Posts Tagged ‘Coaching’
Three Ideas Newsletter – 12.3.25
How many times have your players said something like, “Let’s just have fun when we play”? Or maybe a parent says, “The team just isn’t having fun.” The tricky part is, “having fun” means different things to different players, let alone the definition that the coach might possess. For some, it’s “hit and giggle” volleyball—goofing around, not really focused on getting better or competing. For other players, on the same team, fun comes from pushing themselves, working hard, and chasing challenging goals. It’s a balancing act for coaches to have a positive atmosphere on the court while still challenging the players to improve.
Read MoreThree Ideas Newsletter – 11/27/25
Most people probably don’t recognize the name Kirk Hammett. If you do, you’re either into heavy metal music or you’ve got pretty wide-ranging music tastes. Kirk Hammett is the lead guitarist for Metallica, but he wasn’t always in the band. He joined in 1983, after they’d already blown up internationally. So what did he do once he landed a spot in a supergroup? He kept taking guitar lessons at Joe Satriani’s shop in the San Francisco Bay Area—and he was getting his butt kicked in the process!
Read MoreThree Ideas Newsletter 11.11.25
n the early ‘90s, we had some really strong teams at Ohio State—making the Final Four in 1991 and 1994. But no matter how much talent we had, I remember getting frustrated with our defense one day. I was trying to figure out possible remedies and Yao offered this simple suggestion: “If we want to get better defensively, we need to focus on being a stronger attacking team. Better offense will force the defense to improve.” So even though my first instinct was to spend more time on defense, we worked on offense instead—and, sure enough, our defense had to get better just to keep up.
Read MoreThree Ideas Newsletter – 10/28/25
I recently tuned in to my favorite jazz show, and the host started talking about the late, great jazz vocalist Tony Bennett. Some of the younger coaches—or those more into heavy metal or rap music—might not know him, but Bennett was an absolute legend in jazz. The host mentioned that Bennett started every practice and every performance throughout his 60-year career with vocal scales. Repetitive, right? But it turns out those scales were key to keeping his voice sharp—improving his pitch, expanding his range, and building his tone quality. It’s hard to believe that such a simple routine played such a big role in his success. Or, is it?
Read MorePlayers Need Challenging Coaches Now More Than Ever
With increased reliance on AI to do the heavy lifting, is there collateral damage in terms of the students’ ability to think critically, perform a thorough analysis of the information, generate their ideas, and develop the capacity to solve problems and accept challenges?
Read MoreThree Ideas Newsletter 7.8.25
Three Ideas for This Week
1. Meaningful statistics for early season practices.
2. Ideas for the first days of practice.
3. What your eyes focus on when blocking.
Enjoy!
Addressing Athlete Burnout
Burnout is a word we are all familiar with. The number of times the word is tossed around, you’d think it would have a definitive meaning. Burnout is a “catch-all” term indicative of other issues that cause unhappiness.
Read More“Three Ideas” Newsletter
Hello, everyone! I’m changing the newsletter’s format, hopefully streamlining your reading. Each newsletter will have three thoughts for you to consider in your coaching. They will be brief, but hopefully, you will find them interesting and worth trying in your practices. A spoiler alert: I avoid preaching about the “right” way to do things. I prefer to present ideas that you can experiment with in your practices. Lastly, I will be uploading videos that you will be able to access for free. Each newsletter will have a link for the latest upload(s).
Read MoreThinking About Feedback
Coaches tend to rely solely on verbal feedback, but one could argue that verbal communication is not the most reliable form of feedback. Words can be easily misconstrued. Experimenting with new feedback methods merely requires the coach to possess an adventurous spirit and a willingness to try new things.
Read MoreHow Journaling Made Me a Better Coach
Much to my detriment, I never kept a journal while coaching collegiately. I mistakenly thought journaling was for nerds or teenagers with loads of angst. Besides, who has the time? The thought of scribbling in a notebook positively impacting my coaching skills was nowhere on my radar. I began to keep a daily journal during my work with the USA U-18 team.
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