PP comments on the relative comparison of Metro regionals. A poster responded back shouting "MISinformation" and "line is usually out the door" and "players offered a spot take it on the spot" statements. They also used regional rankings to try and prove their point which others pointed out was actual misleading info. You'll notice that poster and their supporters who posted just minutes after the initial response seem to have disappeared as other posters shared the facts.

The original poster probably should have said "some players" to soften their Metro Central comment about offers, but the rest of it ended up being accurate and verified by data. Even that softened comment is a backed up by the fact makeup tryouts for U15 & U17 ages were held right up against the decision deadline, making it highly likely that at least some players who received offers at those tryouts either didn't have offers or were trying to upgrade from lower offers at other clubs.


You're funny, and also wrong about some of this. I was the MISinformation poster, and while I now see it matters which data set you're using, I did not post any data at all. So to say I used the regional rankings to justify my comment, no, I used what I knew from the years I cared about rankings in choosing teams, and from my knowledge of some specific teams' rankings. But I didn't cite any rankings or post any so no, wasn't me, so maybe don't be quite so sure of your own assumptions.
Anonymous
Post 11/06/2025 12:50     Subject: Metro added new tryout dates
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Omg who cares?! Just enjoy playing the game!


That's a great attitude, and you can do that and not be concerned with any of this if you play Rec or play whatever club is near you and you get onto, without worrying about the quality of the coaching, players, or ranks.

But those whose girls are taking volleyball very seriously, either just because they enjoy it and want the best training and competition experiences they can get, or those who care even more and hope to be D1, D2 or D3 players, then ALL of these details are important. How deeply you did into the actual data (vs. asking here or asking around your local parent community) is up to each family, but yes, all of this matters if you're serious about volleyball.

+1

Also, what is written here stays visible for a long time. This all started from a PP comments on the relative comparison of Metro regionals. A poster responded back shouting "MISinformation" and "line is usually out the door" and "players offered a spot take it on the spot" statements. They also used regional rankings to try and prove their point which others pointed out was actual misleading info. You'll notice that poster and their supporters who posted just minutes after the initial response seem to have disappeared as other posters shared the facts.

The original poster probably should have said "some players" to soften their Metro Central comment about offers, but the rest of it ended up being accurate and verified by data. Even that softened comment is a backed up by the fact makeup tryouts for U15 & U17 ages were held right up against the decision deadline, making it highly likely that at least some players who received offers at those tryouts either didn't have offers or were trying to upgrade from lower offers at other clubs.
Anonymous
Post 11/06/2025 12:40     Subject: Metro added new tryout dates
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Omg who cares?! Just enjoy playing the game!


That's a great attitude, and you can do that and not be concerned with any of this if you play Rec or play whatever club is near you and you get onto, without worrying about the quality of the coaching, players, or ranks.

But those whose girls are taking volleyball very seriously, either just because they enjoy it and want the best training and competition experiences they can get, or those who care even more and hope to be D1, D2 or D3 players, then ALL of these details are important. How deeply you did into the actual data (vs. asking here or asking around your local parent community) is up to each family, but yes, all of this matters if you're serious about volleyball.


Sounds like someone is really obsessed with ranking data. That’s fine, you have proved your point ! For everyone else, please take the ranking data with a grain of salt as it is a point in time data reference for most of the clubs. With the exception of a few clubs in the area (Metro Travel is a good example), club performance has been up and down for various reasons: management changes, coach retention, facility changes, etc. Ranking from two years ago may not even close to this year prediction. Ranking from a younger group may not be the same for next year and next older group. Take the major clubs (VE, VA juniors, Vienna Elite, St. James, etc) you would be surprised how drastic ranking data change is in the last five years.
Anonymous
Post 11/06/2025 10:35     Subject: Metro added new tryout dates
Anonymous wrote:Omg who cares?! Just enjoy playing the game!


That's a great attitude, and you can do that and not be concerned with any of this if you play Rec or play whatever club is near you and you get onto, without worrying about the quality of the coaching, players, or ranks.

But those whose girls are taking volleyball very seriously, either just because they enjoy it and want the best training and competition experiences they can get, or those who care even more and hope to be D1, D2 or D3 players, then ALL of these details are important. How deeply you did into the actual data (vs. asking here or asking around your local parent community) is up to each family, but yes, all of this matters if you're serious about volleyball.
Anonymous
Post 11/06/2025 09:01     Subject: Metro added new tryout dates
Anonymous wrote:Omg who cares?! Just enjoy playing the game!


There are one or two people here who are obsessed. We are all about location, coaching and tournaments. So far it's been a great experience for my kiddo - despite the ranking!
Anonymous
Post 11/05/2025 23:40     Subject: Metro added new tryout dates
Anonymous wrote:Omg who cares?! Just enjoy playing the game!

