Coaching Volleyball

Coaching Volleyball is a source of thoughts and discussions on topics from planning training to managing teams to your career in volleyball coaching.

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Coming soon - Wizard Women

New blog post: Coming soon - Wizard Women

As many readers know, I have a side project called Volleyball Coaching Wizards. In a nutshell, Wizards is about interviewing great coaches from all levels and all around the world and sharing their wisdom and experience. Thus far we’ve published two books, plus a translation of the second. We’re about to make it a third. A while back I came up with the idea of doing an interview series under…

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More NIL stuff

New blog post: More NIL stuff

I previously shared some thoughts on the impact the new Name, Image, and Likeness legislation is likely to have on college sports. A recent news item, though, made me realize I forgot something. After that post another bit of NIL news came out. An agreement came out with respect to the BYU football team whereby all the walk-ons will get their tuition paid. This is significant in terms of the…

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Women's Coaching Log – August 13, 2021

New blog post: Women's Coaching Log – August 13, 2021

This is an entry in my volleyball coaching log for the 2021-22 season for the Medaille College women. One week to report day for the 2021 Medaille Women! Actually, our two incoming freshmen from Canada have already arrived. All the international Fall athletes had to report on the 11th, so they’ve been here a couple of days. One of the other freshmen (from the Seattle area) is due in today,…

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NIL and the end of the college sports

New blog post: NIL and the end of the college sports

The subject of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) has become a bit topic of discussion in collegiate sports of late. In case you’re not aware, up to now under NCAA rules student-athletes were not able to profit from their personal notoriety, reputation, and following. That has all changed. Now, while student-athletes still may not be paid to play by their school (though I have argued they are…

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Teaching problem-solving

New blog post: Teaching problem-solving

Here’s something I came across in a coaching group. How important would you say problem-solving and critical thinking skills are in our sport? What are you doing to teach/enhance those skills among your team members? How important? My immediate answer to the first question is “Massively important!” At least with respect to problem-solving. Critical thinking is another thing which happens on a…

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Yup, the streak continues

New blog post: Yup, the streak continues

Would it surprise you to hear that July was another new traffic high? If you’ve been following things here all through 2021 – like the report on June’s figures – then probably not. As I noted previously, based on prior patterns, last month will very likely turn out to be the lowest traffic month of the year. July has predictably produced higher page views than June, which it always does. At about…

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What to go over at the start of the year

New blog post: What to go over at the start of the year

I saw this question in a coaching group online. What are some of the first things you teach/review at the beginning of the season? Every season near the end I tell myself “I wish I would’ve gone over this sooner”. To a degree, your coaching situation influence how you start each season. After all, it’s different working with a bunch of 12 year-olds than with a college team, for example. I think…

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Planning out a day of setter training

New blog post: Planning out a day of setter training

A volleyball coach in a Facebook group presented the following scenario/query: I’m running a camp next week for 3 days from 9-3pm with a 1 hour lunch break in the middle but it’s all for setters. The first half is setters only and the second half I have hitters coming in to work on hitting off the setters. I expect to have a very mixed bag of setter talent. I have a little list of things I think…

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Podcast 28 - Bigger picture personnel management in pro volleyball

New episode: Podcast 28 - Bigger picture personnel management in pro volleyball

Spend any time in the arena of professional volleyball and you will come to realize pretty quickly that the majority of clubs operate year-to-year. There isn’t a lot of longer-term thinking (I’d argue we see much the same at the juniors level in the US, but that’s a separate topic). I have two guests join me for a discussion of this and how it might change moving forward. One is Oskar…

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Making your administration happy

New blog post: Making your administration happy

There’s a post from the AVCA blog that offers some advice from administrators to coaches. It’s about how we can grow as professionals away from the court. I think it’s worth a quick read because there are some valuable ideas, especially for college level coaches. In this post, though, I want to speak to a general concept that comes from that article. Administrators don’t just care about what you…

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Coaching Log – Starting 2021-22

New blog post: Coaching Log – Starting 2021-22

This is the first entry in my coaching logs for the women’s and men’s Medaille College volleyball teams. As was the case last year, I will keep logs for both teams with a combination of 1-team focused and joint updates as the situation indicates. I have been doing coaching logs each year since 2013. It’s a process I’ve come to find both personally useful and something readers also latch on to at…

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Preseason fitness testing

New blog post: Preseason fitness testing

What kind of fitness testing should I do at the start of preseason? That’s a question I see a regular basis each year as volleyball coaches prepare for the start of the new school year. It’s query that begs follow-up questions. First, do the results of the test have any direct influence on who makes the team, or on playing time? I emphasized “direct” for a specific reason. Certainly, we can all…

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When winning doesn't matter

New blog post: When winning doesn't matter

I came across an interest coaching record. It demonstrates how little winning and losing matters in some situations. The coach of an NCAA Division III women’s team had a combined overall record of 23-257 over 9 seasons. Their conference record was 13-145 in that same period. Those number are already pretty bad, but it gets worse. The first season of that string accounted for 8 of the overall…

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Get out of your coaching comfort zone

New blog post: Get out of your coaching comfort zone

Here’s something to really think about from a developmental perspective. It comes from a post in a coaching group. How do I step outside of my own comfort zone as a coach? How do I work on being comfortable being uncomfortable? It strikes me that there’s an inherent contradiction in the second part. If you are comfortable being uncomfortable, are you really uncomfortable? I know, I know. It’s…

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Move toward having more volunteer coaches?

New blog post: Move toward having more volunteer coaches?

Here’s a potentially provocative question I came across in a volleyball coaches group. It clearly comes from a US perspective. Will we ever get to the point of not paying coaches (EDIT: in youth sports)? I know that is blasphemous but the other youth sports such as football, Little League, basketball, soccer are all volunteers (mostly Dads). My son was paid pretty well coaching volleyball at a…

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Down, but still a record

New blog post: Down, but still a record

If history is any guide, last months blog readership will end up being the lowest for 2021. As I noted this time last month, May has usually seen the least page views in any give year. June was a bit lower than May this time around, however. Seems like a sign that things are finally getting back toward a more normal pattern for the year. That said, last month was still a record. This year saw…

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How can high school coaches help in the recruiting process?

New blog post: How can high school coaches help in the recruiting process?

I had a question come in from a member of my mailing list. I was from a high school coach who wanted to know how he could help his players get recruited to play in college. Other high school coaches told him not to worry about it. Why? Because recruiters will come to them. He isn’t comfortable with that – and rightly so! So what can he do? Know the levels of play A really useful first part of…

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