Tryouts are a crucial part of building a winning volleyball team. If you make a volleyball tryout plan ahead of time, you will be able to use your time efficiently and effectively. Learn how to organize a seamless process, looking at key skills, useful drills, and strategies for fair recruitment.
Preparing for Volleyball Tryouts
Athletes are not the only ones who should prepare for a tryout. A little planning and investment ahead of time helps coaches, too. As you design your tryout sessions, try these steps.
Consider the Logistics
Before you pick out drills, plan out your logistics. Consider the number of athletes who will show up, what spaces can accommodate you, and which staff members will be present. You need room for everyone.
Also, consider the time frame for tryouts. How long will it take to engage and evaluate all potential players? You may want to spread them out over more than one day, focusing on specific skills on different days or narrowing down the pool for second-round tryouts at a subsequent date. Make a plan so that everyone knows what to expect.
Set Goals
Take a moment to consider what you are hoping to accomplish with your volleyball tryouts plan. Yes, you want to build a team. Do you know what kind of team you want to develop?
You may want to foster players with potential or look for athletes with established experience. Consider how many athletes you want to add to your team, which should be informed by both your goals and league requirements. For example, teams looking to foster new talent may want at least 12 players for even scrimmages during practice, if league regulations allow.
Create a Schedule
Before the day (or days) of your tryout sessions, create a schedule of activities. Your schedule should include warm-up activities and evaluation drills.
As you decide on drills, think about which ones will make finding the best players easiest. For example, larger groups may be appropriate for passing drills, while smaller groups may help you look at serving with a closer eye. You may want to separate players by position, even in non-specific drills, to make comparisons easier.
Take Notes
Write down your plans. While all the information may be in your head, it is much easier to run through a checklist than to keep track of what needs to get done—especially if you are also trying to evaluate players at the same time.
You should also take notes during tryouts. Ahead of time, prepare your note-taking materials. Print out evaluation sheets or make a plan for digital records. With permission, you may also want to record certain drills or exercises to refer back to later.
Key Skills to Evaluate During Tryouts
While athleticism has some common foundations, each sport has unique key skills. During volleyball tryouts, you want to evaluate:
- Serving
- Passing
- Setting
- Hitting
- Blocking
- Digging
As you observe these skills, look at both outcome and technique. Consider: Are athletes moving in ways that are sustainable and supported? Do they perform consistently or sporadically? Are their serves or passes powerful? Are they accurate?
Volleyball-specific techniques are not the only skills you should observe when conducting tryouts. Especially for more novice teams and players, coaches should learn how to spot the potential they can foster in players.
Look for players who have stamina, display control, take feedback, participate in teamwork, and exercise good sportsmanship. These can all be assets to your team and will support players as they learn and grow into their positions.
Drills to Help Assess Skills
Now that you know what you are looking for, consider how best to observe and evaluate players. A variety of drills will allow you to see the range of each individual’s skills. Common volleyball drills you can employ include:
- Shadow Wall Jumps: Players jump to touch a target on the wall. This can give you a sense of their potential jump heights and blocking abilities.
- Approach and Spike: Players take turns approaching the net and spiking a ball, showcasing their spiking skills and form.
- Serve Competition: Players rotate through the roster, taking turns to serve during a round. This can help you assess their serving technique and offensive capabilities.
- Passing Ladder: Players line up to receive the ball from tossers, passing it back to them across the next. This can give you a sense of both passing ability and teamwork.
- Scrimmage Game: Some skills can only be fully observed in a game-like setting, providing insight into players’ overall abilities and performance.
In addition to skills-based drills, you can incorporate team-building drills to look at potential team communication and connection. A couple of drills per skill should be sufficient. You do not want to overwhelm yourself (or athletes) with too much information, and you want to ensure each drill has sufficient time to play out.
How to Select Players Fairly
If you enter the situation unprepared, it can be tempting to rely on instinct and subjective metrics to recruit players. However, a carefully planned system can make the process more effective—and more fair. Consider these methods for selection.
Use Evaluation Sheets
Evaluation sheets prompt coaches to give each athlete a series of scores, typically on a 1 to 5 scale. Volleyball evaluation sheets typically look at specific skills like serving and passing, but they can also score for overall offensive and defensive technique.
Find (or create) an evaluation sheet that works for your team. These sheets will help you record thoughts in real time so you have accurate information to refer to when making decisions. They also standardize rating metrics so that each athlete is judged against the same criteria.
Balance Skills and Team Dynamics
A volleyball team cannot be successful if every athlete has the same skill set. A team full of serving specialists but no defensive specialists is not effective. As you evaluate individual team members, consider how they fit together to form a cohesive whole. In addition to balanced skills, consider how team members work together and which athletes might be good leaders.
Provide Feedback to Players
Even initial tryouts are coaching opportunities. Give feedback to athletes as they play to understand the full scope of their skills. Real-time coaching in tryout sessions also lets you see how athletes respond to feedback. Do they struggle, or do they take it in stride?
You can offer individualized feedback at the cutting stage as well. Give athletes notes for improvement so they can keep building their abilities.
Throughout the process, be transparent with everyone involved. Clear communication sets expectations for the tryout sessions. Players understand what they need to do to succeed and more readily process feedback or cuts. This approach will let you get ahead of any parents who push back or question tryout results.
Outfit Your Volleyball Team with gearUP
Once you have selected your team, it is time to outfit them with quality gear. The gearUP process makes volleyball uniform ordering simple. We help you design your apparel, and then set up a team shop so your athletes can order everything directly.
Contact us today to get started.
The information provided on this blog is for general informational purposes only. While we strive to keep the content accurate and up-to-date, we make no representations or warranties regarding the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of the information. Please contact our team for personalized advice regarding your youth sports uniform needs.
