Sample Club Volleyball Tryout Structure

Running an efficient and effective club volleyball tryout is crucial when evaluating a large group of athletes. A well-structured schedule not only maximizes reps for each player but also ensures coaches have ample opportunity to assess key skills, athleticism, and potential team fit.

Here’s a sample tryout schedule designed to streamline the process, keep athletes engaged, and provide coaches with the clearest picture of each player’s abilities:

Pre-Tryout

Cross check birthdates before the tryout to make sure none of the players are registered for the wrong age group. To avoid late registration or walk ups, consider raising the tryout fee two weeks before the tryout date. Communicate all tryout logistics in advance so players arrive early and know what to expect at the tryout. Tryout bibs can be more cost effective than tryout t-shirts and you do not need to worry about t-shirt sizes. Make sure you have a lot of coaches and volunteers working the tryout. All hands on deck to guarantee you have enough people for check-in, running the drills, evaluating the players, moving players up or down courts, and managing the administrative tasks. For players missing tryouts, coordinate certain days in advance when these players can be evaluated. They should be registered for tryouts in advance, and be prepared to make a decision and complete necessary steps to commit as soon as tryouts are complete. Financial conversations with families should be had prior to tryouts.

Athletic testing

Athletic testing can be completed right at the beginning of tryouts with stations. What to measure: height, standing reach, block touch, 20 yard dash or shuttle run, and triple jump. Some clubs have specific athletic testing standards for each age group and if a player meets a certain number of testing standards they are automatically placed on a team. If you have to make a decision between two players on who to cut and who to take you can defer to the athletic testing numbers to help make your decision.

If you hold pre-tryout camps or clinics, you can consider doing physical testing at those instead of the actual tryout, so you have that data already and can maximize the time you have at tryouts.

Positionals

If you run a 2 day tryout, this can be done on the first day. If you run a one day tryout, this can be done in the first 30 minutes to an hour. Drills are designed specifically for the position being evaluated, so liberos will serve receive and dig hard driven balls and tips, setters will set a variety of sets, so on and so forth.

Make sure every athlete is evaluated. Ideally there is an evaluation for the athlete’s 1) Position Training, 2) Component Play, and 3) Attitude/Effort.

Evaluators score every player and rank them based on the number of courts. If there are 5 courts, attackers are ranked 1-5. These rankings will be used when players are split into groups for combined positions and/or team play. Evaluators also add notes to back up the player’s ranking, which can be used during conversations between club staff and the athlete and parents later on, or just among the club staff and coaches.

The earlier you start separating players, the more efficient your tryout becomes.

Team Play

Once players are evaluated by position, they are assigned a court based on their evaluation level. ie: a setter given a 5 out of 5 would go to the top court to be considered for the top team in that age division. By running various component drills the athletes can showcase their abilities in a competition setting.

Coaches are running the competitive wash drills. If the players are not in the drill they are shagging or handing balls to the coach. Avoid having more than 20-25 players on a court so there is not a lot of standing around. By moving athletes to different courts, it will allow you to see them perform in different competition settings.