Volleyball fever in Elmont

Long Island Knights, an Elmont-based nonprofit volleyball club, has fostered a surge in volleyball success stories within the Elmont community.

With more athletes interested in the club than it can support, the Knights have 150 boys and girls setting, spiking and bumping on the court every week. The club’s growth is a credit to the coaching staff that help teens excel in the sport.

The club began in 2018 when students voiced concerns over the accessibility of the sport in Elmont. The program started with 15 girls enrolled in the club. The club expanded to host three boys’ teams and five girls’ teams.

Vernell Nelson, head coach of the Knights two boys-18 teams, said the program gives teens in the area an outlet to express themselves outside of school.

“It’s a place for them to be themselves,” Nelson said. “That’s what warms my heart. When I see them and they’re together, and you know they’re dancing or whatever. It’s just that they’re genuinely happy and they can be themselves, and that’s what’s important to me as a mother and as a coach.”

Nelson’s son, Darius Dorsey-Rhule, practiced with the girls’ teams in 2018. When the Knights created its boys’ division in 2019, Dorsey-Rhule joined the team and other boys trickled into the program from Elmont Memorial High School and other schools in the Sewanhaka and Valley Stream Central school districts.

“Elmont’s boys’ and girls’ teams have been crazy, like undefeated conference champions two years in a row,” Campbell said. “So, you know, it’s working. A majority of the kids on these high school teams all play together in club.”

The coaches are invested in their teams’ success, on and off the court. Nelson and Sarah Campbell, director and owner of the Knights, check their athletes report cards to ensure they’re staying on top of their academics.

Holding the club’s athletes accountable is another core value that Nelson and Campbell hold as a standard on their teams.

“They have to keep their calendar, they have to RSVP for events, they have to communicate, if they don’t communicate they aren’t going to play, and they’re constantly communicating,” Campbell said.

The teams have seen major success throughout the past five years. Last year, the girls’ teams won 11 gold medals in tournaments locally and regionally.

“They compete at a higher level, they’re super amazing,” Campbell said. “They’re just so scrappy. They’re going to go for those balls every single time.”

Campbell believes the coaching staff is integral to the club’s success. Since the club is a nonprofit, the 13-person coaching staff volunteer their time weekly for the eight teams.

“The coaches are so important to us, because they could go to another club and get paid,” Campbell said. “While our kids, they graduated from Elmont or they graduated from another local school, and they came back because they really love the sport and they really love growing other people.”

The club’s program costs $1,400 for the season where athletes practice for two hours weekly and participate in six local tournaments and up to four regional tournaments. Athletes receive uniforms and the cost helps pay for volleyball equipment for the team. The fee does not cover travel costs such as hotels, transportation, and food, but the program tries its best to provide cost effective options for overnight tournaments.

This program fee is low compared to private volleyball clubs, which can cost up to $3,000 for players to participate in a season. The ambition is to have a low-cost volleyball club, while providing access to the sport for athletes who may not have been able to otherwise, can sometimes hinder the club’s ability to practice.

“Long Island Knights is a very family-friendly organization, a lot of clubs usually focus on skill and putting a price behind everything, but L.I. Knights really tries to take in as many athletes as we can,” Dorsey-Rhule said. “And as a nonprofit, try to give everything we receive back to the players and we just want to extend out branches throughout all of the communities on Long Island.”

Campbell said that since the club is a nonprofit and charges a low fee, it is unable to pay for space to practice. The teams practice in the Elmont Memorial High School gymnasium or at Wheeler Elementary in Valley Stream, but scheduled practices can conflict with scheduled school functions which take precedent.

“We cannot pay for space, we literally have nothing in the budget to pay for space,” Campbell said.

She hopes a community center can be built to offer a low or no-cost place for the team to practice consistently or even host tournaments to raise money for the club.