Volleyball Toolbox

Volleyball’s Winning Factors

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Volleyball’s Winning Factors with LSU’s Head Coach, Fran Flory.

Fran Flory, the winningest coach in program history, enters her 22nd season at the helm of the LSU volleyball program after leading the Tigers to nine NCAA Tournament berths in the last 14 seasons. The 2009 Southeastern Conference [SEC] and American Volleyball Coaches Association [AVCA] South Region Coach of the Year, Flory was hired as the program’s fifth coach leading into the 1998 season and has returned the Tigers to national prominence during her tenure.

We are providing this drill to give you ideas on how to enhance your current practice drills. The idea is not to implement it exactly as is, but rather to tweak it to make it fit your system.

There is sound with the video, so please make sure that your sound is on.

This is a Vimeo video, so you will need to be on a network that does not block Vimeo videos.

If you would like to see more information about Coach Flory’s entire presentation, click this link: Building Your Program … One Player at a Time


Seven Rules for Success and Achievement

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This article was provided by Coaches Network

By Micah Kurtz

Doubt in an individual’s mind is the cancer that kills dreams and prevents individuals from pursuing and achieving their ambitious goals.

Dream big. Starting quarterback. All-state. College scholarship. Academic All-American. Professional career. Encourage your student-athletes to set big goals that might be a bit intimidating.

Once you have given your student-athletes permission to set mountain-sized goals, teach them the recipe to succeed. Teach them to understand the key principals to self-improvement. High achievers don’t focus on the goal that inevitably compares their ability to their competition. Instead, high achievers focus on what they can control. They focus on maximizing their own potential.

By shifting one’s focus from major milestones and comparative status labels to the simple, ever-changing target of maximizing one’s own potential, we allow our student-athletes to remove the doubt associated with whether a goal is possible and focus on something that’s realistic. That is being our personal best.

Focusing on maximizing individual potential also accomplishes something that’s counterintuitive. By removing set numbers, destinations and ceilings, a student-athlete can dream even bigger goals (the student-athlete may have the potential to be a hall of famer instead of just another pro). Many goals equate to a destination that needs to be moved upon accomplishing the goal, but maximizing one’s potential is a lifelong pursuit with mere milestones along the way.

Being the best one can be affords that person with a realistic goal of doing as much as they can to get better each and every day. Focusing on improving in the present while pursuing an ambitious goal allows the student-athlete to enjoy the process of practice and sacrifice. This also allows the student-athlete to live with no regrets so long as they can look back on their athletic career knowing that they did everything they could to maximize their potential.

Here are seven rules for success and achievement that any coach can teach their student-athletes.

1. Chase your dreams and your passions.

Make sure your goals align with daily activities that you enjoy and care about. If you’re not passionate about your craft and determined to pursue your goals, then best-case scenario is that you will quit. Worst-case scenario is that you spend years of hard work pursuing a goal only to obtain it and realize that you don’t really want it.

2. Surround yourself with people you want to be like.

Author Jim Rohn tells us, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” If you need to improve your work ethic, surround yourself with friends who are motivated. If you need to be more positive, find someone who is happy-go-lucky.

To accomplish something great, you must be willing to be different than others. You cannot let everyone else negatively influence you or distract you from what’s important. Surrounding yourself with good influences is directly related to effective use of your time. Individuals in your circle need to contribute value to you, and you need to bring value to the people in your circle.

3. Focus on what you can control.

You control the following: your work ethic, your attitude and how you treat others. Don’t stress about what you cannot control.

4. Set big goals, but focus on maximizing your own potential.

The end goal is a byproduct of the daily work necessary to reach that goal. Become the best at getting better.

5. Embrace discomfort.

Comfort is the enemy of growth. If achieving a goal is easy, everyone would obtain that achievement and it wouldn’t be worth sacrificing for. Between goals and achievement is discipline and consistency.

6. Don’t share your goals with those who won’t support, encourage and help you.

Sharing goals is an intimate thing. You should not share them unless you know the person supports you, or you’re determined enough not to care when people tell you your goal is impossible. The vast majority of people have given up on their dreams, and many of them don’t want to see you achieve your dream.

7. Repeat rule No. 1.

By learning how to chase your dream and pursue your passions, you succeed on a daily basis. You repeatedly find success in your life. Your athletic and academic career will come to an end at some point, but if you know how to chase your dreams, you will be ready to succeed in whatever excites you next in life.

