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Post by dgo on Jan 30, 2015 8:55:09 GMT -5
Tell that to Kim Hill who was 'discovered' at the tryout and was just named the MVP of the second most important volleyball tournament in the world. To be fair, Kim was something like the #8 Senior Ace in her class, and was "discovered" at the college HP tryout, after she'd been playing D1 a couple of years. It's not the same as a very good, but unknown, young player showing up at a jam-packed Qualifier HP tryout. This is an issue I've been thinking about as I've read this thread. Whether or not HP (or a college camp, for that matter) is "worth it" depends in large part on what the athlete (or her parents) hope to get out of it. I've been told by a D1 coach that if the goal is college recruiting exposure, HP might not be worth it. His reasoning was that the athletes who are talented enough to make the top competition teams are going to get noticed and have college opportunities with or without HP (and those in lower level HP programs won't get much college exposure). Much like Kim Hill being "discovered" at HP. He did make an exception, however, for athletes who happen to play in an area where there is very little opportunity for high level competition or exposure through the usual avenues (esp. qualifiers). He did speak well of some of the training, though, and said that if that was the goal, it could be "worth it." And, just to address this issue up front, he also told me that college camps were pretty much a cash cow, and typically not "worth it." So, he wasn't trying to steer to his (or other) college camps. He thought the biggest value of a college camp was when there was already a clear mutual interest (if not a scholarship offer) so the athlete could evaluate the campus, team, coach, etc. But he was very clear in his belief that the college camp as recruiting opportunity was vastly overrated.
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Post by vbaustin on Jan 30, 2015 9:43:25 GMT -5
when my daughter was 14, we asked her club coach if doing the HP tryout thing was worth it. The club coach said that it was a waste of money and time so we didn't do it. turns out, that coach had her niece go try out and her niece made a top team.:-) we ended up leaving that club (for several reasons) and never connected with the HP program again. we did college camps and other vb camps while in club vb and they were useful for some skill improvement and also in maintaining her vb interest in the summer vb doldrums. summary is that you can spend an awful lot of money on club volleyball, camps, etc. and results can vary. you need to think about what you and your daughter want to get out of any experience but our experience is "exposure" to college coaches is during club vb season.
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Post by dgo on Jan 30, 2015 10:23:59 GMT -5
when my daughter was 14, we asked her club coach if doing the HP tryout thing was worth it. The club coach said that it was a waste of money and time so we didn't do it. turns out, that coach had her niece go try out and her niece made a top team.:-) we ended up leaving that club (for several reasons) and never connected with the HP program again. we did college camps and other vb camps while in club vb and they were useful for some skill improvement and also in maintaining her vb interest in the summer vb doldrums. summary is that you can spend an awful lot of money on club volleyball, camps, etc. and results can vary. you need to think about what you and your daughter want to get out of any experience but our experience is "exposure" to college coaches is during club vb season.The point I was trying to make...expressed much more succinctly.
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Post by indianscoach on Jan 30, 2015 10:33:48 GMT -5
Club coaches shouldn't get paid? I didn't say that--but to complain about USA HP money when clubs are costing kids $8k+/year seems a bit outrageous. What club is charging 8k per year?
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Post by pacfan on Jan 30, 2015 10:53:23 GMT -5
Don't think any clubs are "invoicing" $8k, but many have structures where $8k would seem reasonable as far as family spend. With all the travel expenses to multiple qualifiers, end of season championship tourney (GJNC, AAU, etc) + club fees hovering around $3.5k-$4k, I can see $8k spent quite easily.
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Post by vbnerd on Jan 30, 2015 11:35:33 GMT -5
You have to remember "entourage" expenses. Dad has to be there to run the video camera and then mom is on call to get a fresh $7 bottle of water if the little darling gets thursty. If they also decide to bring the little siblings then Grandma might have to come along to babysit.
