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| Eve Cruz, YMCA Middletown Assistant Director of Volleyball Programs, surrounded by Lady Elite players |
When her 13-year-old daughter wanted to start playing club volleyball, Eve Cruz searched high and low for an option in her home of Middletown, N.Y. What she found was disappointing.
With costs ranging anywhere from $1,800 to $3,500 per year, Cruz couldn't afford to pay for any of the clubs at the time. So, not wanting to disappoint her daughter, she started her own 14 and under program through the YMCA.
The cost for that first year? $400.
Now the Assistant Director of Volleyball Programs at the Middletown YMCA, Cruz, along with Director Shawn Thomas, is leading a movement to make club volleyball accessible to girls in Orange County. Through four years, "YMCA Lady Elite" has grown to five teams, transforming itself from a small group of pre-teens into a competitive club program.
Eve Cruz: This really all happened because of my daughter. My daughter wanted to play, but at that time there was no way I could afford club volleyball in our area. Me and the Director at the Y thought she really needed to play somewhere. So we thought, "Let's start a club. Let's do it." And it was very interesting because we almost didn't do it. At that time we only went to four tournaments, and we only charged $400. It was just for the uniforms and the tournaments. I have a picture, we keep it up to remind us where we started. It was two 13-year-olds, one 12-year-old, and the rest were 10-year-olds.
Ryan Maloney: Wow.
Cruz: So it was only a team of eight [laughs]. I'd never been to a volleyball tournament. It was our first experience. We didn't even bring balls to warm-up with. We didn't know we had to do score. We didn't know we had to do lines. But everybody was amazing, everybody was great. The other coaches pitched in. The environment was very friendly at the time. I remember we won our first set that tournament, and we were jumping around like we won the World Series. It was the craziest thing. I remember when we had a player who couldn't serve over the net. Her first ball she served over the net was at a tournament, and we're jumping around like it's the most exciting thing in the world. We always knew then that we wanted to grow it,
RM: Now it's growing. How is word spreading to the point where you're starting to be competitive?Cruz: We weren't expecting the growth, honestly. We put the idea out there and the first year we had one team. We thought the next year we'd have two because we had some older girls coming who had never played club before. Because we're newer we get all ages. But the first year we went from one team, a 14U, to three teams, 14U, 15U, and 17U. We weren't expecting to have three.
RM: Are most of the girls playing high school as well?
Cruz: Yes. And many of them were playing with other clubs, but coming to us. I consider myself old-school, for lack of a better word. I find that volleyball has changed a lot. But I still believe in that whole player. Every player should know how to serve. Every player should know how to pass. Every player should know how to set, even if you're not a setter. I think that makes you a better player overall. When we started four years ago girls would come to us and say, "I'm a hitter in school, so I never get to pass in practice."
RM: One reason that this is exciting to me is because the cost of club volleyball can be prohibitive. There's only a small subsection of the population who can afford to do it. So there seems to be a big opportunity there in doing this through the Y. Can you talk to me about what that model is?
Cruz: Yeah, one of the benefits that we have over other clubs is that we have a gym. We have access to two gyms, actually. We don't have the cost of having a place to play.
RM: Right.
Cruz: So, within the fee the uniforms are included. We have personal trainers that work with us, and if the girls want to work with someone they can. We have a tutor that volunteers in case they fall behind in their studies. Everything is included.
RM: Can I ask what the price is?
Cruz: This year it was $975 for returning players, and $1,100 for a new player. It went up this year because we went to Penn State and Atlantic City. We keep our uniforms every year so they don't have to re-buy their uniforms. And we do payment plans. They can start paying in November, all the way until the end of the season in May. So we really spread it out, which is a big benefit for them. We also do fundraisers to help them pay for things. And we've gotten some girls sponsored. We have people at the Y who say, "I want to help. What can I do? I want to sponsor a kid."
RM: Who would say that, for instance?
Cruz: We have an employee, she sponsored someone last year. Then we have someone who plays rec volleyball who wants to sponsor a kid. We are learning from that experience, because unfortunately the girls who get sponsors often don't finish the program, so they're not invested enough. So we're trying to learn that balance, because we want to make it accessible.
RM: Can you talk more about that? When I met Shawn (Thomas) at Penn State, he said sometimes it can be difficult to get girls to commit to the process.
Cruz: To be honest, there aren't a lot of girls in Middletown who play travel volleyball. There's girls in the outskirts that do, but not in the city area. We started this (program) with them in mind, and those are the girls that actually have a hard time committing, even when the cost was only $600. For some reason, the girls from Middletown were having a hard time committing, but what's interesting is that we're getting girls from the rest of the county. We've noticed that if the parents are involved, they're committed.
RM: Let me ask about that, because whenever I talk to a club coach or director, parents come up in some way. How do you work with parents?
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| Eve Cruz (left) and Shawn Thomas (right) with a YMCA Lady Elite team |
RM: Yeah.
Cruz: Now, it's a little different with parents. We have a lot of parents who've never been involved with anything like club, even when they were younger. Those are the ones who are the most expressive, and have the most questions. The ones who come from other clubs, they're happy because they know how it works, they know the process. So they see the things that we do better, but they also let us know about things we can improve on.
RM: Your original motivation to start this club was for your daughter. How old is she now?
Cruz: She's a 17, she'll be a senior.
RM: So soon she's not going to be around any more. What's exciting to you moving forward?
Cruz: I love the sport. I love what I do. In fact I've decided to make volleyball full-time, securing a position as varsity head coach at Goshen (High School).
RM: Oh, congratulations.
Cruz: Thank you. So I've decided that's the way I want to go.
RM: In terms of a vision for your club, where do you want to be?
Cruz: We want to have six or seven high-level teams, from 13-18. Maybe one day a 12. Our goal is to get girls from all over the county and from Middletown. We need to have relationships with the schools to try to get those girls in and committed. But that's what we want. We want high level, we want girls to come to us if they're interested in playing in college. We want to be able to be a feeder to colleges.
RM: If you look back five or ten years, are there things you wish you would have known when you were first getting going?
Cruz: The interesting thing is that ten years ago I had no idea I'd be doing this. Right now, I don't know how to answer that because it's such a learning process and it's such an exciting thing. The only thing I'd say is that I wish we'd done this sooner, because I love it. I love it.
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For more information about YMCA Lady Elite, Eve Cruz can be contacted at ecruz@middletownymca.org