Today we’d like to introduce you to Sean Carter
Hi Sean, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
We didn’t intend to start anything. As a youth group leader in 1990 in Clear Lake, a member of the group asked if I could help be a chaperone for their Clear Lake HS Boys volleyball club to use the gym. They needed an adult to be responsible. I agreed since I was always looking to grow our youth group and I had a little experience playing club volleyball in college at UT Austin.
Well, that encounter grew into regular practices where I served as a coach to teach them the game and grew interest enough to form a team at CLHS. We later found a few other teams like ours around the city and began to play them. This grew into a city-wide league that I ran with volunteer coaches at schools like Katy HS, South Houston HS, Pasadena HS, Clear Creek HS, and Alvin HS.
Eventually, the more ambitious players from all of these schools asked if they could form an all-star team and play in tournaments for higher level play. That’s when we formed our first “Club” teams and registered to play in Men’s vb tournaments, since there weren’t any boys club around Houston to play.
This natural growth continued for almost 10 years and led to the formation of Houston Volleyball Academy (HVA) in 2000 and has seen the tremendous growth in size and performance level in the boys program as well as the addition of other programs like Girls Club teams, Youth training (Age 7-14 for boys and girls), and Beach volleyball training
Today, HVA serves over 1000 families each week and operates all around Houston from Cypress in the North, to Rosenberg in the West, to Pearland and Clear Lake in the South to Bellaire and Memorial in the center.
We are currently blessed with 28 Girls Teams, 15 Boys Teams, 300 Youth Athletes and 100 Beach Athletes. It has been a great ride!
Here is a timeline below:
Our Proud Legacy: 30+ Years of Growing the Game
HVA’s USA Volleyball trained and certified coaching staff has been producing collegiate athletes for many NCAA volleyball programs around the country since 1991 right here in Houston.
1991: We started coaching high school aged BOYS CLUB teams.
2000: We FOUNDED Houston Volleyball Academy with our first two USVBA Boys club team
2012: We added the YOUTH development programs for boys & Girls age 7-12.
2014: We added BEACH development training program.
2015: Helped establish the first BOYS TOUR in this part of the country across 4 states.
2015: We added the GIRLS CLUB program.
2016: Helped birth the Region’s BOYS HIGH PERFORMANCE program
2017: Helped bring 1st USAV BOYS NATIONAL QUALIFIER to TEXAS!
2019: Set a record for our region of the country for a club with 4 BOYS teams QUALIFIED for the National Championships!
2020: Only boys club within 3 states to offer boys teams in EVERY AGE DIVISION! 5 of the boys teams finished in the TOP 10 in the Nation, including our 2nd NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!!
2021: Earned bids in every division we have to qualify for USAV Nationals!! EVERY team finished top 13 at USA Nationals! TWO All-Americans! THREE National Teams Players!
2022: Earned bids in every division we have to qualify for USAV Nationals!! EVERY team finished top 11 at Nationals-> THREE at #2. NINE All-Americans! NINE National Teams Players!
2023: Finished as FINALISTS in THREE AGE DIVISIONS at the USA Volleyball National Championships adding 6 ALL-AMERICANS
2024: ADDED a USA Volleyball NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP and 6 teams finished on the awards podium with a TOP 3 finish for each at THE AAU NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Throughout or first 25 years, there have been some challenging times. Growing the game of boys volleyball often required year-round volunteered time and paying in to help families that just couldn’t cover their expenses to participate. You can’t imagine how hard it is to find coaches when you tell them that they won’t be getting paid. This was what limited our growth for about 15 years. Eventually, former players finished college, moved back to Houston and agreed to volunteer to give back. Things really began to take off then.
One of my former players, Eric Wooldridge, finished his 6-year pro volleyball career in Europe and moved back to Houston. He asked if he could join us and help me grow the club by adding other programs that would eventually provide enough funding to begin hiring coaches that could actually get paid for their time. Since this happened in 2013, we have seen tremendous growth in skill and size!
Also, during the 35 years, there were many girls volleyball clubs that experimented with adding boys volleyball and found out the financial hurdles and withdrew. As of today, 19 clubs have started and ended such experimenting. Some of these attempted a short cut to success by poaching coaches and athletes from our boys program to avoid the hard work of growing the game the right way. Sadly, for the athletes, they lost a year of development while they were away. Returning to HVA the next year, they would all describe how much stronger the HVA development program is and that their recruiting fell behind as they missed HVA’s exposure to high-level collegiate programs while they were away.
HVA is now mentioned among the top volleyball clubs in the United States and we have placed athletes in most of the top Division I NCAA programs as well as more than 50 in the Team USA Olympic Training system!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
We started as a boys club and grew into other, more traditional girls and youth programs. However, its our boys team program that sets us apart first. You won’t find a Boys Volleyball Club within in the Southwest USA that can boast the track record, size, age, coaching staff and current skill level that HVA. Our Girls Club program is really picking up steam and is now one of the largest in Houston. Now in its 10th year, we’ve won the girls Lone Star regional championships and are now seeing more of our girls teams winning tournaments more regularly. The girls have now expended their tournament schedule to include Puerto Rico as well!
We are also located all over Houston so that it convenient for multiple pockets of athletes to gain access to our well-known training system.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
Watching our players and coaches overcome and achieve levels they never thought possible. I particularly love proving how strong Texas athletes are when we are out on the road at the National events!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hva.club
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/houstonvbacademy/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hva.club/
