By: Lindsay Peterson

From the Hudl Blog

As a high school coach, it’s way too easy to only focus on your team. But when you con­nect every lev­el of your pro­gram, each ath­lete knows they’re part of some­thing bigger.

One of my biggest strug­gles dur­ing the vol­ley­ball sea­son is find­ing the time to get to know all the play­ers in my program. 

And it doesn’t sound so ridicu­lous once you under­stand our coach­ing staff only includes one coach who teach­es at the school. Everyone else, includ­ing me, teach­es at oth­er schools. Also between our dif­fer­ent sched­ules and the pres­sure of win­ning, you can eas­i­ly get so busy you for­get to even look up.

 

On any giv­en year, I have 48 kids in my pro­gram spread over our four teams, fresh­men, reserve, junior var­si­ty and var­si­ty. We’ve always put a focus on con­nect­ing as a var­si­ty team, with team bond­ing days at the begin­ning of every sea­son. It wasn’t until my third year of coach­ing, when I final­ly felt on top of things enough to be able to see out­side what my team was doing, that I took a look at the oth­er teams. 

Guilt hit me hard — I couldn’t tell you all of the play­ers names. I couldn’t tell you what posi­tion some of them played, and hon­est­ly, I didn’t know much more than a jer­sey num­ber for most. I felt like I had done my pro­gram a dis­ser­vice and missed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get to know the kids who would be the future of my pro­gram. I decid­ed right then I was going to make a change.

I sat down with my assis­tant and we decid­ed if we want­ed to build some­thing great, we were going to make an effort to get to know all the kids. We also start­ed brain­storm­ing how we could help the kids get to know each anoth­er across dif­fer­ent teams. You’d think every­one would know every­one because they all went to school togeth­er, right? Not true! Millard North High School (Neb.) has more than 2,500 kids across all the grade lev­els. We need­ed to make it eas­i­er for them to interact.

We start­ed off easy, walk­ing around to oth­er courts and greet­ing the play­ers, help­ing out in a drill, or just mak­ing an effort to ask the kids how their day was. Then we start­ed doing more. 

We made a vol­ley­ball pro­gram shirt and gave one to every play­er. We asked them to wear it on the same day — Wednesdays quick­ly became pro­gram shirt days. And we added pro­gram game days. A few times a year, we all come togeth­er and play games. Whether it’s 3-on-3 or 2-on-2 vol­ley­ball, or we mix it up with base­ball or triv­ia, we make sure to find fun ways to get play­ers from dif­fer­ent teams together. 

As we con­tin­ued to get bet­ter at it, we start­ed run­ning skills courts with sep­a­rate group­ings. For exam­ple, on a set day of the week, all the set­ters in the pro­gram go to one court to have some posi­tion-spe­cif­ic train­ing, while the rest of their team works on anoth­er drill of some sort.

It might seem min­i­mal or sil­ly to focus on, but this has helped our pro­gram tremen­dous­ly! Now the girls real­ly look for­ward to our game days with every team. This gives the old­er girls an oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­play their lead­er­ship skills, and it gives the younger girls role mod­els to look up to. 

Getting togeth­er as a pro­gram helps every play­er feel val­ued. They know they’re part of a greater good. It’s also helped our coach­ing staff. We know our girls bet­ter and we’re bet­ter pre­pared to build report with all the play­ers, even ones on oth­er teams. 

We’ll handle the stats—you analyze them.

With advanced stats and reports from our professional analysts, you’ll have better data and more time to coach with it.

[Get Hudl Assist]

Your time is everything.

Join the thousands of volleyball coaches who let us stat their matches so they have more time for their team. 

4 HOURS SAVED
PER BREAKDOWN

50 BREAKDOWNS
PER SEASON

200 HOURS SAVED
PER SEASON

Video and stats go hand-in-hand.

Tying data to video gives you the most information possible. Your players will improve faster when you can quickly pinpoint and review the plays that most contributed to a match’s result.

Click play to see the video below.

 

How It Works

1. Submit your game.
2. We’ll break it down.
3. It’s ready in 12-24 hours.

Advanced, interactive reports are waiting.

You don’t have to lift a finger. We compile all the analysis into easy-to-navigate visuals—click any total to watch those moments play out. Filters give you the power to see stats for a single athlete, rotation, set, match or an entire season.

Attack Tendencies

Connect the dots between location data and attack results. This report visualizes where your players and opponents are most successful, giving you in-depth information for your game plan.

