Disclaimer: Blog posts represent the opinions of their author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of MVSA the organization.

Should you attend the tryouts for multiple clubs, and if so, how many? These are hard questions to definitively answer. As we mention in our Club Volleyball FAQ, “tryouts can be intense (both physically and mentally) and you only have so much energy to go around. If you spread yourself too thin you may end up performing more poorly than if you had limited yourself.” However, not casting your net wide enough can have an equally devastating effect – you may find yourself with no team offers, and thus lose out on an entire year of club volleyball experience. How do you know what is the right balance? It is a tough question with no one-size-fits-all solution. To begin to craft an answer for your particular situation, you need to first understand a few things:

1. Where you are on the volleyball participation curve (within your region)
2. Where you are on the volleyball developmental curve relative to your peers
3. The strength of the club(s) you are looking at

MVSA operates within the CHRVA region. In CHRVA, volleyball participation generally follows a bell curve (with standard normal distribution). The left end of the curve is 10U (or younger) participation while the right end of the curve is 18U participation. The peak of the curve varies from year to year, but it always falls somewhere within the 14U, 15U, or 16U age groups. Let's look at some interesting points on the participation curve and what it means for an athlete to start their club volleyball journey in each:

10U (and younger)

If you are starting your club volleyball journey at this point, you are well ahead of the curve. However, the number of clubs with 10U programs is actually quite small – it has been growing in recent years but your choices are still going to be limited. In other words, there may not be many clubs you could even try out for. In the past, MVSA has been able to extend a team offer to every 10U eligible player that came to tryouts – the number of players was small enough that we could do this. That is no longer the case.

12U

The first major influx of players coming into club volleyball happens at this age group.¹ That is why many volleyball clubs start their club programs at the 12U age group. You are still ahead of the curve if you are starting here but now there are more programs available to you. Some players you might be competing against will have club experience, but athleticism, positive attitude, and/or height are usually enough to make an athlete stand out.

14/15/16U

The second major influx of players happens within this age group range. Why? There are a number of reasons that stand out. For 14U, many local middle schools have volleyball programs and athletes are introduced to the game through those. Or, these athletes start to think ahead and decide that they would like to play volleyball in high school and know they will need more experience to make their high school team. For 15/16U, many of these players will have been fortunate enough to make their high school’s Junior Varsity team. As the high school season nears completion, they decide that they really enjoy the game and want more, and/or their coach rightly tells them that if they want a shot at making Varsity next year, they need to stay involved in the game and continue to develop their skills. Club volleyball participation is the logical next step. Athleticism, positive attitude, and/or height can still go a long way, but, there are more limits on how far that can take you, especially with the increased competition.

17/18U

Club volleyball participation starts to decline at the 17U age group and that decline typically increases at 18U. Why? Some players burn out, some decide that high school activities, hanging out with friends, and/or other extracurricular activities are now more important. For some, once they have decided that they don’t plan on playing in college, their motivation to continue drains away. It is really unfortunate in my opinion. There are so many wonderful memories to be made and lessons still left to be learned. Regardless, while the number of athletes involved drops, the number of teams available also declines. As a result, it can be very hard to break into club volleyball at this point. It can still be done but the limitations are greater than at any other point due to the cumulative skill development (see below) of other athletes you are likely to be competing against.

When formulating a tryout strategy, it is important to have a firm grasp on where you are relative to your peers on the volleyball developmental curve (i.e., know thyself). However, unlike the participation curve, which is relatively straightforward to analyze, the developmental curve is not. That is because it isn’t really a curve so much as a big jumbled mess. Development is both multifaceted and difficult to quantify. Parents also tend to be bad judges of this for their own children.² Since those observations do little to help, let’s see if we can pick it apart some.

Developmental Rate

All athletes develop at different rates. Some make slow steady progress year over year. Some have quick initial bursts and then slowly fade. Some make little or no progress until something “clicks” and then they take off like a rocket. Do any of those describe you? If so, where does it put you on the curve for the coming season?

Attitude (Coachability)

A positive attitude, a willingness to listen, an eagerness to try new things and continue working hard to achieve them – all are of great value regardless of where you are on the curve. After all, no coach wants a difficult player on their team. Nor do they want a player that doesn’t listen or shows an unwillingness to try to affect a change they are asking for. At younger ages, a positive attitude may be all you need to get noticed. At older ages, it is still valuable, but you usually need more to stand out.

Athleticism

Volleyball is an explosive sport. Quickness is more important than speed. Stamina, while valuable, is not as important as it is in some other sports. Strength and power can be valuable, especially for a hitter. An above average vertical jump is a wonderful asset. To be a standout volleyball player you need good body control, hand-eye coordination, spatial recognition, an ability to think on your feet, perform well under pressure, work well as part of a team, etc. How much of that describes you? Where are you relative to your peers?

Skill

Volleyball is a heavily skill-driven sport. However, not all skills in the game are equally easy to develop. Passing and setting take thousands and thousands of repetitions to become good. Other skills, like hitting and blocking, seem to take less time to reach that same level of proficiency – especially for someone of good athleticism and above average height. Of course, becoming great at any of the skills takes years and years of hard work and dedication, but the time it takes to go from zero to good depends on the skill. This means that it is easier to take someone with previous experience in basketball (a good sport for the purposes of this example since it requires many of the same attributes to excel at), and turn them into a front row hitter/blocker than it is to turn them into a defensive player or a setter. As a result, trying to break into the sport at a later age can be highly variable based on the type of team role a coach thinks you could fulfill.

