My wife and I traveled to St. Louis last weekend to watch our granddaughter’s “club” volleyball team (from Tampa, Florida) play in the “2026 Nike Mideast Qualifier” (16 Liberty Division).
As our daughter and her family made it up to St. Louis (via plane, truck, and towed RV), we drove down from Omaha (444 miles) on Thursday. We then watched volleyball on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, before returning to Omaha on Monday. All and all, it was a fun trip – a nice visit with our daughter and her family – a chance to watch our granddaughter play volleyball again in person.
St. Louis and the Pear Tree
This was our sixth visit to St. Louis; all during the month of March. Our previous visits were in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, and 2012 – all to the Missouri Valley Conference’s “Arch Madness” (men’s basketball tournament). Those trips were back in the days when the Creighton University Bluejays were in the MVC (before they moved to the Big East). Arch Madness continues to be played each March in St. Louis at the Enterprise Center, the home of the St. Louis Blues hockey team (downtown near Union Station).
Over the years we have experienced a variety of weather conditions, as March is usually a back-and-forth fight between winter and spring. We experienced a nasty hailstorm back in 1999; some years it snowed along the route; some years were beautiful. We also became familiar with the city of St. Louis during those previous visits (e.g., downtown, Union Station, Forest Park, the Budweiser brewery, and the “Arch”).
In years past we stayed on the western outskirts of St. Louis or at the casino across the Mississippi River in Illinois, taking the MetroLink light-rail to the games. We didn’t take the train this year but were told that the scent of marijuana filled the air in some of the cars. We never experienced that in the old days.
This year we stayed with the rest of the team at the “Pear Tree Inn St. Louis Near Union Station.” It was a comfortable hotel with a “community” feel – with many guests hanging around the lobby, breakfast nook, pool, free soda, free popcorn, wine/beer reception, and the attached “Syberg’s on Market” restaurant.
Sybergs served great burgers, tasty wings, and “big” salads. The volleyball team enjoyed singing karaoke in the restaurant’s lounge. Alas, the hotel’s morning breakfast needed some bacon badly. The good news – we were all together in one place. The bad news – the volleyball was being played a mile or so away (a thirty-minute walk, an expensive uber ride, or with “event” parking hassles).
On Thursday, after most everyone arrived, a large group of players, parents and families walked to the nearby Schlafy Tap Room for a delicious dinner. All seemed well.
Day 1: Friday: Union Station and More
The volleyball team had to arrive at the America’s Center Convention Center by 1:30 PM to warm up for the afternoon wave of the tournament. My wife and I didn’t have to arrive until the team played its first game at 3:30 PM. So, noting how “near” (to our hotel) Union Station was, that is where we headed Friday morning. My wife has some mobility issues – so I pushed her to the station and back in her transport chair.
Union Station #1: I am amazed at how well Union Station has transitioned over the years – from a major transportation hub – to a mall/hotel/food court (in our MVC tournament days) – to a hotel/attraction complex today (containing among other things the St. Louis Aquarium and the Saint Louis Wheel).
Union Station was the largest and busiest train station in the world in 1894. The hotel today, with its gold-leafed Grand Hall, Romanesque arches, 65-foot barrel-vault ceiling, and 230-foot-high clock tower continues to be beautiful.
Photograph: The photograph accompanying this post was taken from the St. Louis Wheel – at or near the top of its rotation. The photograph is not particularly good as the light is poor and the sky is gloomy, but it reflects our visit to the city. The remains of the “train shed,” that once protected the 32 passenger tracks from the elements, is in the foreground. Behind the train shed, you can see the Enterprise Center (curved). Way in the back is the “Arch.” The MetroLink light-rail line runs through the grassy area to the right. America’s Center is out of view (a couple blocks to the left of the top corner of the photograph).
Build-A-Bear Workshop at Union Station: As we were cruising around the south side of Union Station, we noted a big bear in the distance on what turned out to be Build-A-Bear World Bearquarters. In what turned out to be an expensive lark, I wheeled my wife over to the store to take a few pictures and (unplanned) buy a couple of stuffed “Hello Kitty” bears (with different outfits) for our youngest granddaughters (an Easter gift).
The next day, when lost and driving, I took a wrong turn into the Union Station parking lot – stumbling onto a one-day strike by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 655, protesting the firing of four Build-A-Bear employees (because they violated a policy prohibiting the use of customer reward points …). Some of the strikers were dressed like stuffed animals. They were boisterous but looked cuddly.
Landry’s Seafood House: After buying our stuffed “Hello Kittys,” we had a delicious lunch at Landry’s Seafood House. It remains largely unchanged from where we ate during our previous visits, although it is now in the shadow of the Saint Louis Wheel. We do have one unhappy memory of Landry’s – during a previous visit my wife missed a step and took a nasty tumble. Luckily, just a few scrapes. This time I wheeled her up and down the ramp without incident.