Micah Kurtz (MS, CSCS, RSCC*D, FMS, USAW, NASE-CSS) was named the 2016 National Strength Coach of the Year by the NSCA. He is in his ninth year as the director of strength, conditioning and athletic development at AC Flora High School and serves as the strength and conditioning consultant coach to the nine-time high school basketball national champs, Oak Hill Academy. Luke Kurtz is the vice president of legal affairs for U.S. Sugar. He played and coached professional football for the Corinthians football club in São Paulo, Brazil. Learn more at www.TheAthleteMaker.com.


Nine Effective Teaching Methods for Coaches

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The post was provided by Coaches Network

by Chris Wellman

Productive coaches spend 75 percent of their time teaching the sport to their players, and the other 25 percent of the time coaching. With younger athletes, this gap increases with teaching becoming more important.

The problem is that many coaches don’t understand how to teach athletics effectively. Plus, some coaches don’t take the time to grasp how athletes learn. Here are nine proven steps to becoming a better teacher and a better coach.

1. Understanding your passion for the sport first.

Before jumping into coaching, coaches first must understand their passion for the game. Having a high level of passion for the sport tremendously influences your energy, creativity and ability to motivate players. Passion is contagious. If one player or one assistant coach comes to practice excited and fired up, that emotion and passion easily is passed to every other member of the team.

2. Setting the stage for teaching.

Prior to the first practice, meet with your athletes and explain your role as a coach and teacher of the game. Let them know your purpose is to help improve their athletic skills. Impress upon them that you care about them as people, and that you are concerned about their lives even beyond athletics. Feeling cared about makes a player more coachable — effort and concentration increases. If you care enough about them, they’ll walk through walls for you.

Part of you caring is to work through players’ mistakes. Tell them mistakes are part of the learning process, and the only true mistakes are ones of lack of effort or concentration — both of which easily are corrected.

3. The importance of why.

Don’t assume players know why you are asking them to practice a certain technique or to perform a skill drill. Explain how everything has a positive effect on their ability to play. Be as detailed as possible, because it’s important that they understand why you’re doing certain things.

4. Fundamentals first, then complex.

Know the fundamentals of the sport you teach. This enables you to design practices for your players’ appropriate skill level. It also becomes easier to assist an athlete who cannot perform a certain skill. After grasping the fundamentals, players move on to practice drills focusing on more than one skill at a time. Don’t expect to teach complex skills to players who have not mastered the basics.

5. Use the whole-part method.

Oftentimes, it’s necessary to teach skills in parts or steps. Once again, in-depth knowledge of fundamentals gives you an advantage. Teaching a skill in part keeps the player motivated, because they are forming a mental checklist for performing the skill correctly. Educators refer to this as “task-analysis.”

Moving from one step to the next puts the focus on progress, which allows you to praise the player for grasping a skill and working with the player in areas that need more practice. A good barometer to know if a player is mastering a certain skill is to see if that player is teaching the skill to another teammate.

6. Effective motivation.

Find something positive to say to every athlete at every practice. This satisfies the athlete’s need for attention, recognition and appreciation. Be specific with your praise — specific praise is used to reinforce the why of practice. Always attempt to find more positives than negatives while constantly praising effort.

7. The hoopla of success.

When an athlete or team finally masters a skill or concept, don’t hesitate to momentarily stop practice to recognize the achievement. Praise their effort, and remind your players why mastery of the skill is so critical.

8. Model what you preach.

Most coaches talk to players about certain values and characteristics they hope to see in all team members. Coaches really are the best positive role models for these values. When stressing good sportsmanship, talk about coaching with honor, respect for the game and attitude toward officials. When stressing tenacity, never give up on yourself with your athletes. And, when stressing organization, conduct practices that are structured.

Players look to you for guidance, so don’t say one thing and do the opposite.

9. Encourage crossover athletes.

Coaches who are overzealous sometimes encourage their athletes to play one sport on a year-round basis. This can leads to overuse injuries and burnout. Participating in other sports improves the way the athletes play your sport. The movements and skills required for many sports are similar. Consider the footwork necessary for soccer and basketball are almost identical.

Productive coaching is highly dependent on the coach’s ability to teach their sport. Teaching isn’t just blowing a whistle, barking out orders and heading home after a couple of hours. Being a good teacher takes time, effort, practice, patience and a passion to make a difference in the lives of your players.