*Available with a Silver subscription or above

Stats

All the stats are in one place to help you quickly analyze performance however you want. Filter by match, set, rotation and individual athlete.

Box Score

Get a clear view of each contest with detailed stats for both teams. Single out which key statistics led to the outcome of the match.

Goals

Determine the stats that matter most and use them to create goals to incentivize your team. It’s effortless to see progress since all our reports automatically update with every match breakdown.

Trends

A visual representation of the highs and lows for each stat over the course of a season. Use these insights to work on exposed weaknesses during practice.

*Available with a Gold subscription or above

Stats We Track

Offense

• Attack Attempts
• Kills
• Attack Errors
• Hitting Percentage
• First Ball/Transition Hitting Results
• Assist Attempts
• Assists
• Ball Handling Errors

Defense

• Solo Blocks 
• Assisted Blocks
• Total Blocks 
• Digs

Serving

• Service Attempts
• Aces
• Service Errors
• Serve Quality Rating
• Service Percentage 

Serve-Receive

• Receptions
• Reception Errors
• Pass Quality Rating

Rotational Analysis

• Service/Reception Points Won
• Service/Reception Points Lost
• Service Win Percentage
• Side-Out Percentage

Ready to power your coaching with data? 

[Get Assist] [Schedule a Demo]

 

This article was provided by  Training-Conditioning

Having players keep a journal can help a coach connect with their players.

At Bettendorf (Iowa) High School, Head Girls’ Volleyball Coach Diane Lichtenberg has been a steady rock for 32 years. Last year, she became the ninth active high school volleyball coach in the state to reach 700 wins and was inducted into the National High School Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Her squad captured state titles in 2012 and 2013, and had runner up finishes in 2006, 2014, and 2015. And her program hasn’t had a losing record since 1990. How does she get the most out of players each and every year?

Lichtenberg says it starts with setting lofty goals, an approach she learned as a player at Iowa State University being coached by Mary Wise (now legendary coach at the University of Florida). “I was a very competitive person, and I really liked the hard work and physical exertion that she expected,” says Lichtenberg. “Mary instilled in me the importance of a strong work ethic and high expectations, and I carried those into my coaching.”

But Lichtenberg also understands that you can only ask a lot from players if you show your commitment to them. One way she does this is through journaling—writing back and forth with her players—which has become a mainstay of the Bettendorf program.

At the beginning of the season, Lichtenberg buys each player a composition notebook. She asks the athletes to write down their thoughts, questions, and goals, and she responds to what they have conveyed. It allows her to connect with her players in a thoughtful way, while giving them the opportunity to stop and consider their progress and needs.

“It helps them reflect on what did and what did not go well in a game,” says Lichtenberg. “At the same time, it gives me a chance to respond to whatever they wrote, so they know I hear them. I might say, ‘You did a great job with that! But let’s work on this.’ I will then incorporate the things they are struggling with into our practice plans.”

To get their wheels turning, Lichtenberg provides a slip of paper with prompts. For example, before games, she asks players to write down their goals, and they revisit these afterward to reflect on how they played and whether or not they achieved each objective.

“Sometimes we will do it as a rating chart,” says Lichtenberg. “They may even have to rate themselves on certain categories within the mental side of the game.”

Typically, Lichtenberg has athletes journal once or twice a week. Notebooks might be due on a Monday after a weekend tournament and she does her best to return them by Friday, so athletes can read them and be ready for the next competition. “It does take some time to work through 15 or 16 journals, but I feel it is worth it,” Lichtenberg says.

Not all the journaling focuses on volleyball. “Sometimes I ask them a couple of personal questions,” Lichtenberg says. “I might ask about their grades, if they had a good weekend, or if they plan to attend homecoming when it’s coming up.

“And I always finish up by asking if they have any questions or concerns,” she continues. “If they do, I will give a longer response. Or I might have a face-to-face conversation with the player about the issue rather than trying to write it down.”

Lichtenberg has been incorporating the journals into her season plans for more than 12 years, continually tweaking the process. Two seasons ago, she split the task of responding with her assistant coach, to save time. But she found that she prefers to do them all herself, as it helps her get to know every player.

This past season, Lichtenberg experimented with having the players write their thoughts in Google Docs, and both she and her assistant coach were able to read and respond to every player. However, Lichtenberg found she prefers the hard copies and plans to return to them—especially since she is going to be dealing with quite a few new players next year.

“Last year, there were eight girls who were my primary players, and seven of them are graduating,” says Lichtenberg. “I feel like going back to the original format will be important with next year’s girls.”