Volleyball in General
Women’s volleyball is hot right now. It has taken off over the last few years, and the state of Nebraska is a hot bed of volleyball – with two “Top 10” college programs (Nebraska and Creighton) and two professional teams (the Omaha Supernovas that competes in Major League Volleyball; and LOVB Nebraska, an inaugural member of LOVB Pro).
While we were in St. Louis the Supernovas set a professional volleyball attendance record (16,838 fans in Omaha). The latter LOVEB Pro organization is starting to gobble up some of the youth clubs around the country. We spotted the LOVEB logo on some of team jerseys at the St. Louis tournament. Volleyball has apparently attracted the attention of private equity investors.
Youth Volleyball
I suspect (with no evidence) that youth volleyball now contributes more to the nation’s Gross National Product (GDP) than the aluminum or steel industries. While perusing the USA Volleyball National Rankings, I noted that there were (per my count) 21,373 “ranked” teams in the seven girl’s age groups (12-18). At 12 girls per team, that equates to over a quarter of a million young girls playing “tournament” volleyball in places like St. Louis.
And they play all over the country during their lengthy season. My granddaughter plays in a tournament in Boston in a couple weeks. My wife and I have also watched her play in big national tournaments in Las Vegas (2024) and Daytona Beach (2025).
Volleyball in St. Louis
This year there were 108 courts set up in the America’s Center Convention Center complex – in the five big convention halls, in the atrium, in the ballrooms, and in some place called “Beal.” They even had courts set up on the 50-yard-line where the St. Louis Rams once played football. In the latter venue, you certainly did not have to worry about any balls hitting the ceiling.
At twelve matches a day on each of the 108 courts, that’s 1296 volleyball matches a day. It is quite a sight to look out at the hundreds of volleyballs shooting up into the air during the warmups before the various waves start to play – like popcorn shooting up into the sky.
And as a spectator, you must be constantly vigilant as those volleyballs can come at you (with pace) from ANY direction. I successfully knocked down a few coming my way and am happy to report that I never got bonked in the back of my head once (unlike at Las Vegas and Daytona).
Friday Volleyball
For a variety of reasons, I am not going to get into the ins and outs of my granddaughter’s games (e.g., team name or player names). You will note, however, that I will sometimes use the royal “we” when referring to her team. She is my obvious connection to the team.
The first day went relatively well. As noted before, they played in the afternoon wave – with their first game at 3:30 PM. Each wave has six one-hour time slots (e.g., 2:30, 3:30, 4:30, 5:30, 6:30, and 7:30) for warmups and best-of-three matches. They do a pretty good job of staying on schedule, but the sessions can run long if the matches are close and third-set tie breakers are required.
My granddaughter’s team played all their Friday games on Court 48 – against three other teams. When they were not playing, they were resting/eating or helping referee a match (e.g., line judges, scoring table). They got off to a shaky start losing the first set of their first match 21-25, before winning the match with scores of 25-11 and 15-7 (the third set “tiebreaker” only goes to 15). They won their second match handily (25-14, 25-19) but lost the third match (25-11, 25-17).
Since they had won two of their three matches they advanced to the “winners” bracket and would play other “winners” on Saturday morning. It was late in the day when they finished – time for a quick dinner, some karaoke in the hotel restaurant/lounge, and then off to bed.
Saturday Volleyball and More
As noted above, with a 2-1 record, we were on to the early morning (8 AM to 1 PM) wave with the other “winners.” The matches got tougher. Our first match was at 9 AM; the team had to get there early, but we again slept in.
Our team lost the first match (25-12, 25-13); the second match (25-18, 25-17) and the third match (25-9, 25-20). We saved our best set for last, staging a bit of a rally, but as the day went on the heads hung more and the team spirit waned. I noticed that the girls didn’t come together after each point (win or lose) with the same enthusiasm. Apparently, there were some verbal exchanges within the team, and I saw some tears at the end of the morning. Losing sucks!
Parade and Sushi: The good news was that we finished early enough for my wife and I to walk a few blocks south to the intersection of 8th and Market to watch St. Louis’ St. Patrick’s Day parade. It was advertised as a big parade, but it turned out to be more like a small Omaha parade than a Rose-Bowl-like parade. There were a lot of Shriners driving their vehicles around, some family and krewe floats, a few balloons (shamrocks and an Irish flag), and a marching band or two.
After an hour or so, we had obtained a few strings of beads but missed out on the free White Castle burgers (from the White Castle float). While the parade continued down Market Street, we headed back to meet with our family (now done refereeing). We all then walked a few blocks to Sushi Ai for lunch before driving back to the hotel for some R&R and soul searching.
