How to play volleyball after college or high school? Where to learn to play volleyball as an adult.

A lot of people quit playing volleyball once they leave college or high school. They get overwhelmed with other obligations (such as school or work) and therefore prefer to stop playing volleyball. However, it can be a good idea to remain active.

Once you stop playing volleyball, it can be a challenge to start again as you don’t have a club anymore. In this article, we will discuss how you can keep playing volleyball after high school or college. You can decide to go to open volleyball instead of club volleyball if you want to keep playing but spend less time on this hobby. Finding the right balance between work (or school) and your hobbies is essential.

Keep going to your club

You have to think about what you still want to achieve. Do you want to play volleyball for fun or to win another competition? The easiest way to keep playing is to keep going to your club. You might have to cancel other hobbies if you want to do this.

It is possible that you will miss some TV shows or certain events but you have to make choices in life. If volleyball is important for you, it is possible that you have to make sacrifices for it. You can also ask the coach if it is OK to only attend one training per week.

This will save you a lot of time and can make sure that you still get some practice in. You might not make the team as a lot of coaches don’t like that but it is a good compromise between stopping with volleyball and spending too much time on it. 

There are no professional leagues in the USA so if you want to become a pro volleyball player, you will have to go abroad. The volleyball leagues in Italy, Brazil, Russia, South Korea, and Turkey are the best ones in the world.

A lot of American volleyball players are active in these countries as they can learn a lot there. Athletes Unlimited is a new volleyball competition in the USA but it is still quite new and has to grow a lot. It took the NBA decades to become what it is today so it can take a long time before we get a professional volleyball league in the USA.

Some players might leave your team. ©Annie Tsung via Canva.com

Probably some players of your team will leave at that point. This might sting as you have played together for a long time and it will change the team dynamic. You will have to rebuild this again with other people. It might take quite some time but if you are planning to work together as a team, it will be possible to build up that bond again.

Once people start working, your friends often change as people move and so on. This is part of life and sometimes you lose someone but then you meet someone new. Things constantly change in life and sometimes you just have to go with the flow.  

It is possible that you might have to play with a younger team or with a group of people that have less experience. If this is not something that you want to do, you might have to look at the alternatives that we will outline below.

Play with friends or open volleyball

Open volleyball might be the perfect solution for you. This is also played in a sports arena but you can attend the training when you want. There is no competition that the team in participates so it is more for fun and everything is more relaxed. There is often a mix of skill levels but most of the time a lot of people have experience with playing volleyball. If you want to remain active without all the commitments that come with club volleyball, open volleyball is a great alternative.

©Jupiterimages via Canva.com

If you don’t have time to go to the volleyball club anymore, you can invite your friends for short rounds of volleyball. If someone has a big garden, you can play there. Otherwise, you might have to look for a local sports arena that has a volleyball net or use a rope to create an improvised net. 

This might not be ideal as the skill level between friends is often quite big and this can annoy some players. Furthermore, if it is not really planned, people often cancel or it happens only a few times before people have other plans.

Especially once it rains or it gets colder, people might cancel. Once you stop playing volleyball, it can be quite a challenge to start again. Therefore it is better to make sure that you have a really great team that pushes each other to keep training. 

Switch it up and join a new team

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Sometimes you just need to join a new team to get motivated again. Everything is different from the coach, the sports arena to the drills that you will have to perform. After doing years of the same, it can get quite predictable and even boring. A new challenge can keep volleyball exciting and therefore joining a new team might be the answer for you.

It can seem daunting to do this as you have to get to know a lot of people. Once you get over this initial period of awkwardness, it will become normal quite fast. 

Another reason to join a new team is if the sports arena is closer to your work. This makes it easier to commute and attend the training.

For me, it was a great thing that I switched teams. After a while, things got too predictable and I wasn’t growing and enjoying the game that much anymore. At the same point in time, I was moving for work so had to join another team. It was a big step to do this as I played together with the same people for more than a decade. In the end, I am happy that I took the step as it was interesting to see other playing styles and this pushed me to improve my technique as well. 

Coach a team

Coaching a volleyball team can be a lot of fun ©Wavebreakmedia via Canva.com

A lot of people are tired of playing volleyball themselves but they still want to remain active. Becoming a coach is a great idea at this point. You can teach other players what you have learned over the years. It is a big commitment but it can be a fun and exciting new challenge.

I was unsure if it was something for me at first but after coaching a team for a year, I really started to enjoy it. Watching other players grow is a really great feeling and I enjoy being able to help my players and improve their skills.

Not everyone has the patience to coach a team and it is not for everyone. You have to think if you are ready to sit next to the field instead of playing yourself. It is a different experience and from time to time I still miss playing a match myself.

Start your own team

If no one is playing volleyball in your area, you might have to set up your own team. This can take a lot of time and is not easy to do. Therefore it is the last resort as you will have to spend a lot of energy on getting this together. It might be easier to move to another location if you really want to keep playing volleyball.

If you can get a list of people that played volleyball before, you can reach out and see if they are interested in restarting. That way you could build up a new team and keep playing volleyball. 

Consider beach volleyball

Beach volleyball game ©ronstik via Canva.com

If you really don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to volleyball anymore, you can decide to join some tournaments with friends. If you go to the beach, there are often fields. A lot of people are playing there every day. This makes it easy to join in on one of the games. In this way, you don’t have to join a club and don’t have to gather a group of people to play. You can play at your own pace. Beach volleyball is quite different from indoor volleyball but it has enough overlaps to make sure that you will enjoy it as well if you like indoor volleyball. 

To conclude, we can state that there are several ways in which you can play volleyball once you have left college or high school. You can just play with friends, start your own club or join another club. It might be a challenge to find a team but there are a lot of people that still enjoy playing volleyball in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and even sixties so you will find a club that works for you.

It is possible that you have to cancel other plans or spend less time on other hobbies but that is just a choice that you have to make. If volleyball is important in your life, you have to make sure that you make it a priority. You can keep dreaming of starting again but you just have to be dedicated enough at one point to just do it.