Evaluating College Volleyball Programs!

Dear Coach,

I am looking for the best way to identify colleges programs that meet the following criteria:

1.  Quality Coaching Staff.

2.  Interested in an athlete despite height.

3.  Finding programs/coaches who like to run a 6-2 offense with their setters.

4.  Team Culture is a high priority.

Any thoughts on how to identify these schools/programs would be greatly appreciated.

S.C.

If I had a metric which could compile and rate all the various college volleyball programs based upon your criteria, I would be living on an island in the South Pacific eating fresh fish and tropical fruit because I would be a multi millionaire....

In year's past, finding programs which consistently scored high in the referenced criteria was easier than today. This was due to the fact that coaching changes did not occur as frequently, players did not transfer with such ease, the athletic conferences were a bit more stable and the recruiting process was much slower for both college programs and families.

For criteria #1 and #4, Quality of Coaching Staff and Team Culture, families need to visit campus to watch practice and to attend matches.  This is something which is impossible to ascertain via the internet or on TV.  Only by watching practice and watching a match in person, can a family see how a Coaching Staff operates and how a Team engages.  In addition, not all campus visits should be arranged via the volleyball program; remember that the priority of any volleyball staff is recruiting, so they will always put on the best show for visiting families.  Better to sometimes just slip into practice and watch.

For criteria #2, Athlete Height, that can be researched on line by reviewing the team roster for the current years and the program archives for previous years.  But, each category of college volleyball will have a difference 'baseline' of what is tall versus not tall.  When I coached NCAA Division II for one season, after being a DI coach for almost 15 years, the first day in the gym with my DII team, I thought the net was set too high.  My reference point for player height was mid-major DI; once we got into the DII season, my team was the same height as the other DII teams we were playing.  Maybe you could look for outliers on rosters; a 5'8" outside hitter on the roster of Michigan, or a 5'4" setter on the roster of Texas Women's University....but, and there is always a but, are these two examples scholarship players or walk-ons?

Criteria #3, Offensive System, is just watching volleyball matches of potential schools, but (again, another but), college programs will change offenses based upon many factors.  Rarely is a college program committed to always running a 6-2 offense (either the Old School type...You're my boy Blue!...with 2 setters that also hit front row - or the New School type with setters that substitute out front row for hitters), so basing a recruiting evaluation upon this offensive system is risky.  The year over year recruiting success, along with the player position make up and related talent will determine if a program would move to or stay with a 6-2 offense.

I wish I had a better answer or evaluation system for you, because I would be enjoying a wonderful lunch of grilled mahi mahi with sliced mangos!

Volleyball Hitting and Setting advice

Hello,

I recently found your blog and love everything I read there. I am a club coach for 12/13 year old girls. I just have a couple questions.

1. How can I get a player to attack the ball in front rather then trying to hit it when it is behind their head? (Does it have to do with timing or move approach further back, follow through)

2. Setting: getting the ball further out? (Legs, superman, elbows in ) back setting? ( Hips forward or lift one leg, parallel to the net)

Thank you, 

A.P.

Glad you like the site; you are braver than me to coach 12/13 year old players.  Much of your challenges will have to do with the fact that the athletes are just 12/13 years old - You will plant the seeds, but you really won't see the fruits of your labors until they are on to the next coach/team.

In terms of your specific questions:

1. With attacking the ball in front of the body, timing plays a critical part but also the mechanics of the arm swing.  If a player 'over runs' the set (is early), then they tend to contact the ball from behind their head. In addition, if the player is late loading their arm swing, or are long and slow with their arm swing, then this will also lead towards hitting the ball behind their head.

To help with the timing, I suggest small ball approach foot work and throws.  Get a bunch of tennis balls, or whiffle balls, and have the attacker go through her footwork, accelerating into the jump, then throw the ball with a proper arm swing (just like she was attacking the volleyball) over the net.  This teaches the players to throw/swing at the top of their jump and to be able to broad jump through the attack sequence.

Another good drill is the old school hit the ball down into the ground, bounce it up off the gym wall, and it should (with practice) bounce up to be high enough to immediately hit down again into the wall again.  It takes a bit of practice, but this is a great drill to teach players to contact the ball in front of their torso, to snap their wrist and to immediately load their arms for another swing.

2.  The key for distance setting with control, is quick hands.  The faster your hand motion, the truer your target line and the further the ball will fly.  Slow hands which rely on a leg push for distance are very inconsistent in length and line.  You don't want the setter to punch the ball, but rather get it out of her hands as quickly as possible.

As for back setting, I like my setter to just flick their head back when they back set and watch the ball go over their head for a split second.  They still square their hips to the left front target zone, even though they are setting right front.  They still have a quick hand release, and keep their point of contact exactly the same.  What I don't want to see is any adjustments in body position, just to backset, as this will give it away or lead to inconsistent targeting and height.  You do not want to bow the spine back, or lift a leg, or throw the hips forward as this can 'give away' the set to the opposing team, especially the middle blocker, along with delivering an inconsistent ball to the hitter.

Good luck with your season!

Volleyball Training Advice

Hello Coach,

I know this may not be the typical type of question you get, but I have been a fan of your blog for several years and I was wondering if you had any advice for our team. I am the head coach of a Men's College Club team at a relatively small school. We are currently in our preseason and have played in a few tournaments so far this year. We have had some success, but always seem to fall short against good teams. We have some talented players, but I feel that we are not doing enough to improve their talents in practice and get the ready to face high level teams. The issue is our starting 7 have come from good high school and/or club programs and have very good attacks (and relatively good setting and passing) whereas the backups and 2nd team are newer to the game and are coming along, but really aren`t able to be competitive with our starting 7 in practice. We do a number of drills with hitting and blocking as a team, but I feel that the starting 7 or 8 are not really gaining much from practice.