 

Recommended Coaching Resource:

 

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“Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I will care.” -Your Student-Athlete The world of coaching is changing. In Coaching for Leadership you’ll discover the foundations for designing, building, and sustaining a leadership focused culture for building a high-performance team. To find out more about and order Sport Leadership Books authored by Dr. Dobbs including Coaching for Leadership, click this link: The Academy for Sport Leadership Books

How to Win the Locker Room

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By Dr. Rob Bell

Dr. Bell is a Mental Toughness Coach and Certified Consultant of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology.  He consults with hundreds of athletes, coaches, and teams and has served as the mental coach for PGA tour winners, USTA Champion, and Olympic Medalists.  He is also the author of several mental toughness books. For more information about Dr. Bell and his services visit https://drrobbell.com/

A team locker room is a sacred place.

Basically, what is said there, when you leave there, leave it there.

Sorry, but here’s the wrong way to win the locker room.

New Buffalo Bills Head Coach Sean McDermott felt that setting the tone of the locker room was important.

Agreed

Coach Sean McDermott is all about “culture” and leading by example. He’s a 3:30AM fitness guy.

Agreed

He is a driven, hard-nosed, accountability coach whose locker room culture begins with him.

Agreed

Coach stated that “this is a business”, so he removed the pool table and video games from the locker room.

Disagree    

Players don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.

Hall of Fame coach, Bill Walsh, set up a fishing tournament amongst his players during pre-season. He stated, a “team that can laugh together, can get serious together.”

Hard nosed, two time Super-Bowl winning coach, Tom Coughlin, spent the very first day of a training camp by having a bowling tournament. He changed his tyrant approach because  he “wanted his players to see him as his grandchildren did.” 

Super Bowl Winning coach, Dick Vermeil was known for his “boot camp” practices and discipline, but only after he started to develop a relationship with his players did he finally reach the pinnacle.

Look, there is nothing sexier than discipline, accountability, hard-work, grit, perseverance, and a culture of excellence.

However, in order to win, coaches have to win their hearts as well. In order to do that, they need to win the locker room.

Here’s 5 ways to win the locker room

Develop a TEAM culture- 

Every coach would agree that when you have players willing to fight for one another, there is nothing more powerful. Practices should be difficult and demanding, but developing team chemistry also takes place in between practices and games. You hang out so much together, that either bonds or cliques get formed in various ways.

Developing a locker room where players can unwind, relax, be themselves, and hang-out is crucial. Who wants a locker room where players simply dash out after showering and changing?

A pool table or ping-pong table encourages players an outlet to bond over a competitive activity that is not directly related to their own sport. The Cornell basketball team that made the sweet sixteen and finished 29-5 all lived together and touted their Super Mario bros. and table-tennis competitions. 

Allow the players to take ownership-

Jeff Van Gundy allowed all minor decisions like where to eat, which music and movie to play on the bus up to the players. He granted them a voice in their own culture.

Have a leadership council-

In all pick-up games, kids self-govern themselves. You can’t break the written and unwritten rules of the court and expect to be welcomed back. A leadership council of players should make decisions on certain disciplines that coach doesn’t have to. That creates more ownership among players and takes more off of the coach.

Orchestrate the cohesion-

Teams become cohesive over the task at hand (winning), or socially (togetherness). Ultimately, task-cohesion is king. However, these task-cohesive teams are only fostered through extremely strong peer-leadership.

Social cohesion is queen. Teams full of mutual respect for one another have more trust and uphold standards within the team. Usually, the best teams have BOTH task and social cohesion. These bonds can be enhanced through scheduled sessions intended to do so.

Foster organic cohesion-  

Yes, it is a business. Winning is a habit. But, allow play to be a part of the culture. Allowing athletes to express themselves through free-play is as old as the cave-man days. We thrive on working hard toward a goal and also having fun along the journey. 

I’ve been in the team locker room at the end of a season with such tears of joy from winning, because they all knew of the effort and sacrifice and bond. I’ve been in the other locker room as well, that tears flowed because the loss was so heartbreaking because of the sacrifice and bond.

If you’re in the game long enough, these moments will happen. That’s life.

The way to a winning team locker room begins way before these moments of joy or heartbreak. It begins with the culture of the team and finding ways to win the locker room.


Approach for Success

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This article is republished with permission. The original article was written by Björn Galjaardt Approach for Success.

