What to expect at St. Johns Volleyball tryouts
One evening at the facility, grades 5 to 9. What to bring, how placement works, and one piece of advice from Coach Andor.
The basics
- When: Wednesdays, Nov 11 and 18, 5 to 6:45 PM.
- Who: players in grades 5 to 9 (U11 to U15).
- Where: the facility at 6940 US-1 North, St. Augustine.
- Cost: $40, paid when you register. Register ahead of time; tryouts are not walk-up.
- Bring: court shoes, knee pads, water and athletic clothes.
Every player also needs the online player waiver and parent consent form on file before stepping on the court.
How placement works
Coach Andor makes every placement after he watches players at the tryout. The club fields eighteen teams, U11 to U15 plus a high school beach track, and roster spots are limited to what three courts can hold. A player who is not placed has a path through the youth classes in Nocatee and Fruit Cove.
One piece of advice: play your game
At any tryout, a coach a player has never met may walk over and ask her to change something big, like where she stands to pass or how she holds her platform. Coach Andor's advice to players is simple: say thank you, and keep playing the game that got you there.
The reason is how skills work under pressure. When a player thinks about her own body parts, a movement she normally does without thinking can fall apart. When she thinks about a target outside her body, like sending the ball to the setter's hands, the movement stays automatic. Motor-learning research by Dr. Gabriele Wulf has shown this again and again: an external focus helps performance, and an internal focus gets in the way.
So if nerves show up, give her a target, not a body part. A good technical change is worth learning, in practice the next week, where it can become automatic before it has to hold up in front of an evaluator.
More from the gym
- The screens beside our courts replay every rep. Here is why.A player sees her own arm swing a few seconds after she made it, while the coach is still talking. What delayed video review does for a 12-year-old, and why we built it into the gym.
- Coaches, slow down. A tryout story.A coach who had never met her asked a player to move five feet and change her platform in the middle of a tryout. What happened next is why we tell players to say thank you and play their game.
- Volleyball Pattern Training®, explained for parents.Why the squat she lifts with is the squat she passes from, what the eight VPT episodes cover, and why every club practice starts with thirty minutes in the strength room.