Picture this: It's the evening before day two of a tournament. I'm standing at the hotel front desk with my laptop, trying to get the staff to print my stat tracking sheets for tomorrow's matches.
The business center printers? Dead. The front desk printer? "Not for guest use."
I email my spreadsheet template to the front desk lady anyway. She's trying to help, bless her, but she's clearly not comfortable with email attachments. We spend an hour troubleshooting. I'm talking her through opening Gmail, finding the attachment, clicking print.
We finally get it working.
An hour. To print a piece of paper.
That's when I knew I was done with this system.
Why I Started Tracking Stats
My daughter plays competitive club volleyball for a top-level team at her club. I've been involved in her volleyball journey for years - head coach for her 12u club team for two seasons, and assistant coach for the last two years.
Coaches want data, players want to see their progress, and sitting on the bench as an assistant coach, tracking stats felt like a way to actually help the team. So I grabbed a clipboard and started scribbling numbers.
The Reality of Paper Stat Tracking
Here's what it actually looks like:
You're watching the match, trying to track 12 players. Someone gets a kill - you make a mark. Someone serves an ace - another mark. The rallies are fast. You miss plays. Your handwriting gets worse as the match goes on.
After three matches at a tournament, your papers are crumpled and covered in marks you can't read. Was that 15 kills or 18? Is that smudge supposed to be there?
Now you need to add up totals across all those matches. But the paper is a mess, your handwriting is terrible, and you're doing addition by hand at 10 PM in a hotel room.
And that's assuming you don't spill something on it or lose it entirely.
Why Existing Apps Didn't Help
Before building VballStat, I tried other volleyball stat tracking apps.
You know what I found? Apps that wanted me to:
- Set up rotational tracking
- Enter the opposing team's lineup
- Map out court positions
- Configure serving orders
- Learn complex features I'd never use
I just wanted to track my players' stats for a single match. That's it.
I didn't want to spend 20 minutes setting up a match before I could even record a kill. I didn't want to learn the complexities of an app that does way more than what I needed. I didn't want to wade through features designed for NCAA D1 programs when I'm coaching 14-year-olds.
Most volleyball stats apps are built like they're tracking for ESPN broadcasts. But I'm just a coach who wants to know how many kills my outside hitter had.
The existing apps were almost as frustrating as paper - just in a different way.
The Breaking Point
That hotel printer incident wasn't my first frustration with paper tracking. It was just the one that made me think: there has to be a better way to do this.
I didn't want to spend an hour fighting with printers. I didn't want to spend tournaments hunched over crumpled papers, trying to decipher my own handwriting. And I definitely didn't want to learn a complicated app with 47 features when I only needed 3.
So I built VballStat.
What I Actually Needed
After years of paper tracking and trying bloated apps, I knew what would actually work:
- Track stats on my phone. No printing, no paper, no clipboards.
- Make it fast. If recording a stat takes more than a few seconds, you fall behind.
- Keep it simple. No rotational tracking, no opposing lineups, no features I don't need. Just: who got a kill? Tap. Done.
- Automatic math. Hitting percentage is (Kills - Errors) ÷ Attempts. I don't want to calculate that by hand for 12 players.
- Cloud backup. So I never lose data to spills, lost papers, or hotel printer disasters.
- Easy sharing. Coaches want stats after the match, not three days later.
- Multiple players. I'm tracking a team, not just one kid.
- Zero setup time. Add a match, start tracking. No configurations, no complicated menus.
- Free to start. Parents shouldn't have to pay to help their kids.
How It Works
VballStat is pretty simple:
Add your players once. Create a match with just the opponent name and date. That's it - you're ready to track. During a match, you open the app and tap when something happens. Kill? Tap. Dig? Tap. Ace? Tap. No rotational tracking. No opposing team setup. No court positioning. Just the stats you actually care about. The app tracks everything, does the math automatically, and saves it to the cloud. After the match, you can see all the stats, export them, or share with coaches.
Over time, you can see trends - is hitting percentage improving? Are serve errors going down? It's all there.
What Changed
I actually watch the games now. Instead of staring at paper, I tap my phone a few times per rally and then watch volleyball. My data is accurate. No more "was that a 6 or a 7?" 😅 The numbers are clean, the calculations are right, and I can trust them. I'm not overwhelmed by features I don't use. The app does exactly what I need and nothing more.
Coaches use the stats. When I can send them clean data right after a match, it's actually useful.
I have records. Two years of stats, all in one place. No lost papers, no missing matches, no gaps.
And I never have to ask a hotel front desk to help me print anything ever again.
If You're Still Using Paper (Or Fighting With Complicated Apps)
Look, maybe paper works fine for you. Maybe you have better handwriting than I do. Maybe you've found a stat tracking app that isn't bloated with features you'll never touch.
But if you're tired of crumpled papers, manual math, and apps that feel like they require a degree to operate, try VballStat.
It's free to start. Add your players, create a match, start tracking. No setup, no complications, no features you don't need.
Worst case, you go back to your clipboard.
Best case, you get simple stat tracking that actually works.