The golden egg? Shortcut in becoming successful? A proven model everyone can use? Actually, a little bit of all. The skeptics will stop reading now, however I have to elaborate on the above. It’s an approach that is applied by successful coaches and businessmen in various ways, perhaps some without knowing. It’s called the 4Cs approach.

COMPETENCE in sport can be seen as a high level of achievement, performance or athletic ability. One could break this down in 3 domains, namely; technical, tactical and physical skills. Each skill has its own definition. In that way a model can be created and adapted to each sport specifically. To define skills under each domain it is advisable to create a soundboard to test the understanding of each skill. This is important to certain age groups, further developed drills and most important a rating system. In the sport water polo, what does ‘eggbeater kick mean’ and how does a really good ‘eggbeater’ kick look like? Working with a rating system (known as RPE), it could develop a clear understanding that not every ‘eggbeater kick’ is a good kick. For younger age groups, a poor technique could be compared with a beginning athlete, new to the sport, while a perfect technique could be compared with, for them, a well-known athlete. In summary; define skills and make the athlete understand how the execute them. Here lies the basis in how to teach the specific skill and later on combine this skill to move into game based drills. “Any fool can know. The point is to understand” – Albert Einstein

CONFIDENCE in sport could be ‘the degree of certainty individuals possess about their ability to be successful’. Although there is still ongoing research about the measurements of confidence and performance, many measuring tools are commonly used daily. Evaluation forms, one-on-one conversations and self-reflection. A research in 2012 amongst professional athletes, showed an increase of confidence that was equivalent with the increase of their performance. Arguably process and product (in results) could improve through various methods like coach relationship, team mates, competition, feedback from externals, etc. The 4Cs could be connected to one and another and perhaps a balance would see improvement in confidence as it could do in competence. A coach should be aware of the athletes confidence and their strengths or weaknesses during training. Mistakes in a game are actually made in training and can affect the confidence of the athlete. “When you have confidence, you have fun. When you have fun, you can do amazing things” – Joe Namath

CONNECTION in sport is the quality of interaction with peers and staff to promote and engage meaningful and positive relationships. In a coach-athlete relationship you could ask the following question: do you trust the coach and what does trust mean? Instead of specific interaction styles or behaviors, the coach and athlete could target the perceived quality of coach-athlete relationships. Is there room for emotions, cognition’s like commitment and behaviors in sport context? In a peer-to-peer relationship what is the social impact and social preference. Passing the ball to a peer because of a strong connection between the two athletes, instead of passing to someone else. Some data shows that a positive social environment with an effective coach would lead to an increase of positive engagement in the entire team. Meaning that there are more or stronger connections between athletes. Even in individual sports, an athlete interacts with their support group (e.g. trainer, coach, strength and conditioning coach, peer-training-partners, etc.). Coaches play a vital role in getting the ‘person beyond the player’. “A good coach can change a game. A great coach can change a life” – John Wooden

CHARACTER in sport can be defined by moral development and sportspersonship. It’s the engagement in pro-social behaviors and avoidance of antisocial behaviors. Mostly voluntary positive actions in order to help, add value or benefit others. There actually is a tool to measure character, called the ‘Prosocial and Antisocial Behaviour in Sport Scale’. A famous coach had to announce the team for the Olympics. With the last spot available it was character over ability that helped making the final decision. For all athletes there is a certain expectation, even in business we see leaders instead of managers. It doesn’t mean they cannot manage, but we expect more positive shaped characteristics together with traits of (working towards) excellence in ability. Even though we all have formed a certain character, game-based practice situations will show a true persons’ self. “Sports do not build character, they reveal it”. – John Wooden and Heywood Hale Broun.

SUMMARY

The using the 4Cs is a suggestion for high performance frameworks that can lead to success. It’s used to optimize coach and athlete development in defining ‘effective’ coaching and performance. Interdisciplinary frameworks using the 4Cs have led to many international successes. Nevertheless, it’s up to the coach, athlete and the support staff to deal with implementing the aspects of competence, confidence, connection and character. Tailoring to the needs of the training cycle, culture, level and performance goals. By starting with the 4Cs, no matter what age, gender or influence (e.g. equipment, financial blackening, etc.) by making a start and creating clear lines of communication in expectation and interaction, it will change your and the athletes’ performances.

PS I highly recommend reading ‘Coaching better every season’ and ‘Routledge Handbook of Sports Coaching’.