I have had players who couldn't play club because the family couldn't afford the entourage expenses. That doesn't make much sense to me but I guess it did to them.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2015 12:12:11 GMT -5
I didn't say that--but to complain about USA HP money when clubs are costing kids $8k+/year seems a bit outrageous. What club is charging 8k per year? That's the number mentioned most recently in a different thread. Frankly, I find it appalling and in my area, I'd recommend to kids to not play club for that money and set it aside for college tuition directly. But if you are talking travel--you're looking at a ton of expenses clubs don't really tell you about--hotel rooms, gas, air tickets for some, entry fees at venues (not everywhere, but for a lot), parking fees, meals while on the road. It adds up pretty fast. So, yeah, club is costing a bunch of people $8-10k/year.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2015 19:17:55 GMT -5
This is kind of fuzzy math as I feel like a lot of people include costs that would be incurred anyway. You would likely still be traveling with your family sometimes and spending time together if they were not playing club. You would likely be eating and buying $4 bottles of water at some other venue that you chose to go to while bonding as a family. Another thing that drives me a little nuts is parents that feel the club is "printing money". Our club has the court time/utilities etc. DONATED (ie. it is free and costs none of the other parents a penny), yet they still feel someone is getting rich off them. The fees for a season seem large because there are USAV fees, SCVA fees, tournament fees, cost of uniforms/shoes/bag, 1/10 th share of the coaches travel and room for each tournament and a SMALL amount for to pay the coaches (an embarrassingly small amount). That is it. But when you pay one check for the season, it seems like a lot. Even when you list out where all the money goes, people still feel like they are paying some a large enough amount to make unreasonable demands.
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Post by bayarea on Jan 31, 2015 0:01:49 GMT -5
In our area, kids at the top clubs will definitely spend upwards of $5000 per year in direct club costs. Much of that goes to the costs of running/renting a facility, paying a coach, and traveling and entering national qualifier tournaments around the country. The additional costs (above $5K or $6K) come from voluntary travel of one or both parents to the 3 or 4 qualifier tournaments throughout the season, as well as the local power league tournaments, which can be a night's stay away. And the cost of Junior Nationals is always added on at the end. None of the club coaches are making a living wage from doing this!! They get a small chunk of the change. I also don't know of any club directors getting rich from it.
If your kid is passionate about volleyball and you enjoy traveling with them, it's a good investment for money and family bonding. If your kid is on a very low level team and you hate going to tournaments, its probably a huge waste of money and time. (Unless the kid derives great joy from it.)
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Post by brickwall on May 9, 2016 22:52:34 GMT -5
My daughter tried out for HP for the first time this year. She is a late 2000 birthday, so about halfway through the 2 year cycle.
She tried out as a libero. I debated on this. This is a brand new position for her this club season, she's always been an OH but at 5'6" she's playing back row for club this year. Likely continue as a hitter for high school, she's pretty decent.
My take on tryouts: Messy. There were 5 groups of 3 Liberos in her group. She was placed in group 5. This seemed to be based on registration date (late registration). Group 5 did get a fair evaluation in digging, libero setting and court movement. Group 5 only had three balls served at them in serve receive before time was up. None of the 3 serves came anywhere close to my daughter( other Liberos serving). So no passing eval. My daughter did not get to serve like the other Liberos because her group did not get to do that either. Evaluation time was up. In digging she did very well. Top 3. She has fantastic technique she's used by her club at camps to demonstrate proper technique. She was the best libero setter. But She was too quiet. She didn't have that take charge of the back court thing other best Libero diggers had.
So with likely a mostly positive digging eval, no passing eval and no serving eval, she was placed in a group of two other Liberos and then moved from hitter/setter court to hitter/ setter court. This seemed to be a mess. There were evaluators on the sidelines, but they didn't seem to be paying any attention at all to the non hitters. The Liberos were supposed to be digging live hits, but with no block, two setters setting two hitting lines and only one passer in left back at a time it was hard... None of the girls did well, and after the hitter hit, they were running after their balls. So really they just Seemed to be ball shaggers. Then they would be moved to a different court to do the same thing with a new group of hitters. I don't know how they were being evaluated at all with all that going on.
Then they were placed on a court with no evaluator for live play. Just a coach who would toss in a free ball after the serve point. She would say things like "now we are forcing middle/back row/etc". if these court assignments were based on ability they were way off. Some of the girls were fantastic and others really bad. One of the middles shoulders were above the net and she was hitting the ball straight down and one of the middles looked like she's never hit a volleyball before. I imagine that the ball throwing coach was also their evaluator. He seemed to pay no attention to the passers at all except when they were forcing back row and my daughter was hitting there. He was impressed with that. But she's trying out for libero! Haha. She shouldn't have even been set at all, but the setters kept doing it.
We walked away assuming she would get nothing in terms of an invite. She didn't even do half her skill eval. lol. But she had fun, and learned where she was weaker than others, and where she was doing ok. As someone new to the position, valuable information.
