Anonymous wrote:

A point is not necessarily correct just because it is made multiple times. If a player is so bad that she can be blamed for losing every single game, the club should have not extended her an offer in the first place. <- This is another point that has been made multiple times on this thread and it is more reasonable. Robbing a family out of thousands of dollars then keeping the player on the bench for one season is not fair no matter what. Do Metro Travel players knowingly sign up for that? So be it if that's their choice. But it's not ok if the club makes an offer on a bottom team, where the family has no way of knowing that the player will be benched for a season. It is easy to blame the parents and the players for poor decisions at tryouts, but I am not buying it.

When considering playing time, think about:

Club playing time commitments: Did the club tell you that "playing time is earned?" or there is no guarantee of playing time? Or did they tell you the intent was to play everyone? Did they ever use the words equal time?
Team competitive level: What level is the club competing at? Open-level: either National open or regional open with national upper level (USA/Liberty). Club-level: regional club level with national lower level (American) or just regional club.
Team performance level: Does the team typically win its matches? Where is it in the rankings (top 10%, 25%, 50%, etc)?
Developmental: Does the club explicitly state they have developmental teams? If so, is your team specifically identified as one? And what does "developmental" mean?

The combination of these three areas make discussions about playing time/benching a lot easier. They also give you the questions to ask before the season starts so you get a clear understanding and have the facts on your side in the even that you do run into playing time issues.

Every club has different answers to these questions. Most national/regional open level teams don't have any playing time guarantees but they operate on a spectrum from Metro/Paramount (we play our best, if you sit out an entire weekend so be it) to MVSA & MOCO 1s (we generally play everyone, but not equally). Those teams are also all in the top 10% of rankings generally and at that level you generally need to play your best players the most to stay there. But even in that group there is a wide range of playing time philosophy.

Being on the "bottom" team at a club doesn't really tell you anything about the level of play or the general club approach to playing time. There are lots of "top" teams at other clubs that don't reach the performance or competition level of the bottom teams at some clubs.

In this case it sounds like there is a disconnect between the club, coach, player and parent expectations.

Most parents have higher playtime expectations for their players than the players do for themselves. Sometimes its due to a lack of understanding of how rotations work (why is my middle hitter only playing half of the match?), sometimes its due to explicit comparison of their player to others on the team (my DD is better than the other player in her position, why doesn't she play) and sometimes its a "I'm paying for this, why isn't my DD playing" mindset. As with many things in life, when money gets involved opinions and conversations can be especially heated.

Most teams have a few who are very good players (compared to their teammates), many who are in the middle and a few who are clearly below the average level of the team. This happens on every team at every level of play and impacts competitive and developmental teams equally. There is a high chance that sometime in your club career you will be in all three situations.

No team has a player who is "so bad she can be blamed for losing every single game." But every team does have players that are "below average" for their team -- that's how averages work. If you didn't get answers to the questions above before the you accepted an offer then its highly likely there was a disconnect between the club's expectations and yours. There is no easy way to resolve it after the fact especially if you are already on the lowest team in a club. Regardless, you should expect the coach to be working with your player to improve her, giving her the same amount of time in practice that everyone else gets. 90%+ of court time comes in practice, and that's generally what you are really paying for in club volleyball.

Lots of posters on this board would have great advice, but giving us a bit more about the competitive level, your DD relative ability level to her teams, etc. would help. We don't even need the club name or team (and generally suggest not doing that because its really easy to trace back),

I think I know how averages work, but since you brought up stats, we can go more in depth. You definitely have a distributions of skills and abilities in any team and nobody disputes that. You can do the stats for each player and come up with solid numbers of who is at the top, who is average, and who is below the average. You can even point out to a p-value that makes this one player unfit to make it on the court, so you have a good reason to bench her. But there is a bigger issue here: why didn't the club realize that during the tryouts? Why did the club make an offer to this player if her skills and abilities are so poor compared to the rest of the team? Most players new to a club have no idea what team they are going to end up on until they see their teammates at practice. How would they know that they are at the bottom with p-values that give them no chance to see the court?

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is playing her 1st year of club (non-travel) and has been benched at both tournaments her team attended so far this year. She doesn't know why and we've had zero communication with the coach. How/when should we raise this as an issue?

Update?? ^^

There are 3+ pages of replies and comments since you posted.

Update please.

A point is not necessarily correct just because it is made multiple times. If a player is so bad that she can be blamed for losing every single game, the club should have not extended her an offer in the first place. <- This is another point that has been made multiple times on this thread and it is more reasonable. Robbing a family out of thousands of dollars then keeping the player on the bench for one season is not fair no matter what. Do Metro Travel players knowingly sign up for that? So be it if that's their choice. But it's not ok if the club makes an offer on a bottom team, where the family has no way of knowing that the player will be benched for a season. It is easy to blame the parents and the players for poor decisions at tryouts, but I am not buying it.

When considering playing time, think about:

Club playing time commitments: Did the club tell you that "playing time is earned?" or there is no guarantee of playing time? Or did they tell you the intent was to play everyone? Did they ever use the words equal time?
Team competitive level: What level is the club competing at? Open-level: either National open or regional open with national upper level (USA/Liberty). Club-level: regional club level with national lower level (American) or just regional club.
Team performance level: Does the team typically win its matches? Where is it in the rankings (top 10%, 25%, 50%, etc)?
Developmental: Does the club explicitly state they have developmental teams? If so, is your team specifically identified as one? And what does "developmental" mean?

The combination of these three areas make discussions about playing time/benching a lot easier. They also give you the questions to ask before the season starts so you get a clear understanding and have the facts on your side in the even that you do run into playing time issues.

