Triple Crown Through The Eyes of Texas

The biggest club tournament of the year wrapped up last weekend in Kansas City, Missouri and Coach David Hunt noticed a few differences on his trip to Triple Crown this year compared to years prior.

The biggest difference is that the level of play at younger ages is getting better and better every year. This change doesn't come from the presence of more physically dominant athletes, but from a higher IQ and skillset for the game: "There's a lot of good young talent just playing the game of volleyball, versus big physical athletes that you feel like you're gonna have to train to be volleyball players," said Coach Hunt. He attributes this to a variety of factors such as increased access to video and film review, pro leagues in the US and their investment in the youth game, and more TV exposure for college volleyball.

Obviously though, recruiting goes beyond talent. On the road to getting an offer, talent alone won't get you past the driveway. "Talent is pretty easy to identify when you're out there... then you have to start diving into the recruiting process and trying to figure out how they interact with teammates, how they compete when things aren't going well, how they perform under pressure," said Coach Hunt. These are the factors that separate the recruited from the talented, and that's the beauty of Triple Crown. Unlike other tournaments, it pits top talent against top talent all three days, creating more situations of adversity and pressure.

As for the competition with other colleges to land top recruits, it's pretty much open season. When discussing the search for top-end talent, Coach Hunt added "Exposure to athletes has also grown, right? Like I don't think there's kids on a random court that nobody knows about... We're always recruiting the best talent in the country, so you're always competing against similar universities." Many things have contributed to more eyes finding the top recruits: club coaches doing a better job talking about their athletes, video becoming more accessible, or how the NTDP pipeline has done a good job identifying high level athletes. And now the recruiting game is in full swing, so may the odds be ever in our favor.