She did get an A3 invite. They claim they don't send those to everybody. A friend (hitter) got an A3 alternate invite. Also a "tremendous accomplishment" according to their email so they must not send those to everybody either? Lol
More than we expected. Probably will not participate. She wants to, because it's sleep away volleyball camp and what's better than that for a volleyball kid? But it interferes with her high school open gyms, weight lifting and summer league, which will reflect poorly on her on our very, very competitive high school.
Overall: Tryouts worth it for players to self evaluate, figure out what to work on, and how they stack up. 100.00 for a 4 hour tryout and t shirt. Not the worst money I've spent at a qualifier.
Don't expect a fair evaluation. Don't expect to be noticed unless you are exceptionally better than every other kid in the gym. Don't take your evaluation to heart, because unless you are a very, very top player, your evaluation is going to be at least 1/2 luck, especially as a passer. (Anybody watching when I made that crazy exceptional dig? Nope they were writing something.)
But at roughly 100.00 a pop, and what they said was over 6000 players trying out, I'm sure that 600k comes in handy, and I don't fault them one bit for making it.
Just thought somebody googling in the future might appreciate my take on the whole thing.
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2016 22:57:35 GMT -5
My daughter tried out for HP for the first time this year. She is a late 2000 birthday, so about halfway through the 2 year cycle. She tried out as a libero. I debated on this. This is a brand new position for her this club season, she's always been an OH but at 5'6" she's playing back row for club this year. Likely continue as a hitter for high school, she's pretty decent. My take on tryouts: Messy. There were 5 groups of 3 Liberos in her group. She was placed in group 5. This seemed to be based on registration date (late registration). Group 5 did get a fair evaluation in digging, libero setting and court movement. Group 5 only had three balls served at them in serve receive before time was up. None of the 3 serves came anywhere close to my daughter( other Liberos serving). So no passing eval. My daughter did not get to serve like the other Liberos because her group did not get to do that either. Evaluation time was up. In digging she did very well. Top 3. She has fantastic technique she's used by her club at camps to demonstrate proper technique. She was the best libero setter. But She was too quiet. She didn't have that take charge of the back court thing other best Libero diggers had. So with likely a mostly positive digging eval, no passing eval and no serving eval, she was placed in a group of two other Liberos and then moved from hitter/setter court to hitter/ setter court. This seemed to be a mess. There were evaluators on the sidelines, but they didn't seem to be paying any attention at all to the non hitters. The Liberos were supposed to be digging live hits, but with no block, two setters setting two hitting lines and only one passer in left back at a time it was hard... None of the girls did well, and after the hitter hit, they were running after their balls. So really they just Seemed to be ball shaggers. Then they would be moved to a different court to do the same thing with a new group of hitters. I don't know how they were being evaluated at all with all that going on. Then they were placed on a court with no evaluator for live play. Just a coach who would toss in a free ball after the serve point. She would say things like "now we are forcing middle/back row/etc". if these court assignments were based on ability they were way off. Some of the girls were fantastic and others really bad. One of the middles shoulders were above the net and she was hitting the ball straight down and one of the middles looked like she's never hit a volleyball before. I imagine that the ball throwing coach was also their evaluator. He seemed to pay no attention to the passers at all except when they were forcing back row and my daughter was hitting there. He was impressed with that. But she's trying out for libero! Haha. She shouldn't have even been set at all, but the setters kept doing it. We walked away assuming she would get nothing in terms of an invite. She didn't even do half her skill eval. lol. But she had fun, and learned where she was weaker than others, and where she was doing ok. As someone new to the position, valuable information. She did get an A3 invite. They claim they don't send those to everybody. A friend (hitter) got an A3 alternate invite. Also a "tremendous accomplishment" according to their email so they must not send those to everybody either? Lol More than we expected. Probably will not participate. She wants to, because it's sleep away volleyball camp and what's better than that for a volleyball kid? But it interferes with her high school open gyms, weight lifting and summer league, which will reflect poorly on her on our very, very competitive high school.Overall: Tryouts worth it for players to self evaluate, figure out what to work on, and how they stack up. 100.00 for a 4 hour tryout and t shirt. Not the worst money I've spent at a qualifier. Don't expect a fair evaluation. Don't expect to be noticed unless you are exceptionally better than every other kid in the gym. Don't take your evaluation to heart, because unless you are a very, very top player, your evaluation is going to be at least 1/2 luck, especially as a passer. (Anybody watching when I made that crazy exceptional dig? Nope they were writing something.) But at roughly 100.00 a pop, and what they said was over 6000 players trying out, I'm sure that 600k comes in handy, and I don't fault them one bit for making it. Just thought somebody googling in the future might appreciate my take on the whole thing. Just a thought. As a coach, it would be difficult for me to say something like, "You missed weights and summer league because you were at High Performance" and hold that against a kid. Your school and coach may think differently from me, however.
