Thinking About Your College Goals

*Originally Posted 2/10/2023

The question isn't, "Do you want to play college volleyball?"

The question is, "What do you want your collegiate volleyball playing experience to look like?"

I say often that finding a place to play college volleyball is almost the easiest step in the process. If you want to play college volleyball, then there is a place for you. Deciding you want to play college volleyball is step 1. But what next? These are some of the questions that we need to do a better job of answering. These questions are important because they will help us (hopefully) find the BEST situation and fit.

The desire to play D1 is great, but what next?

How many wins do you want to have every season?

Do you want to be a 1st team all conference player?

Do you want to be a starter?

Are you okay with sitting the bench for your first 2 years?

Do you want to be an All-American?

Are there places where some of these goals are more feasible than others?

It's not just about personal accolades, but I think if you're driven, then it's something you should at least think about.

I want to grow and improve.

I want to compete against the best.

I want to see how good I can be.

There are all important things to think about and depending on where are priorities are, there might be some schools that would be a way better fit for things like this than others.

Now, I think everyone wants to win. No one likes losing. Do you want to be a contributor to your team winning and having a successful season? Several athletes from D1 Final Four teams went into the transfer portal the week after the National Championship.

Plenty of schools across the country fall below .500 on the season. But that's just one season. I coached at a school like that. We recruited athletes that wanted to be a part of the transformation of the program. Athletes that wanted to be the foundation of what our program was to become down the road. Our school also had a bunch of other draws besides playing at the D1 level.

If you're an athlete that wants to become an All-American, that's great. I love that goal. Go look at the lists of All-Americans at the different levels.

How good are those programs?

How many wins do they have?

Where can you accomplish that?

What does their season look like?

How much work are those athletes putting in?

What are the goals of the program as a whole?

Compare and contrast these two experiences:

Missouri (SEC) goes 2-16 in conference and 9-19 overall this past season. At one point they lost 7 matches in a row; some hard fought 5 set matches in there. Finished their season losing their last 3 matches. Obviously no one wanted that to happen and that wasn't the goal - it's just the reality of how that season went.

UMSL (Missouri - St. Louis) goes 11-1 in conference and 25-7 overall. They had a 6 match and 7 match winning streak during the season. They lost in the Final 4 to the eventual National Champion (WT). Finished the season ranked 11th in the country. Co-Conference Champions and 6 All-Conference players on the team.

Obviously there are more options than those two situations. Some might say, "playing in the SEC and losing is better than winning at the D2 level." That is a fine opinion to have. But certainly NOT everyone feels that way.

"What do you want your collegiate volleyball playing experience to look like?"

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