My question is: do you have any advice or drill on how to work on defense (blocking and covering balls of blocks) without really having strong players on the other side of the net to practice against? We do butterfly drills and have starters block hitting lines, but we are not able to really challenge our starters.

I played on the same team for years and just started coaching the team last year, so I do not have any other experience coaching at the college level (I am an assistant for a local high school team). Any advice you could give would be helpful.

Sincerely

T.M.

Thank you for your email and I am happy to try to help.  As you may well have discovered, men's and women's volleyball are two completely different animals.

A few thoughts:

1.  Never ignore ball control drills; especially for the younger/newer players. Men's volleyball suffers from the attack/block mentality, but not being proficient with standard ball control will be a subtle killer in practice and matches.  Always strive to monitor and/or set up ball control drills, even something as called pepper.  Too often in today's VB world, pepper drills are quickly ignored.  Pepper is the best way to get maximum repetitions in a short time segment, and you can quickly switch partners/pairings to encourage the lessor player to gain skills from the better player.

2.  Try to stay away from 6 on 6 drills, because you don't have 12 deep; instead take the 6 on 6 drill and break it down.  For instance, have the 2nd side just focus on ripping serves to pressure the 1st units receive and attack, then put staff on the block stands in LF, MF, RF to mimic a block ball (no matter what the attack of the opposing player).  This forces the 1st unit to pass, set, attack, cover and transition.  You can quickly build from one cover ball to unlimited.  Also, you can force transition defense by putting the 2nd unit in attack lines, then after the 1st unit attacks, toss a ball to the 2nd unit setter to mimic a perfect dig; this forces the 1st unit to quickly get into transition defense and allow sthe and unit to have perfect ball to reattack.

3.  Do 3 on 3 ball control drills across the net and mix the groups; encourage a certain number of 'across the nets' with a penalty if they fail (sit ups/push ups). You can always vary the drill by making it implemented with a serve or free ball, only setting one attacker, only hitting one zone, no hitting, etc.

In summary, break down the game into segments, to mask the lessor player abilities, and always do ball control drills.

Good Luck!

Coach

Jump Setting and College Volleyball Recruiting

Coach:

First, GREAT book, I ordered it on Kindle and is a great road map for my daughter!

Question relates specifically to jump setting and college coaches.  Is it important that a setter show this skill during club ball or are college coaches more concerned about

placement, height, consistency of the sets?  Can you discuss briefly why or why not it is important for a setter to jump set and how it could help both her and her teammates.

Seems to me that jump setting shows athleticism and may be a good tool to attract college coaches at the big tournaments.

Again, amazing book!!!

Thanks,

Father of Setter

F o S:

Thanks for the compliments on Inside College Volleyball and I am glad it can be of help to your family as you progress with the recruiting craziness.

Your question is the first one I have had specific to the skill of jump setting.  My understanding of jump setting, which comes from the perspective of having played the setting position and having coached many years of Division I Volleyball, is it speeds up the tempo of the attack options, while also tightening up the release/technique of the setter.

Jump setting is not so much an opportunity for a setter to illustrate her athleticism, or to look more dynamic for the Triple C's (Crazy College Coaches).  

The basic tenant of a setter, is she/he is to deliver the ball to the hitter.  When evaluating setters, college coaches look to the hands first; how quick is the release, how does the setter present her hands before setting the ball, where does the setter finish with the hands, where does the setter actually set the ball from in relation to the forehead, are the hips squared to the target, is she stopped and balanced when she sets the ball, does she jump set, how well does she jump set, etc.

After coaches get done with the physicality of the setter, we move onto the nuances of the mentality of the setter.  Does she run an offense or just set the ball, does she positively interact with her team mates, does she apply what the coach tells her to do, does she set the correct hitter in specific situations, does she lead the team in some fashion?

With elite Division I programs, jump setting will be an important skill because these programs tend to run a faster offense with taller hitters.  The skill of jump setting allows the setter to deliver the ball quicker to these players and at a better trajectory for attacking.

Outside of upper DI, college coaches would like to have their setter jump set, but more important is that their setter set the ball well.  If they find a very good setter who encompasses all the physical and mental skills listed above, but happens to stand and set, then not jump setting is not a negative.  If a setter has the ability to set well when jump setting, then they should jump set.

A sometimes positive of jump setting, is it can clean and quicken up a setter's hand release.  A jump set forces a setter to use just her hands to make the set, and to direct the ball where it needs to go, a quick release will be used.  It is volleyball magic to see how much faster a setter's hands become when they are forced to jump set.  It would be better to call it 'hop' setting, because it is a small jump, not a big jump.  A big jump tends to take too much energy out of the eventual set; when you view good setters who jump set, the jump is not huge.

Many younger setters, or older less talented setters, will use their legs to push the ball to the target; this use of the legs to push tends to slow down the hand release on the volleyball.  I have found that the less time a setter's hands are on the ball, the better.  When one of my setters was struggling with targeting, I would tell her to quicken up her release and jump set whenever possible.

But, some setters have become so 'attached' to their legs when setting, that jump setting is a negative; they cannot compensate with their hands for the loss of the leg push.  They have no consistency with targeting.  I have seen a number of good setters, who are very poor jump setters; in this situation, jump setting should be only used in tight passes.

Thank you once again for the compliments about Inside College Volleyball.

Coach Matt Sonnichsen 

Coaching Suggestions for Entitled Mentality of Players

Coach,

   
Love the blog...great resource for us greenhorns! 

