Heading West: Texas Volleyball in California

*Originally posted 3/2022

By The Numbers...

I always talk to athletes that would LOVE to play volleyball in California. How realistic is that? Texas is known for having depth in almost every graduating class. California has been a hot bed for volleyball athletes for a long time. Before getting in front of college coaches in California, there are a few road blocks to consider.

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First, out-of-state scholarships can be an issue. Some state schools in California (not all of them) might be fully funded at the D1 level, but will have limited scholarships for athletes out-of-state or out-of-region. This will be a big reason for these schools having so many athletes on their roster from California.

Second, there is the issue of recruiting in general. For D2 schools in California and many of the D1 schools as well, there just isn't a huge need to recruit that far away from home. Athletes from Nevada and Arizona regularly populate California school rosters because those states are just that much closer. Budget plays into this as well. Why travel across the country when you could drive an hour and watch athletes that will certainly help your program?

Let's look at how many Texas volleyball players ACTUALLY make it out to California to play their college volleyball.

Side note - can we get some consistency in the roster information? Sometimes we include the state with the city, other times it's just the city? Sometimes we write the whole name of the state and other times just the first 3 letters of the state? Abbreviations are great, but if you only use them half the time it doesn't look good. I mean if you're from "Denver" chances are pretty good it's the one in Colorado, but there are 10 other states that have a city or town with the same name. Details are important.

D1 Conferences in California:

Big Sky

Big West

Mountain West

Pac-12

WAC

WCC

D2 Conferences in California:

PacWest

CCAA

I think these numbers are pretty revealing of how realistic it is for athletes from Texas to make it on to a California roster. It certainly DOES happen and I know plenty of college coaches from California that actively recruit athletes from Texas. In the end you are competing against a lot of athletes for these roster spots.

Total Number of D1 Volleyball Athletes in California = 448

D1 Athletes from Texas = 25

25/448 = 5.5% of athletes are from Texas

Total Number of D2 Volleyball Athletes in California = 336

D2 Athletes from Texas = 7

7/336 = 2% of athletes are from Texas

OVERALL

32 / 784 = 4%

D1 Schools in California = 26

D2 Schools in California = 20

Out of the 46 schools in California (D1 and D2) 27 had 0 (zero) athletes from Texas on their roster. That is nearly 59% of the schools. The D2 schools had the most (15) rosters absent athletes from Texas.

Getting picky...

No school had more than 4 (UCLA) athletes from Texas on their roster. Two of those athletes were actually transfers, so they didn't even start their college career at UCLA or in California. The Pac-12 schools accounted for 10 of the 25 athletes from Texas playing D1 (interesting). Cal was the only school from the Pac-12 that had 0 (zero) athletes from Texas on their roster. Stanford and USC both had three.

Only two D2 schools had more than one athlete on their roster from Texas; Both of those schools have two.

Let's pretend that all of the D1 schools in California are fully funded. That would mean that the 26 schools have a total 312 athletes on scholarship. 5.5% of 312 is about 17; that means there are roughly 17 scholarships being used by athletes from Texas. Remember that is for 4 recruiting classes. That means that there are about 4 athletes from the state of Texas that are playing volleyball on scholarship in California in each graduating class.

*I Realize these numbers aren't going to be exact. Just want to break those numbers down a little bit and make them as "real-world" as possible

Wow. That's a lot of math! My brain hurts.

There you have it. Those are the REAL numbers for playing college volleyball in California.

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