In the world of sports, the mission is to develop young people into quality athletes and people. Thousands of studies show that kids involved in sports and other extra-curricular activities tend to have higher GPAs and are more likely to attend college. Sounds great, doesn’t it? What parent wants their kid to hang out with the wrong crowd and get into trouble? I know I don’t. But let’s be honest here, it’s also an opportunity to improve the talent pool in each prospective sport. High school football coaches live for kids who were rock stars in Pop Warner since they were 6 years old.

With that being said, sports is always a good thing for the kids. They really enjoy activity and child psychologists believe young children must perform specific exercises in order to grow into healthy adults. To get more kids involved in sports; soccer, baseball, football, and basketball have all created programs for young kids to introduce them to their sport. I know by the time I was 12, I had several years of soccer, basketball, and baseball under my belt. As an adult, I now know the rules and can follow the games and watch them on TV. However, I don’t remember volleyball as a child. Well, I do remember that game that my parents would play with other adults at picnics when they had too much to drink and they would never, ever, EVER let me play for fear of me getting hurt with what seemed like a concrete ball. I learned the game of volleyball as an adult and as a result, the sport missed out on one child participant, and I know there are hundreds of thousands of kids like me.

Enter Volley Tots

The following is an excerpt from John Sample’s Volley Tots article in the monthly AVCA’s magazine, “Coaching Volleyball”:

The idea of Volley Tots began about three years ago when I went to a tee ball game that my grandson was playing in. As a fan in the stands, I was not only watching my grandson, but also observing what all of the other kids were doing. Basically, it amounted to an adult telling the kids what to do every second, and all the kids really did was swing at a ball. After the game, I decided I would visit one of his practices to see what the kids were doing during practice times. Practices, I found, had the kids doing basically the same thing they did at the game. At that point, my interest was peaked, and I thought, “If this is all the kids are interested in, then we ought to be able to do volleyball for the kids since we didn’t have  many 3-9 year old kids participating in volleyball.

Volley Tots was created by John Sample, club director of Texas Advantage Volleyball Club, and is a volleyball playground to expose boys and girls to the sport. This youth program teaches motor learning and skills development through fun activities. Fun activities means using other sports to introduce the game of volleyball. Twenty to forty percent of the  program incorporates exercises and drills used to teach the athletic skills of hand-eye coordination, spatial relationships, foot speed, agility, strength, posture, reducing of fear, improving endurance, and establishing discipline along with some specific volleyball techniques. Everything they do has a volleyball instinct or movement involved. However, it aides the development process for any sport they wish to try. This allows the children to be involved in the sport indirectly while having tremendous fun. That sounds like something any parent would want.

When the kids do play volleyball, it’s only on 6 meters x 6 meters court with 4 players per side. Players are allowed to catch the first two contacts and then attack , set or bump the ball over the net for the third contact. There is no serving, as the coaches put the ball in play; no officials; and games are 15 minutes long with a running clock. The younger children progress and play volleyball toward the end of their Volley Tot camp experience. While the older kids, usually those from 6 to 9 play the game a little more.

It has been said among many coaches already coaching Volley Tots that the kids are really associating having fun and playing volleyball, which is extremely important. For them it is being able to remember not only what happened, but that they have fun. If you ask them what drills they did, they may not know, but if you ask them if they had fun, they all scream, “Yes!”, with a smile. They associate volleyball with fun as they would with such favorite things such as snacks. Volley Tots for them can be just as fun or as important as their favorite cookie.

Conclusion

As a big proponent of the concept, I think youth programs are a great idea, especially Volley Tots. Not only does it get kids moving early, it will develop more athletes for every sport and increase numbers of both boys and girls interested in the sport of volleyball. I think it is a tremendous idea for boys as, and I’ve said this before on this site, many boys are taught that volleyball is for girls because it’s simply not made available to them. Along with boys volleyball programs in middle schools, this will go a long way toward making the sport attractive to both genders of kids. However, don’t go about Volley Tots as a way of making your talent pool better. We all know that families move and kids lose interest, and that will lead to disappointment for you. Instead, go about it as a way of getting more kids involved in the sport in general.

For more information on Volley Tots or help starting a program in your area, contact the Junior Volleyball Association (JVA) at http://www.avca.org/jva/