I have been coaching volleyball for just 3 years now after 12 years of coaching boys. Girls are different! But, I have been working extremely hard after realizing that I was a horrible High School JV coach my first year. 

Since that first season I have found a former college coach to mentor me, coached year-round through the club seasons, read everything I could get my hands on, Got my CAP1 certification, and done numerous local camps and clinics to build a local network and club interest in my rural area. Yes, I am an over-achiever. I am in my 2nd year as varsity coach now and I have a very talented but entitled junior class.

    

The biggest problem is that they knew me when I was....well awful. We have grown together, but respect is definitely an issue. To be fair, I do run a loose ship at times, but I feel strongly about my girls not playing tight and knowing that it is ok to make mistakes as long as they are trying to make a play. Many times they feel that they can say whatever they feel like saying whether or not it is constructive. Additionally, when I try to correct a misconception in a constructive spirit they simply dispel the thought with "well I just don't see it that way" and there is no learning or growth. Sometimes I just want to shake them!

     

But inevitably I take the high road and try to focus on volleyball. This strategy seems to lead to more entitlement on their part and more frustration on my part. So I swallow hard and try to draw a line in the sand and enforce some consequences when I see a genuine concern. Naturally this is met with resistance on their part which adds to my frustration. They sense this and it often feels like we are at war. I am passionate about this team and care deeply for my girls. I have worked very hard and have successfully cultivated very good individual relationships with all of my girls, additionally we have done numerous team bonding activities and they get along very well together. Yet somehow the team dynamic is out of whack.

   

This shows itself as we do very well against weak and mid-level teams, but we fall apart at the critical moments against good teams. We are literally 0-6 against the 3 best teams we have faced and 13-1 against everyone else, including some decent teams. We have made strides this year, but I am concerned that we have peaked because we seem to have lost our desire to improve. What am I missing here? I need tangible suggestions...

Frustrated with second place....

This is the joy of coaching.  I am facing a very similar situation with my college program, in terms of rising up and playing with passion against superior teams. Like you, I run a less structured program (but my credentials are such that I have some weight behind my words), but the player's today can be rather spoiled and entitled, willing to accept any excuse or rationale for losing, instead of looking inside and accepting responsibility.

My suggestion is to work them harder, but not in a mean spirited or "punishment" mentality.  Make the warm-up a conditioning period, make the routine hitting drills have push up and sit up penalties for errors, make the players do 5 dive and rolls whenever they don't go to the floor after a ball in anything from a simple two person pepper drill to a team scrimmage, and absolutely do not accept any questioning of your authority or directions during practice or match.  

A coach is a benevolent dictator but still a dictator.  If a player shows you attitude, then they should immediately be pulled from the match and if it is in practice, they should be sent to the side of the court to start running and if it happens more than once, they should be sent home.  The coach is the authority figure and makes the final decision, period.

One of the best things I have done as a college coach, is to stop lazy, entitled practices and kick my player's out of the gym - I tell them they are wasting my time and now it is time for them to leave.  Another example, Penn State.  When Penn State emerged in the late 90's and early 00's as a national power, I was in the Big 10 at another school.  As I know Russ Rose, he allowed me to hang out and watch one of their visiting team practices and when one of their players did not go after a ball or was lazy, the assistants or Russ told them to do 5 rolls or 10 sprints immediately and these players did it immediately with no hesitation.  

If the #1 team in the country is making their All American players do this, then I think we all are OK to do the same because Coach Rose is a quality, intellectual coach who does not act without reason or mandate crazy things.

Use statistics as your friend; if a star or upper classmen player is not producing (the stats show poor hitting %, poor passing %, low digs per game) then make them sit the bench and use another player, who may be less talented, but more respectful and hard working.  I am actually sitting two of my Sophomores now who played significant matches as Freshman; they think they can just cruise through practice and matches without being intense because they started last year.  

I was using a number of different line-ups early in the season because I have a lot of talented, but young players, which resulted in everyone getting to play because no one was outstanding enough to hold down the spot. Well, we are at the point, with statistical support to see who needs to be on the court, versus who used to be on the court and got the benefit of the doubt because of potential upside talent.

To paraphrase John Wooded, the bench is my best coach.  Take away what the spoiled players want, which they cannot get from Mom-Dad or Club, which is high school playing time.  Taking a couple of losses to send a clear signal about who runs the team and how players will behave, by putting hard working and respectful kids on the floor is a smart use of the season.

Hope some of my ramblings helped and I am glad you like the site.

Coach

Volleyball Strategy

I was wondering about your recent comment about free balls.  I'm still learning a lot about the game, and I always thought that deep corners were probably best for free balls.  But you clearly strongly prefer zones 1 and 2 (right up there with don't drink and drive).  Zone 1 I understand, but why zone 2?  Why not zone 5?  If I understand the reasons for things, it's more likely that I'll remember them.

Thanks. R.P.

 

 

Thanks for the question.  First of all, let me clarify where I consider the zones on the court (just to make sure we are on the same page) - Zone 1 is right back, Zone 2 is right front, Zone 3 is middle front, Zone 4 is left front, Zone 5 is left back and Zone 6 is middle back.

Free balls put the defensive team at a disadvantage, so whatever the defensive team can to do make the reception and re-attack of the free ball difficult for their opponents will help. 

Zone 1 - Zone 1 ball can catch the other team's middle back defensive player being lazy, if the other team's setter is right back and releases to the net for the free ball.  This creates open space within Zone 1 which can be exploited; even if the other team's middle back steps over into this zone, many times they are late and their body movement will 'carry' the pass not perfectly to the setter.