You can do that at any level you play at. But you enjoy the game more if you play at a higher level. To get at a higher level, you need to pay attention to little things like coaching, teammates, results (and implicitly rankings). It's fine if you personally don't care - not everyone has to.
Anonymous
Post 11/05/2025 17:50     Subject: Metro added new tryout dates
Omg who cares?! Just enjoy playing the game!
Anonymous
Post 11/05/2025 15:50     Subject: Metro added new tryout dates
Anonymous wrote:You guys are really wrapoed up on rankings and stats.
And to the point of going down rabbit holes to boot.

Does it really matter (that much)?

I would have thought practice location, tournament schedule, and price are things to compare abd contrast? Logistics and all?

Not nitpicking if Team XYZ North for Age123 is better than Team ABC South for Age456.

100% those things are important. Discussing one thing doesn't mean the other isn't important. And none of this means the teams are bad or wrong or to be avoided. But if you've been around volleyball for a while you know that lots of parents are confused by the relative performance of a club "1" team versus another club "1" or "2" or even "3" team. Threads like these can help parents understand the complexity and make a more informed decision.
Anonymous
Post 11/05/2025 15:45     Subject: Metro added new tryout dates
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We have a family member who's coached metro regional teams in last 5 years, (not Central), but they have helped with Central tryouts up to last year and you are SO wrong that they take players getting low level offers or none at all! The line is usually out the door for those coach conferences and most players offered a spot take it on the spot and there is no trend of accepting on the spot then rejecting when the written offer comes in.

Quick check on your statement: Line out the door + immediate accepts should mean an easy job filling a 12 person roster. In fact, based on this comment they should have been done on day 1. So why did they add extra tryouts for most of the regions?

As a Metro regional parent with several years of experience the posts here really aren't that off base. With the exception of North, most players good enough to play above the Metro regional level go to other club tryouts on Friday and Saturday. Many of those clubs have multiple teams that you try out for at the same time. Those tryouts overlap with the first round of Metro tryouts which is why Metro typically adds tryouts for most of their teams on Tuesday.

Half of those make-up tryouts this year ended at the same time the open tryout period ended at 10 PM (15 & 17s). The players there either didn't have an offer or were willing to give up an existing offer to take a chance at making a Metro Regional team. The players that had an offer from a close equivalent or even lower team would never be willing to give up a certain offer for a chance of an offer at a Metro regional.

None of this means that those Metro teams are bad. We've enjoyed our time with them. But the PP wasn't really wrong, even if it was an aggressive comment. Based on national ranks Central really is the lowest ranked Metro region. And there are certainly examples of players with low level club offers or no offers at all taking Metro offers, because the Metro makeup tryout schedule actually forces that to happen for certain age groups.


Newbie again, so not PP: I guess I'll ask you the same question, because no one else has posted it this way: where is the National ranking data that shows Metro Central as below North, East and the 2 Souths, age group by age group, for maybe the last 5 years? When you say they're the "lowest ranked Metro region", can you please link to the data you're looking at that compares the teams that way so we can all see what you're looking at?

Sure, happy to. I'll send them as different posts because there is a lot of data. This data pull is directly from AES using national ranks for the last 4 years (Central did run teams in 2021 and South was still one region instead of 2). I used AI to format for easy text reading, so if any data is wrong its because of the AI transcription errors that sometimes occur.

2025 Metro results
National Ranks, Ordinal = absolute ranking vs. Metro teams.


I also ran the regional ranking data same way and ran a t-test for the regression (testing how predictive the regional rank was vs the national rank in overall win %, total wins, etc). The p-value was high indicating that regional ranks did little to predict the overall performance of the team. It appears that the regional data set suffers from data insufficiency issues discussed by multiple PP above. For example, in 2025 U15 only Metro South teams played more than half their matches against regional opponents. The other Metro teams played fewer than half of their matches in region, with Metro North plays just 16 matches against regional opponents compared to 48 total matches for the season in the national ranks. The disparity in games played means that teams with lots of regional matches ranked artificially higher than those with comparably fewer regional matches played. In other words the teams that played mostly local schedules appear stronger in the regional rankings even though the national data shows they are well below the performance of those teams that played more out of region matches.



Aaaahhh ok, NOW I get it, thank you! Sorry, didn't see this part when wrote previous message. Thanks!

Happy to help. As they say "Lies, D**n lies and statistics". In this case the claim that started all this was based on the national ranks and the generally understood fact that national ranks are much more accurate than regional ranks, at least in CHRVA. The rebuttal to that used the regional ranks to try to prove their point, but as we've covered extensively now that rebuttal fell into the "statistics" bucket of the statement above.

