The Academy Volleyball Club

"First, your child will have the opportunity to learn and improve their volleyball skills at the Academy. They have a lot of court space and have the opportunity for year-round development and even private lessons. If that is all you need/want, this may be a great fit for you. My frustrations that are beyond those opportunities for my child are what follow below. The Academy has TERRIBLE parking. At every practice and tournament, you will have to risk getting towed, getting parked in, or walking a mile. If you read a review that does not mention this safety issue, ignore it entirely. Yes, you can arrive an hour early, but you should bring food and supplies for the entire day because you will not want to give up your spot to leave for any reason. In fairness (but equal frustration), this parking issue seems to be Very common with the away tournaments as well. The Academy recently almost doubled their number of courts but failed to adequately address the parking issue that already existed. You'll pay a lot for your kid to be on a team that has zero accountability to ensure other players actually show up. This will hamper the growth potential of the team. After paying all the costs, they decrease the starter kit, increase the door fees for me to watch my child play, hire refs who often do not know all the rules or enforce them fairly, use kids who can't consistently keep score or line judge, and most recently, they make the teams take turns cleaning the facility at the end of practice (I fully support kids cleaning up after their own team but this is building-wide, it extends their practice well past scheduled release, is not communicated with the parents who must arrange pick-up scheduling, and my child is not the building custodian.). You should plan to have tournaments on every family holiday except Thanksgiving and Christmas. Mother's and Fathers Days, July 4th? Just send a card. Their summer program is not beneficial for advancing volleyball skills. They will watch your child for a price. Volleyball may, or may not, be taught on any given day. Maybe this is a preferred option and you want your child to be able to play in water, play random games, or tie dye shirts. Completely fine! I just want to set your expectations for your child's volleyball growth over the summer at the Volleyball Academy. You may think that this is all par for the course for any childrens' competitive sport venue. Maybe you're right, but I believe that how this place operates causes major frustration in good coaches, players, and the families who want to support the Academy. I would rather my child and I not be consistently frustrated around volleyball this early on. Oh, and the bathroom situation for that many people is absolutely negligent. Imagine a concert that is almost exclusively for females with eight porta potties and two sinks."

"My daughter had a VB tournament this weekend here. Unbelievable humidity in this building!! The walls were dripping in water, the courts were like playing on a slip and slide, huge fog hovering over the courts as far as you can see, it was so hard to breath let alone have these kids compete with those conditions, and don’t get me started on the parking. I was concerned all weekend about a child getting a concussion from these horrible conditions Academy allowed. Pray they hire someone that cares about the health of their customers before having another tournament."

"Horrible Parking. $20 to get in all weekend and you should get here about 1-2 hours to find a spot. Then there is ZERO HVAC in this building, snow is falling thru the garage door onto us at court 13……very little bathrooms for about 10k people. I can imagine a Stan Kroenke type man is running this place. Also very little area to sit and rest or work in between matches. I think with a plan, they could really figure out logistics with this place with the entry fee money collected. There also is no Wi-Fi and you will not get cell phone service in the building - not sure if it’s from the metal building, too many people or a combination of the both."

"Great facility!! 5 ✨'s! Only down side is parking can get a bit tight at times."

"This place is a money-grab. Charge an admission fee because it’s a “tournament” but there are no refs and they aren’t keeping score. One of the academy teams didn’t even have a coach come. If you want your athlete to get better, I wouldn’t waste your time here!"