Previous JV MVP and 3-year club player cut as a junior!? What now?

Question
My daughter just finished high school varsity volleyball tryouts.  She will be a junior this year and has played three years club and was a starter for her JV team and earned MVP for both years.  After tryouts the coach called her into her office and told her that she was not "varsity ready" but offered her a team manager role.  Needlesstosay, my daughter was disappointed since her teammates on her club team (all were starters on the team as was my daughter) made varsity, and she now feels that her volleyball career is over.  In your opinion, do you think accepting this role as manager will hurt her chances to make the team as a senior-or is this a nice way for the coach  (this is her second year of coaching) to tell her its never going to happen.  I'm at a loss when it comes to advising her in this area.  Please help!

Answer
Good morning and welcome to www.allexperts.com.  

Your child's situation is unique.  Don't know if I've ever heard a girl being cut who was:  9th and 10th grade MVP of school JV team, and 3 years of club ball.  I know last year was your coach's first fall with the team, but if the coach any inkling that your daughter wasn't going to make the team this fall, she should not have allowed the JV coach to give her an MVP award.  Why?  B/c your daughter was given the idea that she was special, hard to replace, etc.  Then BOOM 9 months later, she's easy to replace.  How can that be?  

Here's a similar story.  About 10 years ago, I heard of a soph who was cut from a school team.  BUT as an 8th grader she'd been pulled up to JV, and as a 9th grader pulled to varsity.  If I were to misjudge a girl so drastically, I'd have some serious questions to answer.....and I don't know how I would answer them.  Personally, I'd be looking in the mirror saying, "How could have been SO wrong???"   

Part I:  Now.  

What does the manager position entail?  Is it helping with drill?  Is it maybe jumping into drills when a team member is absent?  And doing stats, running the video camera, etc.  That what my managers do, and I would recommend that she accept that, unless she feels like even showing her face around her friends is too degrading, too humiliating.  But, if being a manager is custodial work like mopping the floor, getting the nets set up and torn down, doing laundry, then I would recommend that she not take that job.  No, this isn't a Cinderella story, where one daughter tends after the others.  Who would volunteer for THAT?  

Part II:   The next 12 months.   

Yes, you do have a number of options!  Let's get after them!

A)  Change Schools.   

Around here in Roanoke, we have girls who give volleyball their heart and soul, only to be cut as 10th or 11th graders.  Almost every year, one or more will immediately enroll at a private school.  If they can't afford it, they try to get on a scholarship.  Yes, you can say they're changing schools for sports.  But, their parents would say that they're changing schools for self-esteem, their self-worth, and that ABC Public School and EFG Private School have comparable educational value.  I agree.

Does your daughter want to change schools?  Do you want her to change schools?  Maybe not.  This is a family decision.    

B)  Find A Way To Afford Private Lessons.

Find a coach who doesn't coach school ball or a college student.  Find a gym that won't charge rent.  Then ask them to give your daughter some lessons at that free gym?  Or in your back yard?  Or on the public tennis courts?   Those young women will work for $20 an hour, and they抣l love you for it!!  It'll beat the $8 an hour they get at McD's!  

C) Join Some Leagues!

Are there any YMCA's, community centers, etc. in the area where she can play?   Play with adults, kids, men, women, coed, whatever.  She may not want to play in the adult slop league.  I wouldn't!  But if it's adult "power" league with refs, then go for it!    

D)  Plan Now For Winter/Spring/Summer 2011.  

Plan now for your daughter to attend 7 or 8 camps in the summer of 2011.   No, she won抰 get a job.  No church camps, no youth retreats, no yearbook workshops.  Only family vacations and volleyball camps.  Yep, this can be expensive, or you can send her to cheaper camps like mine.  Yes, the large university NIKE-style camps have their uses, but I imagine your daughter needs touches more than high level training.  But if I抦 wrong and you have $2500 to spend, then please overrule me and send her to 3 or 4 NIKE-style camps instead.  

E) Outdoor Doubles.

She should plan on entering 5 or 6 outdoor doubles tournaments next summer.  If there are any outdoor doubles in your area, there's a schedule somewhere, and it'll be posted around March 1st. Find it and make plans to attend.   If you live near a beach, then doubles tournaments on the beach is even better!  

F) Conditioning.  

Don't forget that.  It's absolutely amazing what it does for some girls!  

I was just in contact with one of my 1992 graduates, and I reminisced about how she was overweight %26 slow %26 couldn't jump her senior year in high school.  Then she told me she wanted to play at a DIII school close by.  I said, "GREAT," but thought, 揥hatever.? So she decided to start working out.  I couldn't BELIEVE IT!!  She came to an open gym in July.  She had lost some weight, was jumping, was an entirely different player.  All that in only about 3 months.  I was shocked!  

And these results still happen.  A 9th grade setter who I give lessons to has drastically increased her setting abilities by doing an upper body workout this summer.  It's amazing!

Finally.   I hope this helps you see a path for the next 12 months, or at least helps you make a decision about which direction to go.  

The volleyball path requires as much of A - F above as possible.  The nonvolleyball path will be the beginning of becoming just as involved and just as fanatical about something else as she has been about volleyball.  And she抣l be fine.  She抣l experience what I did about basketball.  

Some kids just don't make the grades they want.  They don't get the boyfriend of their dreams.  But, it's OK.  It's life.   At 51 years old, it appears that I've fallen into what I'm best at:  Directing summer volleyball camps.  While I seem to be OK at being a student, teaching math, writing, etc., my talents at directing camps seem to be the most pleasing to others.  huh.  I never would have thought it.

Tom Houser
Director, STAR Volleyball Camps
Author, 揑 Can抰 Wait?Drill Collection and Ebooks
Head Coach, 2011 NRV 16 Nationals.
Junior National Participant in 2006 and 2009
www.coachhouser.com  


p.s.  I've told your story to my stepdaughter, who played 6 years of club, and 4 years of college D1 ball.  She said, "What did the girl DO?"  I don't know anything about you or your daughter.......but does the coach think your daughter is into alcohol?  tobacco? Does the coach think that your daughter has developed a big head?  a bad attitude?  Does the coach feel like all this success has made your daughter uncoachable?  Is the coach sending your daughter a message?  "Your head has become too big to fit through the door.  This will teach you."  Again, I'm not saying that this is the answer....but from the events that you've described, it's a possibility, and it's something that I recommend considering.