Zone 2 - Zone 2 ball is about making the setter uncomfortable because she has to turn her back to her team and she has to make an extremely quick decision about her setting choice since the ball is coming a short distance to her from the passer.  Also, a Zone 2 ball can exploit a right back defender who does not step up to the 10' line and leaves this area open (this is when the setter is in the front row). 

Zone 5 - Even though Zone 5 is the longest distance point to the setting zone, most teams will have their best ball handler playing this zone (Libero), so we are giving our free ball to their best passer.  Also, this is the most comfortable angle for a setter to receive the ball to determine which attacker to set or play to run.

Hope that helps!

Thank you so much.  I found your site recently, and have spent far to much time reading all the great information.  My daughter is only 12, so really not a lot of need for much of what's on your site, but I love learning the game.  I loved volleyball when I was young, but it was a "girls' game" then, so I never played.  I'm really enjoying having a daughter that loves playing, and I'm learning so much.  There's a lot more going on out there than just bump, set, spike.

Thanks again.  Have a great season.  R.P.

 

 

You are welcome and glad you enjoy the site.

Coach

Young Volleyball Team Talent

Coach,

I stumbled onto your website and enjoy reading but it seems light years away from where I am.

I realize this is a little out of your target demographic, but any insight you could add would be great.

I coach my daughter's middle school age team (she is in 7th grade, other girls are 6-8th). They are mostly beginner's to advanced beginners and would not yet make the local Club teams (which are very high level in our area).

I have 10 girls on our team and we play 3 game matches to 21.  Our rules allow "regular" subbing (unlimited as long as you stay "in position") or "continuous rotation" where all the girls rotate in an out of a designated spot (I usually have them come in Left Front and exit Left Back).

The girls are not skilled enough yet to "specialize" by position (S, OH, MH, etc) and I believe in giving them all the opportunity to play each position.  I don't think they are ready yet to handle position switches at serve or serve receive yet either.  We play a "modified" 4-2 with the setter setting from Right Front.

In figuring my lineup, I have divided the 10 into 4 groups by general ability and tried to stagger them so that we can be competitive. So for example I have 3 "A" players, 3 "B" , 3 "C" and 1 "D".  I mentally define these as:

A: all-around athletic ability/hustle, fairly consistent serve receive, some hitting or blocking ability, consistent serve
B: slightly less of above, more inconsistent in serve receive and serve
C: sporadic serve receive and serving ability but still will take notes from coach
D: inconsistent volleyball ability, doesn't even try to make corrections when given directions, at times on court acts like she doesn't even want to be there

Trying to be balanced, I usually have a lineup something like this
A D B C A B C A B C

Since I want (and philosophically agree with) the idea of giving players at this level equal playing time, I take the "ordering" above and move the rotation around based "roughly" on who served well in our last match (I keep some rudimentary counts for "in" serves).  That person is my first server.  I do that for my first game and then carry the rotation through for the 2nd and 3rd games based on where we stopped in the previous game.

My quandary is that I have never had my "best" 6 players (As and Bs) on the court in a match at the same time.  And my strongest players also get a little frustrated always being next to the weaker players.

I have toyed with the idea of changing my order to something like "A A A B B B C C C D" but worry that we could get into the "B B C C C D" rotation and never get out of it.

I have also thought about doing some creative subbing: Go "regular" subbing and keep my A players in all the time and sub in all the others either front-row/back-row or one rotation around the court.

Or maybe play whole games together: 1st game A's & B's, 2nd game B's and C's, 3rd game A's, D, and B's.

My worry with some of these is that if I did some of those things, it would be pretty obvious to all (parents and girls) how I'm splitting and where they "rate".  I may be deluding myself but I don't think its quite as obvious how I rate the girls abilities in the way I'm currently doing it.  Also, keeping track of "equal" playing time would be more difficult.

We are doing OK in the league (4th out of 10, playing above .500) and I am seeing improvement in most of the players.

Is my competitive instinct just getting the best of me?  Should I just leave well enough alone?

Thanks,
Coach Dad


First of all, let me express my appreciation for how focused you are on creating a good Volleyball team by taking an analytical view of the skills of your players and how to place them within rotations for individual and team success.

What you are doing is exactly how you should be handling the matches given your talent level.  If you were coaching a varsity team in high school, where winning may be a bit more of an objective, then I could see loading up a few rotations with your studs to maximize point scoring opportunities.  As you may know, a 25 (or 21 points in your case) point game has a finite number of rotations which allows for some players to be in critical spots more often than some other players.

If you start loading up your rotations or platooning the players by skills, you could well create an obvious reflection of where you 'rank' each players and I believe you would be creating unwanted drama with the players/parents.

I encourage you to continue the system you have created, as I believe it is very well suited to the idea of equal playing time at a young age and allowing developing players to gain court time.  You have the age group where there will be a few players who have the Volleyball coordination to excel, but there will also be many other players who are still trying to get all of their Volleyball parts moving together at one time.  You will have a number of B's which will only become A's because you got them on the court when they were still raw.

The last thing I will say, is stay focused on your practice opportunities to develop talent, build confidence and gain some touches for players who may never seen large amounts of time on the court. Volleyball is a tough game to coach because all the work must be done in practice.  Match time Volleyball, under rally score, is more of a matter of setting your line-up rotation (which you have done) and then making small tactical adjustments or quick skill reminders while the rotation wheel spins. 

Practice is where you will make the biggest improvements to continue lifting skill sets and making those B's and C's a bit less behind the natural A's.

