Club Volleyball: The Beginning

My journey down the road of club volleyball actually began a year ago. My daughter Kate (not her real name), 13 at the time, was about to try out for the junior high team and, having had a brief yet disappointing foray into a club several years prior, was open to the idea of joining a more organized league. When my Google results (Seattle club volleyball) came back I was a bit taken aback: 2,180,000 results. I read every one and then realized that most of the tryouts were the same weekend Kate and I would be in Mexico. Club Volleyball was officially ON HOLD. A year later, a year in which the 13 year old turned 14 and decided Twilight was stupid, a year in which much volleyball was played at school, we are back to square one. Googling. But this time I was prepared. This time I had done a little more research by having Kate ask her friends and coaches about local clubs. There are dozens and dozens of clubs in the Seattle area and with practices that occur 2-3 times weekly, it is necessary to weed some of those clubs out due only to geographic necessity. Thus I was left with several clubs to investigate:

Northwest Juniors
High Velocity
Washington Volleyball Academy
Moxie Juniors
YMCA Blaze
Island Thunder
Sudden Impact
Rain City

Much to their credit, they all have websites. OK, some more professional than others. And by late October, most has posted their tryout dates. Several things became clear. Your daughter does indeed need to try out. For one of 12 spots. When I was in Little League so many years ago, you went to your tryouts and you were assigned a team. Not so in club volleyball. We're joining a club to get better, but you have to be good to even be ASKED to plop down your $1-4K. Which segues right into the expense. It's not cheap. No no no. Dues, travel, equipment, hotels, time....but it's for Kate. I get it. One of my assumptions was that all the clubs would communicate with each other and coordinate their tryout schedule. Ummm....no. It is adversarial. I suppose that's natural when they are all going after the same talent. So after checking each club out, determining when and where practices would be and mapping out a tryout strategy, I was left with 4 clubs. 4 sets of tryouts spread over 3 days in late November. All or nothing. Next, which clubs and why.