For the past several years. Both a participating son and a daughter.

Attempting to get your kid onto a high school school team has become a haves/have not situation with regards to opportunity — dictated by $$ in many ways — unless your kid has universally-acknowledged undeniable talent to everyone. If so, they'll get a "scholarship" to play with the "haves" on the highest-level club team. No matter, it seems, how hard they have worked to get to any of the tiers in the club system or what future potential there might be with regards to work ethic and tenacity.

IMO, it's become a sham industry monopolized by a small group of people/families within a given geographic area where this system has become the primary/high secondary source of these people/families' income. And you definitely pay a price for your kid to compete at volleyball year-round. We've probably paid $25K + for club sports for 2 high-school aged kids over the past 3-4 years.

Over the course of multiple seasons, I've become so unimpressed with this system and the people involved that run it generally. They practice and over-compete these kids to death. It's overkill, you pay a high price for it financially, and unless you are the entitled prodigy superstar described, it has diminishing returns on both the performance and the attitude side.

Despite all this, the school games and practices component is still fun and what they really want to do. But the only way to get into the opportunity lobby to play on the HS team in the first place is to play club because "that's what everybody else does."

The volume and repetitiveness of practice and travel tournaments at the club level is almost laughable now, but that's how clubs justify their high tuitions per season, especially at the higher color travel team tiers. It caused my daughter to essentially burn out as a sophomore even though she is very talented at the HS level (although probably not a college prospect) and had a very good chance to become the starting libero on her HS varsity team going into her junior year. Frankly, she was sick of year-round volleyball (games, practices, weekend travel tournaments) for 4 years straight and just completely lost her desire. The HS varsity coach is a club coach on the side because she needs that supplemental income, but as a result, the club kids get first looks and chances for the HS team. My daughter has completely left volleyball now and moved onto other things at school and is much happier.

My son struggles with this burnout, too, towards the end of his 3rd year, but all his friends and his friend group are involved, so he feels he almost has to stay involved just to justify the social side of things. That's what it's come to — paying $6-$8K annually so he can hang out with his best friends and play a sport he doesn't love nearly as much as he did 3 years ago.

GO COUGS.