College Volleyball Coaching Changes Statistics

Rich Kern is a statistical maniac!  His site is richkern.com and well worth your time and membership fee - Trust me!

Coach,

I saw your comment on coaching changes and this is the info I have:

Percentage of Coaching Changes
Years	DI	DII	DIII
1	20	25	30
2	35	45	50
3	50	60	65
4	60	70	75
5	70	75	80
6	75	80	85

This can be interpreted as 20 percent of the DI head coaches will change jobs in the first year.  35 percent will change jobs after 2 years.  In other words, if you sign up two years in advance of starting college, there is a 70% chance of ending with a different coach than you were recruited by.   Obviously some schools change coaches more frequently than others so this is just the average.  I don’t have stats on the assistant coaches but they change much more frequently.

This is why the standard advice is to make sure you would be happy with your college, even if the coach who recruited you were not there.

Volleyball Lineup Tracker iPhone App

I received the below information from a VolleyFan with regards to an iPhone app they created for a Volleyball Lineup Tracker.  Just to stay clear of any endorsement or conflict of interest, as the developer is a current Club Volleyball coach, I have not viewed or used the below app.  I agreed to present this information just because it can be so hard for VolleyFolks to spread the word about new items if they are not with a giant company.

The developer has asked that if you do use it, please post a review on the iTunes site.


Coach,

As a Junior Girls' Club Volleyball coach, a programmer friend and I have created a new iPhone app, Volleyball Lineup Tracker, to help coaches with lineups, rotation tracking, and substitutions (a nice upgrade from those plastic rotation locators most of us use today).

We are looking for avenues to get the word out to fellow coaches and were wondering if you would be interested in reviewing it on your blog?

I realize our app is probably more targeted to middle school, high school, and club coaches rather than college, but I know may of your readers are at this level anyway, so hopefully it is still appropriate.  Having never coached at the college level, it is hard for me to know how much this type of app would help, since I would expect players of that age to be much better about staying in rotation and remembering to sub at the right times.

You can find details about the app by searching for Volleyball Lineup Tracker in the App Store or you can also see the description and screen shots at the following link:

http://appshopper.com/sports/volleyball-lineup-tracker

Our website, http://www.vblineuptracker.com also has some information, but it is pretty basic for now.

Thanks for your time,
VB Lineup Tracker

Learning to Coach Volleyball

Hello,

I visit your blog off and on and always find something interesting and definitely helpful for both me and my athletes. I am a High School Boys Varsity coach as well as I have my own club for girls. I have a small obsession with learning and knowledge (this comes from my background as a biologist). I am looking for more ways to get information on coaching and philosophies and training styles. I have worked summer camps at universities and am CAP I certified as well as I have learned GMS2 philosophies. Where is a good place for me to continue learning from? Where does a college coach continue learning from?

Also, there seems to be a plenitude of information on passing, setting and digging techniques, but as far as an overall offensive plan, or in depth information on seam coverage and issues a little more in depth it seems to be impossible to find. What are your suggestions for me to keep on learning? Thank you so much for you help! I have been stumped for a long time now!

Sincerely,

AZ Volleyball


An excellent set of questions - How does one learn to coach volleyball, especially in a culture where the sport tends to be regionalized in popularity? I do a number of camps each summer at high schools, and some of the basic serve receive principles or offense attack options are completely new to the coach.

You have mentioned two options for learning coaching techniques and philosophies - the CAP program via USA Volleyball and the Gold Medal Squared system developed/marketed by a few successful coaches. Not having taken a course/program with either, I cannot provide an evaluation other than to say they are a resource to learn about coaching volleyball.

How do college coaches learn? We steal. We see other college teams in spring competition, we ask coaching friends, we watch club teams, we try to take in as much volleyball information as possible and then we filter. For instance, I am not a proponent of swing blocking but I absorbed the philosophy (as a player and coach) and then made a 'yea or nay' decision.

I believe there are two issues when improving as a coach - Was a coach a player at a high level or did the coach not play volleyball? Having played at a high level (and I am not saying National team, but something beyond church league), you will have absorbed a bunch of potential coaching information by happenstance. For instance, having never played football, it could be a bigger challenge for me to coach pass blocking technique because I have never pass blocked - Sure, I can learn the technique and relay it, but I would be more comfortable having gone through it as a player.

This is not to say that very good coaches in Volleyball can develop without having played elite level - there are plenty of examples, but having played does provide a certain level of comfort when coaching.

Fortunately, I played for a good college coach and I played under different coaching styles beyond college (National Team and Professionally), which provided me a wealth of experience to draw upon when I transitioned into coaching or more succinctly, when I got too old to keep playing at an elite level!!! Yet, even with this experience, I was still behind in so many areas with regards to individual and team skill development. I think this is one reason young coaches fail as head coaches.

All too often, young coaches are being provided head coaching opportunities before they are ready and must learn on the fly. It takes time to learn how to teach technique, how to develop team philosophies, to be mature enough to adjust these techniques and philosophies based upon the seasonal situations a team may be facing or the abilities of the players, not to mention learning how to manage the never boring world of team dynamics both on and off the court. These are coaching skill sets which are only attained with years of experience.

Young coaches fail when they have not attained this experience as assistants and are trying to learn these techniques as head coaches. I believe this is a by product of the lack of respect college volleyball has within athletic administration and I point to the fact that you would rarely see college basketball teams coached by 27 year olds!

As you have already gone through the CAP and GMS courses, I suggest that you go watch elite level teams in practice. If you reside in an area in which there are NCAA teams within driving distance, take some time to go watch practice. You will learn more from practice, than from watching matches. College coaches won't mind you coming to watch, as long as you give them a quick call to let them know who you are and why you want to watch. It is in practice that you can see how teams breakdown their philosophy into training. If you can get one new drill, or one new idea about offense/defense, then it is worth the drive.

