Why club volleyball worth it
by Katie C.
In 2022, 520.6 thousand people played high school volleyball, according to https://www.statista.com/. A majority of these players were North American teenage girls. Of these nearly half-million, far fewer play the sport outside of the school system in a league like AAU, also known as club volleyball. According to the American Volleyball Coaches Association, “76% (247,027) of the members of USA Volleyball, the sport’s national governing body, are junior girl’s ages, 10-18,” and “AAU Volleyball has more participants (over 100,000) than any other girls team sport.” To elaborate, Club volleyball is a travel team that plays at different tournaments, which in our geographic region includes such events as Big South, K2, Soda City Classic, and more. As previously stated, most people just play for high school, but many serious players play for club teams, which in our area includes Lake Murray Volleyball Club, FCA, SC Midlands, and Intense. Although club volleyball has downsides such as extra expenses, time, and stress, take it from someone with personal experience: Club volleyball is 100% worth it.
The first reason is that club volleyball opens players up to meeting different coaches with different coaching methods and different players with different skill levels and abilities. Every year, you tryout for your age level and whatever clubs you choose. You might not know the coach and may have never seen the players before. When you play around new people, you grow as a player because you see different ways and techniques of doing things. You also see people who are more experienced than you which pushes you to do better and improve. For example, when I started club volleyball in 6th grade, I had absolutely no clue what I was doing but after I played club, I made my middle school team the next year and have continued getting better as time went on. Playing with new girls every season made me push myself to get better because I was seeing their talent and how they play.
During club, athletes gain more opportunities and experiences than they would just playing for a school’s season. During the school season, coaches are more focused on winning games and more game play. Club season is much longer than school ball so you get more practice time. Your coaches can focus on your mistakes and technical issues better because you have more of a season. Instead of having multiple games a week, you have tournaments on the weekend and normally two practices a week, so you get more time to learn and practice instead of focusing on winning a game the next day. Also when playing club, you travel to new places and get to go to different restaurants, stores, and see different parts of cities. My favorite tournament I go to is K2 because we get to go to Sevierville, Tennessee. The mountains and places you can visit were beautiful, and I probably would not have experienced it if it had not been for club.
CLub volleyball also gets players exposure to college coaches. Some athletes don’t want to play in college but if you do, I recommend club. So many college coaches come to volleyball tournaments because there are so many volleyball teams and players in one place. Almost every time I go to a big volleyball tournament, I see college coaches looking around at the courts. It’s easier for them to see multiple different teams and players rather than coming to individual school games. Also a lot of clubs have started pushing athletes to make accounts and videos for college coaches to see. The website my club uses is https://www.fieldlevel.com.
On the other hand, some people do not think the club season is worth it. The main reasons are because of expenses such as gas/travel prices, hotel prices, fees to join the club, and attire (knee pads, jerseys, shoes, ankle brace, etc). It is also time consuming because you are out of town most weekends and have practices every week. It can also be a lot of stress on the parent and the athlete, mentally and physically. Those issues are problems for almost every athlete, but at the end of the day, if you’re serious about volleyball, club volleyball will help you improve extremely, get good experience, and better opportunities.
Now that you have heard my opinion, let's see what other students at Airport think. Sophomore and JV volleyball player, Hannah B. says, “Club volleyball is such a good experience! It helped me learn the basics, especially when I was too young to play for my middle school. Now, I enjoy traveling and meeting new people. After 5 years of club, I’ve met so many great friends. I learn and grow so much more in clubs rather than school. Different coaches allow me to learn from people that all play differently which makes me more well rounded!”. Riley K, Sophomore and Varsity Volleyball player says, “It helped me improve so much in my first season and I completely changed as a player in just one season. I’ve met so many different coaches and it makes me better every club season.”. These two athletes have both played club volleyball since 6th and 7th grade and It has helped them improve so much over the years.
Playing club volleyball since 6th grade has made me believe that club volleyball is 100% worth it because of the experience, opportunities, and knowledge that I gained. If you’re interested in improving as a volleyball player or just taking volleyball more seriously, start looking for tryout dates in the area! Start looking on websites like, https://www.lakemurrayvolleyball.club, https://fcamidlandsvolleyball.sportngin.com, and https://www.scmidlandsvolleyball.com/ .