85 South Volleyball Club takes the sport to a new level in Troup County – LaGrange Daily News

xxxxaVolleyball is on the rise in Troup County. Interest and participation across all age groups has steadily grown and with it the need for an opportunity outside of the school system to play when the girls are too old for the Troup County Parks and Rec system. 85 South Volleyball is here to fill that void. Based here in LaGrange, the travel club was founded in 2023 by Chad Noles and celebrated its first season earlier this year.

“About this time last year, a group of people from the community came and asked me if I would be interested in helping out with a volleyball club,” Noles said. “I took a year off from coaching but was excited to get back into it and we made a plan. We started but we were late, you know, a lot of the clubs were already having tryouts, we were way behind on buying equipment. I had no facilities, no coaches, but we were able to get everything together and have a great season.”

The club had five teams in its first year: 17u, 16u, 15u, 14u and 13u. There were 80-85 girls on the five teams. The vast majority of the girls are involved in the middle or high school programs in Troup County, but teams have also come from as far away as Phenix City and Columbus.

Noles is committed to developing talent in Troup County at all levels.

“I was actually at Troup High School this morning running a camp for them. I had players from Callaway that I worked with. We have players from Lafayette Christian, from LaGrange Academy, and I was at LaGrange High working with coach (Meghan) Smith,” Noles said. “I want every team in our county to be competitive and stay competitive, and we believe our club can help with that.”

“I also offer a position called practice player for girls who aren’t good enough to be on the travel team,” Noles added. “We let them practice with the teams. They just don’t travel with them, so the families save a lot of money because they get the same classes as the other girls. That’s one way to get them involved. I hate kicking girls out. I hate telling them they can’t be on a team and potentially turning them away from volleyball.”

This club did not come out of nowhere. Noles has been passionate about promoting volleyball in this region for over a decade.

“I started (coaching volleyball) when my oldest daughter was 12. She’s 27 now, and for the last 15 years I’ve helped coach, been a parent coach and a community coach or something like that. I’ve been fortunate to work with some really good volleyball coaches around me, and that really helped me get into the position to start 85 South.”

This isn’t the first travel volleyball team to be based in Troup County, but it is the first to focus primarily on this area. Parents no longer have to drive to Columbus, Newnan or farther to find quality travel ball.

“There’s a club out of Columbus that I was involved with, and we had teams in LaGrange, but that was never the focus of that club, and that was one of the reasons these parents came to me and asked, because they wanted to focus on the Troup County area,” Noles said.

Noles places a lot of emphasis on the girls playing well as a team while improving their individual volleyball skills, but never loses sight of what volleyball and sports in general are all about.

“The girls have matured a lot both in volleyball and in their personal skills because for me as a coach, it’s my job to make them better volleyball players. But our whole philosophy behind it is that when they leave and a season is over, we absolutely want them to be better volleyball players, but we also want them to be better people,” Noles said.

The club currently practices wherever it can find space, but this is often limited. As volleyball continues to grow, Noles believes Troup County needs to create more facilities to ensure the sport can thrive.

“One of my biggest concerns is the facilities,” he said. “And it’s just difficult for me to get space for the gym. The Parks and Recreation department has been great to work with, as has LaGrange College, but if there’s somebody in the area that has storage space and it’s not being used or something like that, I would love to have a gym at 85 South that’s just for us that I can train in. I can train there anytime, but those kinds of spaces are hard to find in this district.”

For more information about 85 South Volleyball, visit their website at 85southvbc.com or contact them at [email protected].