Another option is the AVCA National Convention which is held each year in conjunction with the NCAA National Championship. I personally think the cost of the full attendance package is beyond outrageous (on one hand the powers that be cry out about volleyball being an expensive sport to participate in, yet they charge $450 as a member and $610 as a non member if you registered today!!!) but there are instructional sessions available where you might pick up a thing or two.

Lastly, a number of NCAA programs will offer coaching clinics in conjunction with their spring season or summer camp schedule. These clinics can range from just basic to very in depth - You would probably need to just surf the net and check out individual team web sites.

As for your concern about systems (offense/defense), it can be hard to find something to capture this information. I think part of it may be that the systems are rather easy and coaches would rather push individual techniques; let me summarize the systems:

Offense - The offensive systems in volleyball, world wide, can be broken down into a spread, a combination and a back row attack. Now, some Volleygeeks may wish to whip out such terms as overload, stack, swing, stretch, etc., but all the systems can be captured in a spread, combination and back row. Spread is to spread out the block with sets to either antennae, combination is to have two player cross each other in an attack pattern to confuse the block, and back row is just to set the back row attacker to add one more thing for the block to consider.

Defense - The defensive systems can be summarized by perimeter or rotation, and blockers are either tight or wide. Again, don't be fooled by fancy terms - The block either starts spread out and waits for the hitters to come to them, or starts narrow and chases the hitters out. The back row either stays in a perimeter defense, or rotates defenders around based on where the set goes.

You can easily learn about offense and defensive systems by just watching elite level teams play matches. They will be very patterned in their offensive and defensive movements; experienced coaches know what style works within their program and they will be consistent with this style. Just watch these teams to see what they do and you will be aware of just how repetitive it all is.

Volleyball Position Specific Training

Hi Coach,

Thanks for being such an amazing resource!

I've decided to run position specific practices with my HS JV team for an extra 15 minutes or so after our regular practices, and let everyone else go for the day. That way, I figure, particular positions can get extra reps in or work on footwork without taking away from our everyday, very much needed, team practices. I notice that when I have to give notes or make adjustments in practice for my Setters, or my Middles, or my Outsides, everyone else sorta glazes over and we lose our momentum, so I want to keep things moving a quickly as possible by addressing those issues in special sessions.

Do you agree that this is worthwhile? And do you have any suggestions on particular drills that would be most beneficial for the particular positions?

Right now I plan on working on the Setters' footwork coming out RB or where ever they happen to be hidden in serve receive (and not stopping at the ten foot line to watch the pass, and then chase it!) and reading the hitter better in order to either hold her line or release earlier.

With my Outsides, we have a problem with them not transitioning outside the court and deeper in order to get behind the ball. The curl off really well on defense, and read tips, but once the ball is on our side they stay stuck where they were on D and don't shuffle outside to prepare for a strong approach. This leaves us with the set going past them on the 4, and them trying to chase it and freeball. :-(

My Middles are still a little slow transitioning into offense off the block, and are running into my Setters as they try to get to their hitter's mark (some of them are even backpedaling instead of turning and burning! Argh!) so I know that they need to work on that footwork so that it's instinct for them.

Do you have any suggestions? Or thoughts on what to do with Liberos and Opposites? I'm planning on having the Opposites come with the Setters, but I'm not sure which group my two Liberos should join.

I hope that you are having a great season, and thanks again for the information--I reload your page daily to see what's on your mind!

:-)

Chris


Thank you for the compliments on the site. I believe your new focus for position specific training is valid. As teams get deeper into their season, the more they should be focusing on positional training and less on team aspects. In a very broad sense, I believe season training should be this sequence: Individual, Team, Position. This is based on the premise that players need Individual skill work coming in from summer vacation, then after the individual skills are back, the Team work must quickly come because competition arrives even quicker, and as the season progresses there are so many matches being played, that a return to skills and drills is beneficial but more along the Positional lines as opposed to individual.

I encourage your efforts to keep as many players active as possible during a practice. I don't like having 3 players in a drill and 10 players just watching/shagging. The ability to keep as many players as possible active depends on the number of courts, number of coaches, number of balls, how big is the gym, etc. As a coaches, we have to be creative in finding ways to involve the largest number of players in constructive skill training.

When you do have a practice day which is dominated by Team focus, having additional post-practice time to target certain positions is a good plan. I know a number of college programs which routinely bring their setters in 30 minutes before the team arrives. Sometimes in the pre-season, we will train in waves with two positional groups at a time while the other positions are running or on cardio machines.

The skill segments which you have illustrated for your listed positions are spot on and in fact, are the some of the same things I am working on with my SA's. A few additional specifics to consider:

1. Setters - Work on the setters not broad jumping when they set; this is a common mistake which is caused by the setter still in movement when they set (either forwards are backwards) as opposed to moving and then stopping to set. When they jump forward or back ward while setting, it gives or takes away momentum into the set which causes the ball to go long or fall short, and it creates a bad physical positioning relationship with the middle blocker on quick attacks.

Also, after blocking, the setter needs to turn to find the ball before moving automatically off the net (if your setters are in a 5-1 offense). Too often setters block and start moving away from the net before even seeing the ball which easily turns perfect digs to the setting area into bad digs because the setter is now moving back towards the net.