Union Station #2: Later that evening the team decided to head over to Union Station for dinner at a "to-be-determined" restaurant. The unknown factor can be difficult for a large group to handle, so we wandered around a bit trying to decide at which of the five or so restaurants, at or near the station, we collectively wanted to eat at. We never did figure it out.
When we first arrived at Union Station, I noticed a large gathering of young people milling about and/or running around – what appeared to be some sort of flash mob. Over the next half-hour or so, the unorganized mob moved from one spot to another with fights breaking out near The Pitch (sports tavern) and Maggie O’Brien’s Irish Restaurant. This situation unnerved some of our group and most of us eventually found our way back to our hotel for dinner.
I later learned that this episode was part of a bigger problem that the St. Louis Metropolitan Police experienced that evening (and into the following morning) at the conclusion of what St. Louis terms “314 Day” (a day “dedicated to celebrating the essence of St. Louis by highlighting its growth and promoting safety”).
A newspaper headline the next day read, “Wild Night in St. Louis: 7 shot, 50 cars spiked after street takeovers.” The KMOV-TV website had a story entitled, “314 Day Violence: shootings, street takeovers reported across St. Louis.” A St. Louis Metropolitan Police spokesman (in the KMOV-TV report) noted that “there was one consistent problem that we saw throughout the night … it was juveniles without their parents; they were nowhere in sight. Our officers should not be your babysitter. Our city is not a playground, and this type of violence is absolutely unacceptable.”
Sunday Volleyball and More
The one and only wave on Sunday is different. The teams all return to play some combination of “win or go home” (after refereeing). The sun had risen; it was a new day to hopefully win a match or two before heading home. Our first (and last match) was at 9 AM. We lost (25-18 and 25-15), ending the tournament with two wins and five losses overall.
The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis: The good news regarding the loss was that it allowed my wife and I to attend the noon Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis. The basilica is the third largest in the United States and is renowned for its stunning mosaics (all 41.5 million of them covering 83,000 square feet, 500 mosaics/square foot).
I was surprised by the number of parishioners that attended the noon Mass. I was also surprised at the many ethnicities present, the number of young families, and the presence of a “communion rail” (something I had not seen for years). My wife was also impressed by the number of ethnicities present and the number of women wearing head coverings (an ancient Catholic practice). The organ music, the cantors voice, and the building were beautiful.
The Weather: Our first few days in St. Louis were on the cool side and windy. On Sunday the weather got worse. The winds grew stronger, a few short-duration tornadoes popped up in the area, heavy rain started about 5 PM, colder weather moved in as the severe storms headed east, and then some light snow fell as the wind continued. The players and parents that left town early were fortunate. Some of those who had planned to leave by air later that day didn’t, as their flights were canceled. At least one family rented a car to get out of town. Such is March in the Midwest.
Our family left St. Louis on Monday as planned; my wife and I by car to Omaha; our daughter and her family via truck/RV to Tampa (via the Grand Ole Opry). Some of the other players and parents, on spring vacation, headed north to places like Milwaukee. They headed north into heavy snow. Their fate is unknown to me.
Youth Volleyball – A Contrast and Conclusion
So, what is good about youth volleyball?
It is not 250,000 kids trying to earn a college scholarship – the odds are poor and the economics are worse.
Youth Volleyball does, however, offer a good opportunity to work on one’s physical and mental fitness, while having fun. Volleyball is after all an elective – it should ultimately provide some satisfaction and fun – and add balance to one’s life. It gets young girls off the couch, out of their bedrooms, and off the screens (for at least a while).
Youth volleyball also teaches some valuable life lessons; how to win and lose with grace and empathy, how to be a team player and possibly a team leader, how to respectfully deal with others (teammates, coaches, referees, and opponents) – even when you or they are having bad days.
Youth volleyball is also good for the family. The road trips provide some quality minutes for families, at a time when such minutes are becoming more fleeting. Those road trips are “bonding” trips – allowing families to overcome (together) the varying degrees of adversity that are encountered (including St. Louis’ weather). And sometimes, Volleyball also gets the grandmas and grandpas involved in the fun. Thank you!
And lastly, and maybe most importantly, if you are seriously playing volleyball, you are not doing something else – something less healthy, like walking aimlessly through the streets of St. Louis at night dodging bullets.
Our stay in St. Louis highlighted contrasts. The volleyball parents and the Basilica parents knew where their children were – indeed they were with their children. This contrasted with the observation of the St. Louis police spokesman regarding the disturbances on 314 Day – those parents “were nowhere in sight.”
I realize that this situation involves a lot of socio-economic issues. Not all families can afford club volleyball. But the families worshipping in the basilica on Sunday knew where their kids were – and "hopefully" where they were going.