USAVolleyball HP Program

[Paulj]

I have asked two D1 coaches (B1G and Pac-12) about the merits of the USAVolleyball high performance program for up and coming "kids."

While both were reluctant to comment, they both ultimately replied to not bother.

Can you share your views and/or experiences?

[strikestwice]

These programs are good in theory, however if you are not at the top of your age group playing for the National team then it gets ridiculously expensive. I always encourage kids to tryout so they can see where they stack up with other kids and to see other competition they might not typically see. Also to have someone else evaluate them and place them accordingly.

[ja]

USA HP does have a serious impact on few areas. First is identifying potential and bring this potential together to evaluate and train them.
That kind of the program was run by USSR, East Germany before and China now. But all those countries went to train elite athletes pretty much
year around. HP works with our talent pool only for a week. This is where I do see need for improvement. Instead of bringing everybody to Colorado
I would rather have few two-three days camps over the course of the year and then, lets say 6 Regional camps for best players out of those 2-3 days
camps. I have worked HP camps and tryouts. It is well organized, but I would say pace of the training is grueling and some kids just not ready yet
to keep it up. I don't think it's expensive giving the price of regular club season. I am always sending my girls to tryouts and camps, once they
made it. Second, there are actually 3 separate programs in HP. A1, A2 and A3. A1 is pretty much our National Team and if I am not mistaken, all of
our NT roster went through HP at some point of time. But they are all well known even before HP. A2 and A3 are the one you can go to see some future
players for mid-major and lower level DI programs. Third, HP Nationals are giving another chance for kids to compete against best (unfortunately too
many players are still skipping HP for many reasons) and doing this with International format.

[dorothymantooth]

THe HP program is worth it if the kid is an elite athlete and you can get her on their radar by communicating with them prior to make sure she is someone they will take the time out to see at tryouts. Short of that, it is a cattle call IMO. If we have a great player who is someone who could make one of the top team, I will call someone on the HP staff and say " this is a really good kid, but I am reluctant to have them attend unless you can tell me you will make the effort to evaluate her" It is VERY easy to miss a really good at these tryouts given the number and the nature of them just trying to keep the players organized. If you are not on the top team or maybe second, I dont personally feel it is a good use of time or resources.

[ja]

Jan 28, 2015 8:50:04 GMT -5 dorothymantooth said:

THe HP program is worth it if the kid is an elite athlete and you can get her on their radar by communicating with them prior to make sure she is someone they will take the time out to see at tryouts. Short of that, it is a cattle call IMO. If we have a great player who is someone who could make one of the top team, I will call someone on the HP staff and say " this is a really good kid, but I am reluctant to have them attend unless you can tell me you will make the effort to evaluate her" It is VERY easy to miss a really good at these tryouts given the number and the nature of them just trying to keep the players organized. If you are not on the top team or maybe second, I dont personally feel it is a good use of time or resources.

I have to disagree. Evaluation process is done by many coaches at different levels. To be honest,
it's a pain in the $$ to do this evaluation every night after 10-12 hours of court work. So this
is done by positions, by lead coaches, by assistant coaches and at the end by Team coach. Your
team assignment will come after four-five days (depends on the camp) of training. From my experience
this is a fare process. If you are not satisfied with your evaluation you can always contact Camp
Head Coach and ask for some explanation. Just keep you communication open. BTW, there are 100+ great
kids from entire USA, and usually 15-16 coaches. If there are really great kid, trust me it will be
almost impossible to miss him/her!

[newenglander]

It gets good reviews for kids that make A2 or higher, A3 (developmental) gets mixed reviews from the girls that have attended.

The 2 year cycle is problematic in some ways... the girls in the younger half of the group are going to be less experienced when compared to the older half. If you have read "Outliers" you'll see that kids born closest after the cutoff date in hockey (and similarly in soccer) are over represented at the top levels (and those are with programs with annual age levels). It's probably going to be harder to break out of that in a 2 year cycle (where the oldest kids can be practically 2 full years older than the youngest).

