The Culture of Club Volleyball and What Organizations That Profit From it Won't Tell You

(This will be a 2-part blog - Part 1 will deal with "Why have we not educated our families properly?" and Part 2 will then go into the reality of what the culture of college volleyball is truly like).

With tryouts for most juniors volleyball clubs only days away, I figured I'd write a little bit on a topic that I think most families should be aware of, but only a very small percentage actually understand (not due to anything they've done - it's just more of an elephant in the room. Allow me to introduce that elephant).

In the past month, I've been speaking with countless people in the volleyball community - from juniors players to their parents, to club coaches/directors, all the way up to USAv/AAU/JVA/AVCA members. It's been interesting to hear a lot of different perspectives regarding the culture of junior volleyball and the wants/needs for it. Between my experience as a college coach and eventually a college liaison, as well as my communication with all these people, I've come to the conclusion that
most parents/players have not been properly educated on how college volleyball REALLY works for various reasons:

1) Some clubs (understandably from a business perspective) are afraid to tell the 99% of families with a child that will not play Division I the hard truth as they risk losing that family to another club that will tell them otherwise. Sadly, player success sells a lot more than player development.

2) Some families simply don't want to hear the truth. I've seen a ton of articles online with hard facts about how most parents should curb their expectations about their children being an elite athlete littered with a comments section of proud parents with a "you're wrong about my kid, you'll see!" remarks. #3 and #4 will play on this.

3) Marketing tools are horribly skewed to give false expectations. This in my opinion is the BIG one. Before all my friends that work for/run clubs get upset, know that this isn't a shot at their programs as much as the culture of club sports for kids. When you think large girls v.olleyball programs in my area, there are three that stand out above the rest. Their top teams indeed are some of the best in the country, and I see players from their clubs at some of the best college programs in the country.

I went to all three of their websites, and the first thing that pops out on all three websites are the words NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS. One of them takes a small scroll to see that they are #2 in the nation for players that are currently playing at the collegiate level, and the other has the # of 2014 recruits that are going to play at college. These are statements that are valid... but it doesn't paint the whole picture.

What you don't see is the number of kids that have gone through their program in that age group in the last 5-6 years that aren't going to play in college. You don't see the number of kids that may go to college to play but are relying on their academic scholarship/grants to help pay their way. You don't see the difference in training that the 'elite' players get vs. the kids that are either brand new to the sport or develop at the speed that I did as a 5'5 95-pound high school freshman. And you don't see the fact that, due to the reputation they've built and aggressive marketing, they get more of the physical outliers / naturally gifted athletes to come to their tryouts, which is why they SHOULD be where they're at (Even John Wooden, one of the greatest coaches of all time that won 10 NCAA National Championships in 12 seasons and was all about fundamentals/effort, admitted that the #1 thing you need to win was talent). Give a trained eye an hour at 10 different clubs for their tryouts at their "top" court, and that eye will be able to give you a pretty close assessment to what teams will have the most success 7 months down the road.

Due to all of this, all the other clubs have to resort to similar marketing tools - I agreed to work for my club because they have built a culture that cared about the PERSON, whether they were going to be an elite athlete or they just had a love for the sport - but you won't read that on our front page. Scroll down and you will read about our National Championships though!

And from a business perspective, why wouldn't they? Parents want their kids to go to successful programs, and sure enough, these clubs have the biggest tryout numbers year after year without fail.

4) We have decided to skew tournament results so that everyone feels successful. Part of this is to soften the blow to our kids that not everyone is created equal, another part of this is to make sure parents (and to an extent, lower/middle level clubs) are willing to pay the $ it takes to travel for these National Championships (our sport isn't generating a lot of money at the professional level - but you better believe that the business of juniors volleyball is THRIVING financially).

Let's look at a 18's Division for a National Championship from last year. There were 222 teams that participated. They were broken into four groups: Classic, Club, Open, and Premier (very clever how they don't use a naming system that would differentiate to a common fan what's best). There were 44 teams in the 'lowest' division. After a couple days of play, teams are 'tiered' to play with other teams that have had similar results. One team did not win a single game - they were 44th out of 44 and in a sense, 222 out of 222. But you know what those kids/parents will say? "We took 5th in the Green Division!". 222 teams, and they all get to leave saying they finished in the top-10 of x division. 

The intention of that is not to criticize that team, but the system that doesn't give parents and players a fair assessment on where they fall in the big picture. The system only bolsters it - because most families aren't paying thousands of dollars to spend a week in Florida to take 200th+ place.

I want to give people this information not to ruffle feathers, but because families NEED to know this. You can skew statistics all you want in a letter to a college coach about your team's results, but when the coach sees the athlete play, they will know where they stand. A club name or tournament results may get a coach to look at a player, but if the player can't perform at the level they're looking for, they will not play for that coach's school. It's as simple as that.

You may be thinking "With all of that sunshine you just dropped on us, what are we supposed to do???" - Part 2 will talk about your options - And you have them. Club has a purpose and value - the development of your athlete. That value is in the practices/education, not the playing time at tournaments, not at finishing Xth place in the Y Division at Nationals. Any kid that truly has a passion for the sport and has played it for multiple years has an opportunity to play after high school - with many of them being able to use it to their advantage when applying for a college.

I will speak more to this in Part 2!