Hitting the road is a regular part of life for the Rodriguez family from Oregon.
“You come home and you look at the bank account sometimes, and you’re like, ‘Man. But it was a fun weekend,’” said David Rodriguez, the father of 18-year-old Adella and 17-year-old Hayden.
The travel — and expenses related to it — aren’t vacations. Instead, this plays out at the end of many two-day trips to national club volleyball tournaments in which the daughters play.
Adella and Hayden have played on the Toledo Volleyball Club’s travel teams for the past eight years or so. And several times a year, Rodriguez and his wife will join their girls on trips to Florida, Missouri, Maryland, or wherever else the tournament might take them. Their daughters bring their laptops to do homework on the flights or between matches, but they work to enjoy the rare unscheduled moments on the road.
Hayden has two more years at the club, but Adella just finished her final season before heading to Fairmont State to play at the collegiate level.
For David, this moment is a little bittersweet. He and his wife worked overtime shifts trying to give their daughters every opportunity they could, and their children have enjoyed every moment. Adella is taking the ideal next step, but her departure also means the end of their long weekend trips together en route to a tournament.
Despite the costs, the time, the random convention center venues, Rodriguez grew a little emotional thinking about the end.
“I’m going to miss it. I already miss Adella. I’ve got two more years with Hayden, and then she’ll be gone and I’ll miss it. It’s been a part of our upbringing for her… It’s been surreal. It’s been a fun journey. Interesting, too.”
The Rodriguez family is just one of the hundreds in northwest Ohio living this experience. Over the past 5 to 10 years, the club volleyball scene has exploded across the country. From 2017 to 2023, participation in the sport increased by nearly 40 percent. But with growth comes change — and ever-increasing demands.
A physical and mental toll
Clubs usually practice twice a week, in addition to whatever practices and games players have at their high schools, and then travel every other week from January to April. Summer is filled with training camps, and most clubs just finished tryouts for 2025 last weekend.
While increased court time can produce better players, it also comes at a cost.
Jason Reilly, owner and director of Toledo Volleyball Club and the head coach at St. Ursula Academy, is not a fan of the year-round schedule with little rest.
“If there’s one thing I think a lot, we’re seeing a ton of overuse injuries out there just because there is so much overlap between high school and club,” Reilly said. “Club season is entirely too long and there are a lot of high schools that are starting in that April-May range with getting kids on courts.”
Carrie Wagoner, owner and director of Toledo Dynamic Volleyball, said that there were several girls who approached her at last weekend’s tryouts to tell her that they were tired and in pain. During the season, players will sheepishly approach to ask if they can miss practice because they have a busy week of exams, requests which she almost always grants.
Balancing volleyball, family, and academics is becoming a tall task with the extended schedule, but Wagoner urges families to place volleyball last in those priorities. Without a break in the year-round calendar, however, the grind takes a toll on her teenage athletes, sometimes leaving players burnt out by the time they make it to the college level.
“You know they’re exhausted,” Wagoner said. “It’s a lot. You’re either dedicated or you know you may be going to college to play. …They’re willing to sacrifice and grind. I’m not saying they’re not exhausted. They are. But that’s what it takes now to be a collegiate athlete. I do see a lot of the physical and the mental game. They’re just tired. That’s what the sport’s kind of done to these kids now. It’s an all-year round thing.”
Financial and time commitments for parents
The expanded schedule takes a toll on parents, as well. With many already working longer hours to cover the expenses associated with the sport, getting kids to practices can become a significant challenge.
Becky Wineman, whose daughter Mac plays at Athlete Headquarters in Sylvania, explains that they live about an hour and 20 minutes away from the practice facility. Four families from the area lessen their shared burden of that twice-weekly round-trip drive via carpooling, but it remains challenging.
Those time costs, however, often pale in comparison to the financials. Playing on a national club team can run Toledo families between $3,000 and $4,000, depending on which club.
For a family with two middle school daughters looking to join a high-level club, a conservative cost estimate would be $36,000 over a six-year stretch.
At TVC, Reilly said that all of his costs have gone up by roughly 25 percent in the past year. As the game grows, tournaments are charging more for entry. Court space, already limited, costs more to rent. Inflation has made hotels, flights, meals, and gas more expensive.
Austin Burger, director of Athlete Headquarters, said that while he tries to keep costs down for families, his investments in equipment, space, and tournament expenses are all designed to optimize their players’ environment.
"There’s a lot that goes into a volleyball club,” Burger said. “You have to own a warehouse, you have to own a building where you can put all the courts. A lot of price goes into the equipment, things like that, in order to run a successful club and give the kids the best environment you can. So our goal is to always upgrade the environment, and make the facilities the best we can for these kids to succeed.
“With that, you want to pay coaches. … Tournaments are very expensive, especially on the national stage. A lot of the things that we do here is to benefit the athlete. How can we make it the best schedule, get the best coaches in place, things like that for the athlete without spending more than we have to? That’s the general gist of it."
Gina Santacroce, whose daughter Sophia plays at Athlete HQ, explained how she has had to work to make the financials work.
“For us it was especially hard because I lost my husband almost five years ago,” she said. “For my daughter to play, [Burger] offers scholarships, as well, for some of his players, which has been greatly appreciated. When your daughter has a passion and she wants to play, you do what you have to do to make sure she can play.”
Other parents, like Wineman and Rodriguez, echoed that last sentiment, explaining that they were willing to do whatever it takes to give their daughters every opportunity possible.
Recruiting
While nearly all kids get involved for fun, the goal can sometimes shift away from pure love of the game to earning a college scholarship.
Avery Adamski, whose success at TVC earned her a roster spot at the University of Toledo, set her sights on the college level by the time she was in eighth grade.
“For me personally, TVC really prepared me for college,” she said. “The training that we did, the time that we spent there, the weightlifting, the coaching style, I think that all prepared me very well for college. … I think it translated very well for me and a lot of the other people I played with growing up.”
Jason Oliver, the University of Toledo’s head coach since 2018, said that in his 25 years in coaching, every single recruit has played at the club level in high school. Although he highlighted that northwest Ohio has a long tradition of quality volleyball, the degree of skill has increased exponentially as clubs have improved their training regimens.
For parents, college scholarships can also present a potential payoff for their years of sacrifice.
“It is a financial sacrifice,” Wineman said. “Our outlook on it, and I think a lot of volleyball families, is that this is the sacrifice in hopes to get some sort of return on your investment like a scholarship to negate some of the college expenses.”
With such a focus on making it to the college level, several coaches have upped their efforts to make it onto coaches’ radars. Nearly all of them use the site Hudl to post highlights and statistics.
Players at Athlete HQ also use apps like SportsRecruits and FieldLevel to help network with coaches and gain exposure for their highlights, Burger said. And coaches everywhere work to get in the ears of colleges in the area.
No matter how much work a coach or an athlete does to get a school’s attention, however, Oliver explained that it is ultimately his job to go out and find the players that best fit his program.
Is it all worth it?
For every parent whose kid meets their best friends and earns a college scholarship while playing on their club team, there are others who sunk thousands of dollars into a sport that their child quit from burnout, suffered an injury while playing, or where they never quite made it to the next level.
But for those parents who do stick it out, the long hours, physical and mental toll on their children, and financial hit on their wallets do not dampen their appreciation for what the sport has given their children.
As Wineman explained, “It’s something we love. It’s not for everyone, but nothing’s for everyone. We all just as parents want to watch our kids have fun and do what they love.”
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