It's a good camp experience and everyone likes the USA Volleyball shirts. The mid level players at the A3's get a great camp experience, the higher level players may not enjoy it as much.

My $.02.

[dorothymantooth]

Jan 28, 2015 9:47:01 GMT -5 ja said:

Jan 28, 2015 8:50:04 GMT -5 dorothymantooth said:

THe HP program is worth it if the kid is an elite athlete and you can get her on their radar by communicating with them prior to make sure she is someone they will take the time out to see at tryouts. Short of that, it is a cattle call IMO. If we have a great player who is someone who could make one of the top team, I will call someone on the HP staff and say " this is a really good kid, but I am reluctant to have them attend unless you can tell me you will make the effort to evaluate her" It is VERY easy to miss a really good at these tryouts given the number and the nature of them just trying to keep the players organized. If you are not on the top team or maybe second, I dont personally feel it is a good use of time or resources.

I have to disagree. Evaluation process is done by many coaches at different levels. To be honest,
it's a pain in the $$ to do this evaluation every night after 10-12 hours of court work. So this
is done by positions, by lead coaches, by assistant coaches and at the end by Team coach. Your
team assignment will come after four-five days (depends on the camp) of training. From my experience
this is a fare process. If you are not satisfied with your evaluation you can always contact Camp
Head Coach and ask for some explanation. Just keep you communication open. BTW, there are 100+ great
kids from entire USA, and usually 15-16 coaches. If there are really great kid, trust me it will be
almost impossible to miss him/her!

I had a player who became an olympian and a player who became a first team AA attend a tryout who never got close to the top court by the end of the day or make ANY of the HP teams. I would say it is most definitely possible. I am of course talking about the HP tryouts at qualifiers, not the one in Colorado Springs which of course is staffed better, and has less athletes, and more elite level ones.

[dorothymantooth]

Jan 28, 2015 10:20:37 GMT -5 newenglander said:

It gets good reviews for kids that make A2 or higher, A3 (developmental) gets mixed reviews from the girls that have attended.

The 2 year cycle is problematic in some ways... the girls in the younger half of the group are going to be less experienced when compared to the older half. If you have read "Outliers" you'll see that kids born closest after the cutoff date in hockey (and similarly in soccer) are over represented at the top levels (and those are with programs with annual age levels). It's probably going to be harder to break out of that in a 2 year cycle (where the oldest kids can be practically 2 full years older than the youngest).

It's a good camp experience and everyone likes the USA Volleyball shirts. The mid level players at the A3's get a great camp experience, the higher level players may not enjoy it as much.

My $.02.

that is of course when they dont run out of t-shirts.

[volleytology]

The program has so much potential but is run incredibly poorly. The evaluation process is flawed to begin with, then couple that with the fact that many / most of the evaluators really don't know what they're doing and you have a TON of kids slip through the cracks. None of the camps are worth it and only making a team at the highest level of an age category do you get your worth from the experience. The HP program has become a major fundraising arm of USA Volleyball and they will continue to create more teams, camps, etc as long as parents keep doling out the money for attaching their children in any way to "USA Volleyball".

[dorothymantooth]

Jan 28, 2015 10:24:37 GMT -5 volleytology said:

The program has so much potential but is run incredibly poorly. The evaluation process is flawed to begin with, then couple that with the fact that many / most of the evaluators really don't know what they're doing and you have a TON of kids slip through the cracks. None of the camps are worth it and only making a team at the highest level of an age category do you get your worth from the experience. The HP program has become a major fundraising arm of USA Volleyball and they will continue to create more teams, camps, etc as long as parents keep doling out the money for attaching their children in any way to "USA Volleyball".

at the qualifiers, you are totally correct. Volunteer staff running courts, terrible player/coach ratio. If they are interested in identifying the best kids, their should be some sort of recommendation process that ensures that on some small level the player is a legitimate candidate for the US developmental program. They are selling a dream of being in the USA pipeline, which of course about 2% of the kids at these tryouts would have any chance at all of reaching that level. I will recommend 1 or 2 kids per year to attend tryouts, and will reach out to a HP staff person and give them their name, and ask if they will personally take some time to watch them. Anything short of that, I would discourage kids and families from attending. HP should be for those athletes who can in fact perform at a high level vs the better players in the country.