2. Outsides - Emphasize footwork patterns to correct their transitional attack movements. Put a cone where you want them outside the court where they start their attack, then make them do the complete transition and attack footwork pattern with no ball. Then add a small ball/tennis ball and have them do the complete footwork pattern with throwing the ball at their attack point. Then add them digging and easy tossed ball and transitioning into attack with no set, then add the set, then add a hard hit ball. As you can see, there is a building sequence to this training style. You have to re-establish the physical patterns of movement to break the mental laziness of not taking the correct transitional approach to attack.

3. Middles - Same exact protocol as the Outsides with their transitional footwork. Start with just footwork, then add a small ball, then add an easy ball, then add normal ball. Again, you have to build the physical movement patterns so the poor mental habits don't stay dominant.

4. Opposites - Should be doing the same footwork patterns as the Outsides. I don't like to separate my Opposites, because I just consider them Outside hitters who play on the right side. To this end, my Opposites and Outsides do the same training on both ends of the net because I am not too sure when I may put my left side to right side or the reverse based upon an opponent's hitter or blocker. It is all about match ups in college volleyball; trying to match my best blockers against their best hitters and my best hitters against their weakest blockers.

5. Liberos - This is the skill position which should be constantly touching a ball, even if it is just peppering while others are in training. What should be emphasized is the Libero taking both seams in passing (dominant to her right and left), and always being comfortable going to and along the ground. Liberos must be quick and strong sprawling and rolling with no hesitation. This is not always the case because the gym floor is hard and sometimes it is just easier to 'opps' a ball every now and then. This absolutely cannot be the case, the Libero must be constantly trained to dig, dive, roll, sprawl, slide, grovel, grind, etc.

I would platoon your Liberos primarily with Middles and Setters. The Outsides/Opposites should be doing their own passing, digging and ball control sequences. The Liberos should be passing/digging for the Setters and Middles.

For any and all positions, just about any drill you do which breaks the position into specific skill sets will be beneficial. The key is to break down the position into its components; movement into attack, transition away from the net, transition into attack, moving to the right to defend, moving to the left to defend, turning this way, turning that way; anything you can do to create targeted training will assist in positional development in your post team practice training times.

Good luck!

Volleyball Team Chemistry

I am dealing with an unusual problem. I am a Coach at a small D3 women's volleyball program. Typically we carry a roster of around 10-12 young ladies, however this year we are carrying 20. Thus far my staff has been diplomatic concerning lineup, the best players have been earning their respective positions. However now that we are past the introductory weekend tournaments and experimental lineups, we have to acknowledge the issue of team chemistry.

I am a firm believer that every player should be able to succeed in every possible lineup despite player preference. Much to the distress of our team we are blessed with depth and ability to substitute at a moment's notice. Do you have any advice as how to assimilate on court chemistry between players who are constantly competing for a starting position?

Thanks - M.B.


As soon as I read "20" players, red flags went up for me. I have also been in situations where we carried a larger roster and no matter how much talent or lack of talent a player may have, they will not be content/happy/satisfied about sitting on the bench. I am at the point now, where I will not carry more than 14 ever, and I would prefer only 10 (but the Volleygods don't bless us with injury/sickness free seasons).

Unfortunately you have presented what I feel is the biggest challenge with team chemistry - How to manage players who either have the skill to start, or believe they have the skill to start and keep the team moving in a positive direction.

To this end, I would have three suggestions -

1. Be absolutely honest and straight forward with the team; no rah rah or heart of a champion or any bad sports movies propaganda, but rather spell out the fact that when you have more than 7 talented players, then players will not play as much as they want.

2. Base your playing time decisions on statistics - stats don't lie and it allows you to remove any misconceptions of personal favorites (coach likes seniors better than juniors, coach likes players from the north better than the south, etc.) and award starting positions and first of the bench positions based on stats; use match time stats and have your staff keep stats in all scrimmage situations.

3. If you have two players that are absolutely dead even in ability, then alternately start them in matches. I did this one year when I had two opposite players which were really equal and I could not reward one without punishing another via starting. What I did was meet with them, tell them they were even and I was going to alternate start them in matches. Now, if one of them had a bad match or was struggling, I would substitute for that match, but it would not change the alternate match start protocol.

A few other observations:

- Rally score does not really allow for effective substituting during a game because of the limited points (as opposed to sideout scoring), plus players start to look over their shoulder if they make a mistake or two and will start playing with fear. If you make a sub, I tend to do it in between games so the sub has a chance to get warm and ready mentally.

- If you are balanced and deep with talent, do not be afraid to make changes even when you are winning (tough to do for any coach - that is why you see Nebraska still running their starters when they are blowing out teams and there is NO WAY they could lose the match, even with their walk on freshman playing). Go ahead and make change in your MB position to play someone who deserves some playing time, or your OH or your OP. Once again, you need to make sure your team understands you have depth and you want to make sure players are playing - This may also fit with the DIII model as promoted by the NCAA. The more that play, the more are happy.

- Don't hesitate to bring the hammer down - Talk softly and carry the big stick. The big stick is letting the players know that you will NOT TOLERATE selfishness and the quickest way off the team is to pout or have a bad attitude because of playing time. When I took over my current team, I had players that were more concerned with parties than being volleyball players. After I had let them know what I expected of them as DI Volleyball players, I cut a player who blatantly ignored my philosophy of partying being last on the to do list - This sent a clear message to the rest of the team and we have not had any other issues.

Just a few things which have worked for me - The easiest answer for next year is to only carry 12-14 players.

Good luck.

In Season Coaching Advice

Each summer I do a number of camps with high schools in my greater region and I encourage the coaches to contact me if they need any advice or assistance during the season. Below is an email I just received from a coach who is basically starting up a program and trying to build where nothing has existed before - I thought some of the issues/advice might apply to other coaches who are trying to manage their teams through the season.

