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My recent post on serve-receive initiated significant responses, directly or on various venues. The article aimed to encourage coaches to be creative in organizing serve-receive patterns. The straight 3-person pattern isn’t necessarily the best way to deal with the challenges of receiving a short or deep serve, which is statistically the most difficult for the…
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An increasing number of students are “canning” the over-rated and overpriced collegiate experience and are focused on getting a head start on a career without being saddled with a college loan. A study by the National Student Clearinghouse indicates a decline in college enrollment of 5.1 percent or 938,000 students since the fall of 2019.…
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Coaches must guard against automatically mirroring other teams’ or coaches’ techniques and tactics. Many factors should influence how the skills are taught and the systems implemented. The game is different at the collegiate or national team levels compared to a 14-under club team. The men’s game at the international level is a beast unto itself—the…
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Last week I detailed the nine items I value when constructing an offensive system. This week, I will focus on the considerations when constructing my defense. There is more to the defensive game than what is listed. These items provide a foundation and roadmap for developing a better defensive team. When looking at the game…
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Any successful venture will possess core values. Decisions are made, daily activities are designed, and time is allocated based on the pillars deemed the backbone of a company, team, or collective group. All coaches should have core values that impact daily activities and decisions. These values must be visible to all team members with an…
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If you want to see countless books on the same subject matter, search for books on leadership. You will see endless titles focusing on the keys to being a good leader; Servant Leadership, The Five Levels of Leadership, The Leadership Secrets of Nick Saban, The Dichotomy of Leadership, Strengths Based Leadership, and on and on.…
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Without much effort, I can reflect on my coaching career and create a lengthy list of on-court and off-court mistakes. One of these blunders would manifest daily in how I taught volleyball skills. I was the guy on a box hitting balls at players so they could work on digging skills. Or I was tossing…
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Hall of Fame coach Mike Hebert told me that one of his most valuable tools to develop as a coach was recording video and audio of himself during multiple practices. My first reaction was my fear of what I would see or hear if I tried this self-improvement tactic. I did summon the courage, and…
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“This method is not education of the violin. It is education by the violin.” — Shinichi Suzuki The late Shinichi Suzuki developed the Suzuki Method of violin instruction that over 400,000 children use worldwide. The goal of Suzuki was not to teach children to be elite violinists. The ultimate goal was to use the learning…
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Of the many things that, in retrospect, I wish I had done better in my career is giving more thought to how I provided feedback to players. I knew what behavior I wanted from a player or team, but I was uncertain about transmitting the information in the most impactful fashion. I’m better now because…
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