Lichtenberg’s focus on communication continues with the players’ parents, as she works hard to keep them informed and feeling appreciated. “I send out weekly emails that provide a rundown of our plans for the week, including games, practice changes, travel plans, or any other information they may need,” she says. “I also remind them if we are having a team dinner, and I usually thank the parent that hosted the week before.”

Call-outs continue through the season, up to the very end, when she asks players to write a letter to their parents thanking them for their support. She then composes a letter of her own to parents, and gives them out at the team’s award night.

“I don’t think we let people know often enough how much we appreciate them,” says Lichtenberg. “Our parents have gone out of their way to help their children. Getting a thank-you makes them feel good and I think it’s an important gesture.”

It also circles back to her coaching philosophy. “There are so many life lessons that we can teach through volleyball to develop the whole person, not just their volleyball skills,” says Lichtenberg. “Part of that is being a good person, learning responsibility, and trying to think of others.”

 

This post was provided by Coaches Network

Today’s coaches are expected to succeed in many different areas—supporting academic achievement, teaching life lessons, developing character, raising money, and of course, winning on the court or field. Excelling in even some of these areas is reason to feel proud, but hitting the mark on all of them is remarkable.

Sue Moon, Head Girls’ Volleyball Coach at North Henderson High School in Hendersonville, N.C., has built a program that does just that. Moon has posted more than 500 career wins and has a winning percentage of .837. Highly active in community service, her team has been recognized for its work in raising money for cancer research. At the same time, her players have maintained one of the highest team GPAs in the state across all sports and classifications.

In this piece, she shares advice on tapping into community resources, adjusting to changes in today’s youth, and gathering a support network.

You do a large number of activities with your team that go beyond volleyball, like having regular speakers and special programs, and your team is very successful with fundraising. How do you get the community on board and willing to contribute in so many ways?

I learned a long time ago that people want to be involved in good things that are happening in their community. You just need to ask them! And the worst that’s going to happen is that they will tell you no.

My advice is to find people with common goals and needs in the community and partner with them. For example, we have a great relationship with a fitness studio in our community called E-fitness. They help us train our kids, and they give us a reduced rate. If an athlete can’t afford it, they take care of that child.

They also help us in our service projects. We do a fundraiser called All Knight Long with them. For a 12-hour period, every hour a new group comes into their studio to do a workout, and it’s like a road race. People pay $20 and they get a t-shirt and they get to work out, and all of that money goes to our cancer fundraising event. Before the event, our girls get groups of people to fill in each time slot. We do the last time slot as a team, and then we go eat at Waffle House together, which could happen at 4 or 6 in the morning.

E-fitness does that for us, and they don’t charge us anything—not for the use of the facility, not for instructing the sessions—just because we have such a great partnership with them. I’ve found that if you ask people for help, and if you tell them what you’re doing and what the purpose is, parents and members of your community will donate their time.

Your state has recognized you with the Tony Webb Coach of the Year Award, given to coaches who make a special impact on the lives of student-athletes. How is connecting with today’s athletes different from connecting with athletes in the past? 

The biggest change I’ve seen is what kids have to deal with outside of the game. We have problems in society—the issues of drugs, bullying, violence, and crime—and they have to put these things aside. It’s really tough, and that’s why our relationships with them are so important.

I start off by emphasizing commitment. One of things I’ve seen with kids today is that they have trouble showing up every day to practice. There are so many distractions that they say, “Well, I have to go here or there, and I can’t be at practice.” So we talk about how important commitment to the program is.

They also know that they are students first, and if they are having trouble, they need to go talk to the teacher and work it out. If their grades drop, I will hold them out of practice.

I also expect them to leaders in other areas. Our girls are leaders in student council and all of the clubs. I want to see them being out there in the pep rallies and helping clean the school and doing those jobs that nobody else wants to do. It might be old school, but that’s the way I was raised and that’s the way I was coached as a player, and that’s what we put into our program.

What do you do when you need support yourself?

As a coach, I have to have mentors. Even as long as I’ve been coaching, I have to have a network of coaches I can go to when something changes or there is a problem and say, “How do you handle this?” I think all coaches need mentors no matter what, and that’s one of the best things that I’ve done for myself.

I also think you need a network of other individuals that help you. Your coaching allies can help you with the athletic part, but you also need a core group of teachers at your school who will support you in your activities, and you need parents and people in the community. You’ve got to know who you can call on for help. If I need help with a sound system, I know who I can call. When I’m doing a cancer fundraising event, I know who will support me and help me with that. I call it my crew. Know who your crew is and who will help you.