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The club volleyball explosion in Dayton — and the ensuing effect on high school programs — began in the late 1980s. Alter High School volleyball coach Tina Jasinowski recalls the dramatic changes that led to dramatic increases in the skill level of Ohio athletes.
After a prep career at La Porte (Ind.) High School that included club experience, Jasinowski played four seasons at the University of Dayton. She graduated in 1984.
“When I came over here, the level of high school volleyball compared to what I came from was horrible,” she said. “That was because Ohio didn’t get on board with club volleyball.”
Times have changed. The Dayton area now has more than a dozen club programs and, according to USA Volleyball, the Ohio Valley Region (Ohio, West Virginia and part of Pennsylvania) is one of the largest of the 40 regions in the country with 17,692 active members for the 2011 season.
How far has high school and club volleyball come since the late 1980s?
“Take the high school teams I have at Alter now and compare them to the team I played on at UD in the mid-1980s,” Jasinowski said, “and my Alter team now would kick their butt.
“But that’s because the sport has evolved. That might be true in every sport.”
Started in 1984
According to Dayton Juniors Volleyball coach Howard Garcia, Phil Anders gets credit for creating Dayton’s first club program in 1984. It was called the Miami Valley Juniors Blasters. The group practiced in Beavercreek despite Ohio High School Athletic Association demands that required, among other things, names and addresses of players, a complete list of training days and a tournament schedule.
The information had to be submitted to the OHSAA for approval — a challenge and nuisance in the days before email — and if the OHSAA rejected it or requested more info, the process started over.
“As I recall, there was only one club in Cincinnati and one club in the Cleveland area and that was it,” Garcia said of those early days. “Maybe a team here and there, but there were very limited clubs in the state of Ohio. The state’s junior high and high school talent was very far behind when compared to Indiana or Kentucky.
“The boom came when the OHSAA decided to take a step back from the paperwork. But Phil Anders was the guy (who started it). That club lasted about 10 years or so and it assisted a lot of high schools.”
In 1998, several clubs came together to form the Dayton Juniors. Today, the program has its own three-court facility near Interstate 675 on the outskirts of Fairborn.
One of the newest clubs in the area is the Kingdom Volleyball Club, led by Fenwick High School coach and 16-year club veteran Yoon Ha. The club is based out of the Kingdom Sports Center in Franklin.
When it comes to finding players to fill rosters, the competition among area clubs is more amicable than adversarial.
“If you give kids more opportunity to play, that helps overall. I think that’s our goal, to keep raising the skill level and to keep raising the bar for kids,” Ha said. “Don’t just play for a team to win a national title; play to get better.”
436 tourney teams
Many of those athletes will compete at the Presidents’ Cup tournament hosted by the Dayton Juniors on Feb. 18-19. The tournament enters its 12th year and will bring in a record 436 teams representing 13 states and Canada. More than 4,360 athletes and 900 coaches will get into the action at facilities across the Dayton area and Columbus (for a complete schedule visit www.daytonjuniors.org).
More than 100 college coaches scouted the 2011 tournament, including representatives from Division I programs such as Illinois, Penn State, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio State.
“I think we do pretty good in regard to the numbers, and the quality of teams we get,” said Garcia, noting that the first tournament started with 88 teams. “Right now this is as much as we can handle. We’re a nonprofit and a lot of the work is done by volunteers. ... The problem is we do not have the facilities in Dayton to have everybody here. The economy in Dayton misses out.”
The tournament — free to the public — offers young players a chance to see what competitive volleyball is all about.
“If the CYO kids could come and see the high level of ball, there’s a whole other level out there,” Ha said. “I don’t think we in general get the word out to the younger kids, ‘Go watch this.’
“They see some of these Division I college prospects and they see if they can play at that level. They get an idea that way.”
Shopping around
Club and high school volleyball share a successful relationship, and coaches encourage players to participate in both. The players try out for a variety of reasons. Some are chasing that college scholarship. Others want to make their high school program and some just want to keep their skills sharp.
“I think you can look at more and more high school programs — from the teams that are really strong to the teams that maybe aren’t — and see there has been a dramatic increase in the number of kids playing club volleyball,” said Jasinowski, who started Air City Chicks based in Springboro and has led Alter to three state championships.
“I think what we’ve seen a difference in is there are more kids at the JV and freshman level playing club.”
No more than three players from the same high school team can play on the same club team and high school players cannot play for their high school coach at the club level. Ha said he has players from both Alter and Chaminade Julienne in his Kingdom program, and some of his Fenwick players compete for Jasinowski at Air City. All are rivals in the Girls Greater Cincinnati League.
“I don’t bat an eye. I encourage the kids to play and shop around,” Ha said. “The only thing I preach to them is don’t wait too long to make a decision.”
The high school season generally runs from August to early November. The club season picks up with tryouts around Thanksgiving, practice in December or January and the season lasting until mid-May or early July for teams qualifying for nationals. With not much more than a month off between seasons, coaches often worry about how much is too much.
“We’re putting these kids out there and having them play at a high level at a young age,” Jasinowski said. “I wonder sometimes if by the time they get to college they’re burned out. ... It’s so hard to play in college if your heart is not in it.”
Expensive sport
Dayton’s club volleyball programs can add more teams if needed, Garcia said, but the challenge of finding qualified coaches, officials and even court time presents obstacles.
“I think it’s getting bigger, but the only problem is once something gets big you have to have the quality to support it,” Garcia said. “As you start expanding you have to bring in quality people who know about volleyball or you start training your people so they can assist.”
The cost of playing club — estimated to be between $500 and $3,000 depending on club size and how much travel is involved — hasn’t deterred families from signing up.
“I don’t think it’s going to go away,” Jasinowski said. “I don’t think we’re going to see a sharp decline, but I don’t know how much it’s going to grow because it’s economy driven.”
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