Height (The Elephant In The Room)

Volleyball is a sport where being tall (or at least taller than average) can confer significant advantages. Why is that? Blame the net. In volleyball, the teams are separated by a net, and an athlete’s ability to elevate above that net gives them a distinct advantage. This elevation can come from having a great vertical jump or it can be the result of simply being tall – if you are tall and have a great vertical jump then consider yourself very very lucky. There is a saying among volleyball coaches, “you can’t teach tall”, and it is why you might see volleyball coaches tripping over each other going to talk to the 6’ 2” athlete that just walked in the gym. If you are not genetically blessed in the height department, then you are going to have to prove you belong on a team in some other way – not fair, but that is the reality of the sport.

The strength of any club’s teams is highly dependent on the strength of the players that club can attract. The quality of the club’s coaches and administration obviously have a big impact on how its players develop, but it stands to reason that a club’s teams will be stronger if they come from a stronger starting position. Likewise, strong athletes tend to be attracted to clubs that have performed well in the past. More plainly, strong clubs and strong athletes tend to seek each other out.

If a club you are looking at is a strong club, then their tryouts will be highly competitive. Does that mean you shouldn’t try out for them? Not necessarily. However, you will definitely want to have backup options. How do you determine the strength of the club(s) you are looking at? The easiest way is to check the team rankings on Advanced Event Systems (AES). Just follow these steps:

1. Navigate to https://www.advancedeventsystems.com/rankings
2. Select “SportsEngine AES Power Rankings”, “Female”, and then choose a division (age group)
3. On the resulting "Power Rankings" page select “Chesapeake (CH)” as the region and an appropriate "historical season" (i.e., 2023-2024).

Generally speaking, clubs with teams near the top of the list will have more competitive tryouts than clubs with teams at the bottom of the list. However, do keep in mind that some of the larger clubs have a significant number of teams at each age group so you might see them at the top and bottom of the rankings. Your experience at the tryouts for such a club is likely to be different than at a club like MVSA, where all of the teams we field at a given age group finish near the top of the rankings. While MVSA limits itself to building two or three of the strongest teams possible per age group, some clubs will build as many teams as they can by making an offer to anyone that walks in the door. Their “top” team is likely to be good while their lowest team is likely to be not so good.

Given everything discussed above, what is the “best” strategy for tryouts? It is impossible for me to say because so much depends on individual circumstances. However, I think we have enough to make some general observations:

• All things considered, you probably want to have at least one backup option in most situations. If you are trying out for MVSA and get an offer, you take that offer with no questions asked (I might be biased on that). If you don’t get an offer from MVSA, then you still have another option.
• If you are starting out your club volleyball journey in one of the “busy” (or difficult) age groups, then you probably want more than one backup option with at least one “safe” option in the mix.
• As our Club Volleyball FAQ mentions, you probably should limit yourself to three tryouts overall. Tryouts require a lot of mental and physical energy and doing more than three is often a recipe for burnout and a mediocre showing. Maybe you have a ton of energy and can do more than that? Only you know what is best for you. Tryouts also cost time and money. How much of those do you have to spare?
• If you are average height and average athleticism, with no previous volleyball experience, you are going to have a hard time breaking into club volleyball at any age group (but especially 14U and higher) at a highly competitive club like MVSA. If you are above average height/athleticism (top 10-20%), now the calculation is totally different.
• If you played club volleyball last year, how happy are you with your club, and how secure are you in your spot within the club? It is really important to be clear-eyed and honest with yourself about your abilities, how you compare with your peers, and how you are feeling about your experience so far. If you are unhappy with your current club, then exploring additional options would make sense. If you like your club but think you might be “on the bubble”, then you probably want a backup option as well. How do you know whether you might be on the bubble? My best advice would be to reach out to your club coach from the previous season and ask them for their honest feedback. And when they give it, don’t judge, listen, and take what they say to heart.

Club tryouts season is an incredibly stressful time of year for everyone involved. While the information in this article isn’t likely to make it less stressful, we hope it at least gives you more confidence in your decision making regarding how many tryouts to attend. We wish you good luck on your volleyball journey regardless of where it takes you!

¹ Why? The “volley” nature of volleyball actually makes it a hard game to play at ages much below this. If you have ever seen 5 year olds play soccer, you will know it usually devolves into a pack of players, surrounding a ball, meandering about the field, while kicking each other in the shins. Now imagine that the only way to move the ball is to keep it in the air the entire time (i.e., juggling). Yeah, it would not be pretty. It definitely can be done, but there are also ways to simplify or adapt the game of volleyball to make it more appropriate for younger athletes. That is a different article though.

² It has been my observation that there are only two types of sports parents: those who think their child is better than they actually are, and those who think their child is worse than they actually are. The former out number the latter by a large margin. Don't take it personally, I fall into one of those buckets like everyone else. I just won't say which one *grin*.