How Do We Pay For Club Volleyball??

Question
What suggestions do you have for paying for a traveling club team, when costs will reach nearly $5000?  The club offers no scholarships, but will work with parents on payment plans, as long as all fees are paid within a year.  Are there outside sources that offer scholarships or sponsorships for club players with financial challenges?

Answer
Good morning and welcome to www.allexperts.com!

You have a question that nearly all parents ask.  And the answers I give you will be the ones that you already know.

a) Change clubs.  If one club is too expensive, then change.

b) Move down to a lower team.  Tell the club director that you cannot afford to on the top team, and that your daughter needs to be on a lower, less expensive, less travelling team.

c) Get another job.  When someone in America needs more money, they always have the option of working more.  

d) Ask your daughter to help with it.  There's no problem with saying, "Honey, we can't afford this.  If you want to play on this team in this club, then we'll need you for finance $1000 of it yourself.  It's either that, or we cancel all our cell phones."

e) Don't stay at the team hotels.   If the kids are expected to stay at a team hotel, tell the club director (and head coach) at tryouts that if your daughter makes the team, she will either need help to stay at the team hotel, or she will staying with you at the nearby Motel 6.

f) Ditch the plane trips.  Just like the hotel, if the team must fly together, tell the director and coach that you cannot.  You'll be driving.  When my team qualified for Jr. Nationals in Miami in 2009, two sets of parents drove.  One family had 5 children, and couldn't afford to use a plane.

g) If the team travels, then the parents and the children stay at home.  This will save a few hundred each trip!  On those long 3-day trips, it could save you $500 or more.  

But I think you know all these things.  It's not the club's job to provide you with scholarship money.  Some do.  But the ones that do must take money from "wealthier" parents and give that to you.  That's just never seemed right to me.

I hope you have a great weekend.  My wife and I will be in South Carolina watching Radford University and Presbyterian College.  Our final road trip.  10 years of juniors, high school and college, and it's now all over.  So sad.  

Please visit me at www.coachhouser.com!  I know the smiling faces will make your day!  

Coach Houser