Every club has different answers to these questions. Most national/regional open level teams don't have any playing time guarantees but they operate on a spectrum from Metro/Paramount (we play our best, if you sit out an entire weekend so be it) to MVSA & MOCO 1s (we generally play everyone, but not equally). Those teams are also all in the top 10% of rankings generally and at that level you generally need to play your best players the most to stay there. But even in that group there is a wide range of playing time philosophy.

Being on the "bottom" team at a club doesn't really tell you anything about the level of play or the general club approach to playing time. There are lots of "top" teams at other clubs that don't reach the performance or competition level of the bottom teams at some clubs.

In this case it sounds like there is a disconnect between the club, coach, player and parent expectations.

Most parents have higher playtime expectations for their players than the players do for themselves. Sometimes its due to a lack of understanding of how rotations work (why is my middle hitter only playing half of the match?), sometimes its due to explicit comparison of their player to others on the team (my DD is better than the other player in her position, why doesn't she play) and sometimes its a "I'm paying for this, why isn't my DD playing" mindset. As with many things in life, when money gets involved opinions and conversations can be especially heated.

Most teams have a few who are very good players (compared to their teammates), many who are in the middle and a few who are clearly below the average level of the team. This happens on every team at every level of play and impacts competitive and developmental teams equally. There is a high chance that sometime in your club career you will be in all three situations.

No team has a player who is "so bad she can be blamed for losing every single game." But every team does have players that are "below average" for their team -- that's how averages work. If you didn't get answers to the questions above before the you accepted an offer then its highly likely there was a disconnect between the club's expectations and yours. There is no easy way to resolve it after the fact especially if you are already on the lowest team in a club. Regardless, you should expect the coach to be working with your player to improve her, giving her the same amount of time in practice that everyone else gets. 90%+ of court time comes in practice, and that's generally what you are really paying for in club volleyball.

Lots of posters on this board would have great advice, but giving us a bit more about the competitive level, your DD relative ability level to her teams, etc. would help. We don't even need the club name or team (and generally suggest not doing that because its really easy to trace back),

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Developmental teams are basically rec teams around here - several other sports associations even call their rec leagues their “developmental” leagues. I think you’re trying to draw a line where there is not one. If you’re playing on the CHVRA circuit, even at a low level, you’re on a travel or club team, not a rec or house or “developmental” team.

Should a player sit an entire tournament on the bench when they’ve made the team? I think no, but they need to ask their coach what to work on to get in the lineup.

Are you telling me that there is no difference between MOCO-1 and MOCO-3 because they both participate in tournaments? I feel like you refuse to draw a line where clearly there is one. My understanding is that MOCO is trying to play all their players on their bottom teams, so I only brought them up because most people can relate to this example.

Sure there is a difference. But the point has been made multiple times in this thread is that even teams that don't have experienced players or high expectations for winning, still feel pressure to try to win matches. Giving playing time to everyone often means coaches have to decide to put a weaker player into a match at a time where it will likely impact the outcome. No matter the expectations set for the team at the beginning of the season, when that time comes and the team loses that match, there will be parents annoyed that a weaker player was put in instead of playing to win. Winning isn't everything but losing every match is not much fun, and players and parents can get discouraged when a season goes that way.

A point is not necessarily correct just because it is made multiple times. If a player is so bad that she can be blamed for losing every single game, the club should have not extended her an offer in the first place. <- This is another point that has been made multiple times on this thread and it is more reasonable. Robbing a family out of thousands of dollars then keeping the player on the bench for one season is not fair no matter what. Do Metro Travel players knowingly sign up for that? So be it if that's their choice. But it's not ok if the club makes an offer on a bottom team, where the family has no way of knowing that the player will be benched for a season. It is easy to blame the parents and the players for poor decisions at tryouts, but I am not buying it.

The difference for us has always been whether you have to try out or not. Tryouts = “travel” or “club” sports. No tryout = rec or developmental and fairly equal playing time (or at least getting each player into a game).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Developmental teams are basically rec teams around here - several other sports associations even call their rec leagues their “developmental” leagues. I think you’re trying to draw a line where there is not one. If you’re playing on the CHVRA circuit, even at a low level, you’re on a travel or club team, not a rec or house or “developmental” team.

Should a player sit an entire tournament on the bench when they’ve made the team? I think no, but they need to ask their coach what to work on to get in the lineup.

Are you telling me that there is no difference between MOCO-1 and MOCO-3 because they both participate in tournaments? I feel like you refuse to draw a line where clearly there is one. My understanding is that MOCO is trying to play all their players on their bottom teams, so I only brought them up because most people can relate to this example.

Sure there is a difference. But the point has been made multiple times in this thread is that even teams that don't have experienced players or high expectations for winning, still feel pressure to try to win matches. Giving playing time to everyone often means coaches have to decide to put a weaker player into a match at a time where it will likely impact the outcome. No matter the expectations set for the team at the beginning of the season, when that time comes and the team loses that match, there will be parents annoyed that a weaker player was put in instead of playing to win. Winning isn't everything but losing every match is not much fun, and players and parents can get discouraged when a season goes that way.

Anonymous wrote:Developmental teams are basically rec teams around here - several other sports associations even call their rec leagues their “developmental” leagues. I think you’re trying to draw a line where there is not one. If you’re playing on the CHVRA circuit, even at a low level, you’re on a travel or club team, not a rec or house or “developmental” team.

Should a player sit an entire tournament on the bench when they’ve made the team? I think no, but they need to ask their coach what to work on to get in the lineup.

Are you telling me that there is no difference between MOCO-1 and MOCO-3 because they both participate in tournaments? I feel like you refuse to draw a line where clearly there is one. My understanding is that MOCO is trying to play all their players on their bottom teams, so I only brought them up because most people can relate to this example.