Hi Coach:

Well, our year started out very well.

We had a scrimmage in August and played very well, matter of fact several coaches asked us if this was the same team........

It was great to hear that.

Then we had a Jamboree and did not play well at all.

Our first game was September 1, and we won all three games. The kids were so pumped and excited. It was awesome. It was the first time we had won all three.

Thennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn we have had 3 matches since and lost all of them......

Then sorta gave up before starting - Kids giving up during the game...asking why they were taken out of the game...."what did I do wrong?"....crying on the bench.

I have been very disappointed with them.

So I wanted to let you know where we were and I told them I was going to email you with our recent results of our games.

Any words of advise I will be open ears.

Thanks, CR

What you have expressed is typical of building and establishing a program - I could have written the SAME EXACT thing during my first year here.

A few things which I have found worked for me in your situation:

1. The key to winning is winning the serve-pass battle. To this end, make sure you are practicing passing, even when you don't think you need to practice passing. Practicing serving is fun and easy, but it is the ability to consistently pass the ball to your setter which is key to winning. Remember that you can practice passing by also doing ball control drills; it does not necessarily mean passing serves.

The matches we have lost this year is when we lost the serve pass battle.

2. Work hard to develop the team mentality of forcing the other team to make mistakes - The longer you can keep the ball in play, the more you force the other team to touch the ball, the more successful you will be. Rally score volleyball is won by the team which makes the least amount of mistakes, NOT the team which makes the most amount of great plays. I constantly tell me team to make GOOD plays, not great plays. A good play is hitting the ball in, even if it is not powerful or a kill. A good play is serving the ball 5 times in a row for points, even if the server never gets an ace. You have to constantly tell your team to make positive, not spectacular plays - I do every day, every match and mine are NCAA DI players!!!

3. With success comes ego - Last year we experienced a record setting year for our program, especially considering how unreal awful we were the year before. But, I still had 2 to 3 players moaning about playing time, wondering why they were not it; just focused on individual feelings instead of team karma. You need to be supportive, but stern. Talk softly and carry a big stick - If you explain your philosophy and are consistent with your behavior, and a player still is selfish, then they need to go. No one person, including the coach, is bigger than the team.

4. Playing time, et al. College coaches use statistics as a way to illustrate why one player is not playing over another, or why a substitution was made. Unfortunately, high school probably does not provide ready time stats or post match box scores. What you can do is have a manager or someone decently detailed keep two sets of statistics; one for hitting percentage and one rating passing; both are easy.

Hitting: Write the names of the hitters down one side of the paper and next to their name along the line on the paper, the stat person will put a + if they got a kill (clean spike the ground, dug out of bounds or off the block for a kill), a 0 if they got dug or it was blocked/covered, and a - if the ball was hit out of bounds, into the net or blocked back and not covered. At the end of a match, each attacker should have something which looks like this: Mary: - + + + 0 - 0. To determine the hitting percentage, take the kills (+) minus the errors (-) and divide by the total number of attempts. In the example with Mary, 3 kills minus 2 errors divided by 7 total attempts (0's just count as attempts), so Mary's attack percentage is .142. Hitting percentages are like batting averages in baseball - .400 is all world, .150 is ok, .000 is poor and -.000 is bad.

Passing: Write the names of the passers on the lower part of the paper and sometimes players will be listed in each category. If the passer makes a good pass to the setting zone then they get a +, if the passer makes a pass around the 10' line and the setter can only set a high outside ball then they get a 0, and if the passer gets aced, shanks it out of bounds or over the net they get a -. At the end of the match, the passers will have the same look of +,0,- along a row like the attackers. But, it is easier to add a numeric value to the passers: 2 for +, 1 for a 0 and 0 for a -. So using the same numbers for Mary passing: - + + + 0 - 0 it would be 8 points (6 p for +'s, 2 p for 0's) divided by 7 attempts; this rates out to 1.14 passing average (remember 2.0 is perfect and 0.0 is the worst possible) - We look to push our passers up to the 1.5 range and that is tough.

Having this statistical information will allow you to tell Betty that she was taken out of the game because she was hitting .025 or that you substituted for Kim because she was passing a .50. Numbers provide the basis for making changes, assuming you have substitutes who can possibly do better.

Another suggestion I have is to NOT substitute during a game, but to wait if possible until in between games. The reason why is that rally score games move very quickly and the odds of a player coming in from the bench and being successful in the middle of the game is not very high. If you know you have to make a change, do it in between games when the substitute has an extra minute or so to get moving and get the blood pumping. Plus, there is a huge embarrassment factor when you substitute in volleyball during a game; all the fans know that Mary got pulled out. It is not like basketball, where players are used to going out for a couple of minutes to grab a breather - Volleyball only makes subs if you are killing a team or player is playing terrible.

Lastly, remember the Tom Hanks/Geena Davis movie League of Their Own, when Hanks says, "there's no crying in baseball!"? That should be the same mantra for your team - No matter how upset a player is, no matter how bad the team may feel after a loss, there is no crying in Volleyball until the locker room.

Good luck and the most important thing I can stress to you is to keep training to build skill ability. The better my players, the better I seem to be as a coach. Don't get caught up in the wins and losses right now, you are building something which takes a tremendous effort to lay a foundation - Coaching Volleyball is hard. Keep working on all the basic skill groups and don't worry too much on team play - Once the players understand their positions and rotations, it can actually be counter productive to spend time scrimmaging; better to use that time passing, pass and attack, serve and pass, pepper drills, blocking footwork patterns, etc.

Coach