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Getting out of your mom’s minivan, you hustle into your first club practice. You’re excited to put on your new knee pads and the coolest pair of court shoes you’ve ever owned. Once you’re dressed, you get ready by stretching and chatting with your teammates. The drills start and for two hours you’re hyper focused on one thing and one thing only: volleyball.

At the end of practice, your coach wrangles the team into a huddle to talk about the upcoming tournaments. You’ll be flying to one, driving three hours another and five hours to the last one. If you’re lucky, you’ll qualify for Nationals. If that’s the case, you’ll have another plane ticket that needs purchasing. The qualifiers are all three-day tournaments so you’ll spend at least nine nights in hotels this season. If you qualify for Nationals, that’ll add another four or five. 

Coach also reminds you that club fees are due at the end of the week (these cover court costs, qualifier fees, & coaches pay). You don’t realize it because you’re just focused on playing your sport and getting better, but all these qualifiers and club dues rack up to a pretty hefty bill.

A few weeks pass and you’re finally playing in your first qualifier of the season. The flight there went smoothly, you slept AMAZING in your own bed at the hotel, but the alarm was sounding off early. You were playing in the 8 a.m. match so you had to give yourself enough time to get up, do your gameday hair, eat breakfast and drive to the convention center to hopefully find parking. Dad drops you off curbside before he goes to find a spot. You walk in with your mom and head to the court. 

It’s a long day in the convention center. You lost your first two games, but won your third. Coach tells the team that you’ll be playing in a cross-over match to decide how you’ll be re-pooled tomorrow. Winning would mean going up and losing would mean going down. You’ve got six hours to kill in the convention center until then so you ask your parents to go grab a smoothie and something to eat to refuel. 

Six hours later and you’re playing in your cross-over match. It’s an emotional one. You and your team weren’t happy with how you played this morning, so you give it your all to win this match so you can still go up. It’s a close third set. Your team is up 14-13 and you’re headed to the endline to serve. You take a deep breath and begin your routine. Off your hand, the serve flies flat to the tape and your heart skips a beat. It trickles over and you finish the match on an ace!

You look at your parents and you can tell their hearts are in their throats too. It wasn’t the serve you meant to make, but you’re happy with the outcome. Your team still has a shot at gold! 

After stretching, taking off your gear, and breaking it down with the team, you’re ready to head back to the hotel and go to bed. It’s getting close to 8 p.m. and it’s been a long and emotion-filled day. But of course, you’re starving so your parents stop to pick up food on the drive back and you chow in the back seat. 

For you, today was a long day of doing what you love. For your parents or guardians, today was a full twelve hours spent in a convention center, watching their daughter follow her dreams, and also spending a pretty penny in the process. 

As volleyball players, it’s important to know that playing club volleyball isn’t cheap. It’s a big time commitment that sometimes calls for showing up to qualifiers for the 8 a.m. game and hanging around till 8 p.m. for a crossover match.

Parents and guardians are the backbone of all the expenses and long days. They’re your ride to the gym, your post-practice cook, and the pocketbook you rely on to make your club volleyball dreams come true. So, when you get the chance, thank your parents or guardians for all they do! It’s because of them that you’re able to forget about all that stuff and just go play because it’s what you love!