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Post by brickwall on May 9, 2016 23:17:07 GMT -5
My take on tryouts: Messy. Just thought somebody googling in the future might appreciate my take on the whole thing. Just a thought. As a coach, it would be difficult for me to say something like, "You missed weights and summer league because you were at High Performance" and hold that against a kid. Your school and coach may think differently from me, however. Maybe wingoz, maybe I'm reading the coach wrong. But even missing stuff for nationals seems like she feels it's a necessary evil. Daughter is the only club kid going to nationals this year. She's a "in my day we didn't specialize" kind of coach. Even though she reaps those benefits. Haha. But I don't know, maybe she would be thrilled for her.
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Post by sandman32 on May 10, 2016 10:31:47 GMT -5
My daughter attended tryouts with another kid from our club who made A2 last year as a first timer. We drove to the tryout separately so the other girl was a little later than us. When she got to the table to check in they told her that they were out of tryout shirts. Being an HP kid she had her previous years shirt on, so they told her to just wear that and sent her on. The problem with this was they had already issued another girl the same number, and the kid was trying out at the same position. During the evaluation her mom specifically brought the issue up to the USAV folks and she was told that the evaluators were aware of the situation and she had nothing to fear. As the tryout played on this girl ended up on the top court with my DD and in my eyes did very well. It was obvious that she was one of the top kids at this locations tryouts. As far as I know she is still waiting on an email.
Sometimes they get it wrong.
For those not familiar with USAV HP it can look like a hot mess at times, but there is a method to their madness. Typically you have a tiered approach at these events. Admin Staff / Tryout Lead coaches or Facilitators/ Tryout coaches helping to run drills/ & Evaluators. There are typically five evaluators who roam from court to court in a timed sequence, and they rarely speak to anyone. They are required to evaluate each kid in their division/group during the four hour tryout on their execution of multiple skills. If they are nearing the end of a session they will specifically ask for so and so to be on the court. I've seen them tell the setter, "set number six the next five balls". Because they rotate courts they are not always readily visible. Sometimes they sit, sometimes they stand on a side court and observe both sides of the net, but they ALWAYS watch all courts in their age group. That is so each kid has at least five sets of eyes evaluating them. At the end of the sessions, especially the six on six you will see them congregate on the top court, but that is after the evaluation is done. The evaluators try their best to get it right in my opinion.
The admin/staff of USAV are horrible at running the tryout events. Everyone who's involved knows and pretty much blindly accepts it until your kid is like the poster above or the A2 girl waiting on an email. Just my opinion.
On a side note* - Before the tryout was over I took a long look around and I'm guessing their were probably 50 kids without a tryout shirt/number. How that happens I don't know.
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Post by dgo on May 10, 2016 12:06:28 GMT -5
I completely agree that no coach should complain about missing a week of off season workouts to go to HP. It is only a week for A3, right? Plus they will work your daughter really hard and she will be exhausted. It's not a holiday. 3 2-hour training sessions every day, with a 1-1/2 hour classroom session at night. Unfortunately, some high school coaches bitterly resent any activity (e.g., club, HP, Nationals, camps, recruiting, etc.) that suggests that the HS coach and his/her program are not the top priority for a volleyball player.
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Post by BuckysHeat on May 10, 2016 12:09:14 GMT -5
She got to measure herself against 2 very high end middles that will be going to the national team Youth tryout, which she loved. She is late 2001 so is at a big disadvantage age-wise. That part was a little frustrating for her, knowing that she was being compared head to head with a sophomore already committed to a high top ten school with no accounting for her being in 8th grade. My younger daughter is also in this situation, she was born in late august, USAV age cutoff is Sept 1 so she will always be the youngest girl on any team she plays on or nearly so. Eventually it will not matter as most girls catch up to each other by 16 years old and in the interim she will essentially always be playing up an age level. Not complaining here, just wonder why the age cutoff is not June 1st. Most club seasons are finished by this point, most schools are either out for the summer of have a week to go. Does anybody have any idea how the age dates were determined? I know they have been in place forever and it worked out for my nieces who all have Sept/Oct birthdays so they were always the oldest kids in their age group. But it has never made any type of sense. I can understand softball having a cutoff like that (they don't though) or maybe soccer based on when the seasons run
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