Often on DCUM there is an assumption that there are ulterior motives for posts and for some posters there definitely is. Some parents can get very wrapped up in their club and will defend it vigorously, others will have a bad experience or feel slighted when their DD doesn't make a team and trash a club constantly. Add in the anonymous club staff posts and you get a wide range of opinion that can be heavily biased. Without understanding the bias we sometimes take information shared at face value when we should be skeptical of it. Generally when you see over the top responses to statements of fact it's because that bias exists and they are trying to prove someone wrong in defense of their club. A big hint is all caps responses and attacking the post as completely invalid, FYI.

But there's a small group of posters that generally have a "let the data tell us" approach. Those posters tend to have a sound understanding of the way rankings work, the relative performance of the teams and a good grasp of the strength of schedule impacts on rankings. They also know a lot of the players and some have been around the game for a long time, and their posts reflect that. They are biased some too, but they generally change their minds when presented with data (See the discussion re: recruiting for example). If you read through the threads you'll see these posters sharing data in a variety of threads like the metro vs. paramount debates, helping new families understand the difference between a 1 team at Club A and a 2s team at Club B, etc. I'm not sure how many of them responded in this thread, but it feels like at least 3 and they all said versions of the same thing: Use national ranks, the data is sound, and here's the proof.

Thanks for joining us in the "let the data tell us" group, at least for this discussion!


I'm Newbie, and you're the data expert between the 2 of us for sure! But seems like the data sets you just posted actually do support the person who said Central doesn't finish last all the time, since in 2024 Central seems to have had a bad year and finished last in 3 of the 4 age groups they had (one being the 1st year they had 12s it seems); but in 2022 and 2023 they were almost never last, and Metro East who the same original poster who brought this up said was usually 2nd to North, that wasn't true either.

I've got no dog in this fight, but it seems above you just said the data shows the person defending Central was wrong, which maybe is true for 2024 but based on the data you provided, can't at all be said to be true in the 2 yrs before that, where Central mostly were not last and sometimes were 2nd to Travel (actually they're 2nd to travel for 18s every year it seems - anyone know why that is?)

Fascinating stuff! In the end though, all the national data in this thread says Central is a middling team among the Metro regional teams, and other than Travel being 1st, the only other "trend" among the 2022 - 2024 data is that North is usually 2nd. Lots and lots of moving around between the other 4 regional teams (East, Central, South PW & South FX).

Ok now can I give you some questions related to my actual job (nothing to do with volleyball) and can you please do data analysis for me for projects? Your anonymous feedback is way cheaper than the consultant I use LOL!
(Kidding, in case that's not clear!)

Like any trend analysis the time period you choose is important to the analysis. Objectively it is fair to say the following:
Over the last two years of club volleyball (2024 & 2025), Metro Central was the a) The region most likely to have teams with the lowest national rank of any of the Metro teams, b) Had the most "last place" finishes in national ranking when compared to their peer group, and c) Had the least amount of variability in the data (e.g. were most consistently the lowest ranked team when compared to other regionals except Metro North (who is equally consistent in being 2nd in the group).

If you expand the time period to include 2022 & 2023, you can also credibly say that Metro Central's performance has: a) Declined relative to other Metro regions, and b) has a declining trend in national ranking between between 2021 and 2025. This declining trend has occurred at the same time the overall performance of CHRVA teams has been improving relative to the rest of the country.

Posting the chart that shows the decline from 2021-2025 is hard in this forum, but if you scatter plot the rankings of all Central teams by year you will see that the best national ranking for any Central team has declined by about ~600 ranks and the worst national ranking has increased by around ~1700 ranks since 2022. Said another way, in 2022 the best Central team was ranked #1281 (U18) and the worst Central team was ranked #2443. In 2025 the best team was ranked #1818, and the worst team was ranked #4159.

What you can't do is use the 2022 & 2023 data to skew the average performance of 2024 & 2025 in favor of the argument that Metro Central is actually in the middle of the pack against other Metro teams. 2 years is an eternity in club volleyball especially when the clubs in Metro Central's direct geography have been expanding. There were a lot fewer teams in the central DC Metro area in 2022 than there are today.
Anonymous
Post 11/05/2025 15:21     Subject: Metro added new tryout dates
You guys are really wrapoed up on rankings and stats.
And to the point of going down rabbit holes to boot.

Does it really matter (that much)?

I would have thought practice location, tournament schedule, and price are things to compare abd contrast? Logistics and all?

Not nitpicking if Team XYZ North for Age123 is better than Team ABC South for Age456.