[coachl]

I disagree about kids slipping through the cracks...I have worked many tryouts and by the end of the tryout the girls are grouped on courts by ability--I have never thought that those groups weren't accurate. As far as it being "worth it", depends what opportunities you have available to you in your area/club...I think it's especially "worth it" for someone who is serious about volleyball but from an area with limited opportunities. The two year cycle...that is because the Youth/Junior World Championships are held every other year which USA Volleyball has no control over.

Overall, while it may have some flaws (what program doesn't?!), I think HP is providing great opportunities for many players.

[donneyp]

I've evaluated at tryouts 20-30 times over the last decade or so. No program is perfect - some kids get nervous, sick, or just stuck with a bad setter but I think they do pretty well. I know first hand that we did not miss Faluke, Michelle Bartsch, Katie Slay, Bailey Webster, etc etc. They were pretty easy to pick out. I think you'd have to be pretty out of it to not see their potential even as 14-16 year olds. Can they jump high, hit hard and smile at you above the net? If so they are an easy 5 out of 5.

I think it is harder to evaluate passers and setters. Passing is about consistency and you have maybe 6 passes to grade them. But this is why they have camps from like 10 years old and up - you have an army of players at the youngest age group and those camps that everyone thinks are just money makers are where players get in depth evaluations on 1000 passes instead of 6, which help to place people for the holiday camps and the following years.

From the website - they take 192 11 year olds. About 400+ 13 year olds, almost 340 15 year olds, and about 130 17 year olds which is a lot considering many players have self selected themselves out at that point and don't even tryout. That is more than 1000 kids a summer (all over the country, not just in Colorado as one post suggested), not counting the regional HP programs that share evaluations with USA HP - all to find the 3-5 kids in a given birth year that MAY be able to help the national team someday.

And does it work? At the HP coaches clinic last year they had Molly Kreklow and Kelly Reeves and a few of the other girls who where training in Anaheim, and they said they've been talking about the day where they would be in the national team gym since they were at Select camp together as 13-14 year old girls. So yeah, for that class at least, I think the program worked pretty well.

Now to the OP, the purpose of the program is to pick and rank and sort the players for the national team pipeline. A Division I coach would like you at their camp so they can rank and sort their recruits. These are very different objectives. However, if the national team pipeline likes you, the division I coaches will still take you.

[future]

www.teamusa.org/USA-Volleyball/High-Performance/HP-Indoor/HP-History/2010-USAV-Indoor-HP-Rosters

Look at the 2010 Rosters for Continenetal, A2 and Youth Norceca Games. For the most part they got it right and quite number have been impact players in their NCAA careers . For the top kids it was worth it. For those in a weaker region it was also probably worth it for most any camp. I'll leave it at that.

For some of the tweaners with old birthdays it was unfortunate.

A club director SHOULD act as a filter to initially identify prospects to avoid the cattle call.

Dorothy is correct....a recommendation would be helpful....but that really really has to me monitored for obvious reasons.

[Deleted]

Jan 28, 2015 3:50:13 GMT -5 Paulj said:

I have asked two D1 coaches (B1G and Pac-12) about the merits of the USAVolleyball high performance program for up and coming "kids."

While both were reluctant to comment, they both ultimately replied to not bother.

Can you share your views and/or experiences?

ALL of the USA Volleyball's programs are a complete scam/money maker. They DO NOT care about the players! I have first hand experience with them over a number of years and I always hoped things would change BUT they haven't. HP and everything else are simply money makers for the national team.

There are a FEW ok people in the system like Heath Hoke but overall, the level of ego and sense of "You are lucky to be apart of USA Volleyball" has not changed in my 8 years of off and on involvement. It appears it may never change.

Do yourself and your kid a favor and stay clear!

[Not Me]

Yeah, and college camps aren't a complete moneymaker too.