Three Ideas Newsletter 11.11.25
Hey everyone!
Back when I was coaching at Ohio State, I lucked out with some awesome assistant coaches. One that really stood out was Liang Yao, who was visiting from China. Turns out, China had a formal coaching program for coaches working with their national teams or pro leagues, and Yao was a product of that system. He brought all kinds of new perspectives about the game and team dynamics. I’ll never forget this one moment: after a player had a great practice, Yao came over and said, “She had a good practice, give her lots of money!” I had to explain to him that, yeah, it doesn’t really work that way over here—we can’t just hand out cash for good practices. Honestly, maybe you could get away with that today!
In 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. We increased the tempo of the offense and began to attack different areas of the net. Sure enough, our defense had to improve to keep pace. The blockers had to pay more attention, and the backrow defenders had to recognize situations earlier and react faster.
If you’re heading into club practices, here’s something to keep in mind: if you want your team to be better at passing, focus on serving harder! It works the other way as well, better passing mandates better serving. These concepts work with other skills; for instance, better blocking starts with better attacking. Skills don’t grow in a silo. Better attacking leads to better defense, better serving leads to better passing. There needs to be urgency to push everyone forward. One more thought: when planning your schedule, set up games against teams that are better than you, some that are about the same, and some that aren’t quite at your level. That mix gives your team a good balance of challenge and confidence boosters!
Thanks for reading!
~Jim
Quote for the Week: “You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.” ~James Clear, Atomic Habits
Idea #1 – Don’t Fear Repeating Practices – Stanford Head Coach Kevin Hambly has an interesting approach to how he organizes some of his practices. On Monday, Hambly will present activities that are priorities for the week. This might include new material, items for continued improvement, and team concepts for the upcoming opponent. He would then repeat the practice for three days. His rationale was, “Day one, players are figuring out drills, expectations, etc. Day two, they repeat and improve, day three, they have absorbed and practiced the material, and demonstrate improvement.” For improvement to occur, repetition is necessary. Don’t feel compelled to change the practice content daily when players haven’t mastered the material from the previous day.
Idea #2 – A Simple Drill Focusing on Developing the Shuffle Step- This is a simple warm-up activity. I place two broomsticks about 7′ apart. The broomsticks are placed vertically on the floor with two players holding each stick upright. The challenge is to have the players let go of the broomstick, shuffle step to the other broomstick, and catch the stick, preventing that stick from falling to the floor. Their teammate does the same. The movement is repeated. As they improve, move the sticks further apart. An option is to place the broomsticks further apart and have the athletes run to the other stick.
Idea #3 – Don’t Avoid the Block, Use the Block – One of my observations when I was coaching the USA Girls Youth National Team is that American hitters tend to avoid the block, while their European counterparts would use the block to deflect that attack off the court. We used a simple 6v6 drill to work with our attackers on attacking the edges and the top of the block. It goes like this:
- A left front attacker going against a team defense
- From the sideline antenna, I place another antenna at a distance that approximates the width of two blockers. Two blockers are located between the two antennas, with a team defense behind the block.
- The LF attacker must attack the ball between the two antennas with the challenge to find a way to score by using the hands of the two blockers. The defense gets two contacts; if they dig the ball, they free-ball back over the net for a point. The offense gets a point if the attacker scores off the block. The teammates of the attacker are working on hitter coverage. If a ball is blocked and covered by teammates, the ensuing attack is worth two points for the attacker.
Video of the Week – Drill Layering – There isn’t a need to have a million drills at your disposal. You can start with a simple activity and add layers to the drill that allow for more challenges. This video is a sample of drill layering. You can take these concepts and apply them to any skill. VIDEO
Archive Blog Post – Players Need Challenging Coaches Now More Than Ever- Shortcuts are readily available for your players to make their academic lives easier than ever. However, there are no shortcuts to becoming a good player or a good team. In this blog, I suggest ideas that encourage accountability and might increase the quality of your practices. READ MORE
MasterCoaches Podcast – In this episode, Eduardo Fiallos will take you through how to plan relevant statistics for your team. WATCH.
Thanks for reading. Have a great week!
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~Jim
