Volleyball Toolbox

Don’t Forget to Make Every Player Feel Valued

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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.

Don’t miss the opportunity to get to know the kids who will be the future of your program.

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 rapport with all the players, even ones on other teams.

Lind­say Peter­son has been a var­si­ty head coach for eight years. She played for the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Alaba­ma, help­ing them win the DII Nation­al Cham­pi­onship in 2003. Peter­son has led her Mil­lard North High School team to the state cham­pi­onship tour­na­ment sev­en times, win­ning in 2016 and 2018. She was named one of the top 40 coach­es in the coun­try by the AVCA, and Coach of the Year by the Oma­ha World-Herald.


The Secret to Serving: Zone

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If your team knows how to serve specific zones, you’ll be ready to rule the court.

Karch Kiraly said it best, “The serve is the only technique that is totally under your control.”

It’s really all in your hands. If you can control your serves, then you can control the other side of the court. And in high school volleyball, if you’re a strong serving team, you’re going to be tough to beat.

Here’s how to get there.

The Competitive Advantage

If your players can serve different zones, you have a better chance of finding your opponents’ weaknesses. Once you identify where that is, you’ll be able to go after it aggressively and make your opponent much easier to defend.

It’s extremely important to call specific zones during a serve. Not doing this is like not telling a quarterback what play he needs to run on the football field. And it goes hand in hand with scouting your opponents.

Go through each of their rotations to find their passing tendencies. Use your findings to attack specific passers or zones where your opponents struggle.

We use two types of zone serving, depending on the age of our athletes.

Standard 1-6 Zones

This is a basic zone serving strategy. It’s easily understandable and follows rotations so it’s easy to remember, regardless of age or skill.

Zone 1: right back

Zone 2: right front

Zone 3: middle front

Zone 4: left front

Zone 5: left back

Zone 6: middle back

Specific Zones

This type of serving takes a lot of practice to learn, so we reserve it for older, more advanced players. It’s divided between deep and short serves.

Deep serves

Zone 1: Sideline closest to right back

Zone 2: Player that’s serve receiving in right back

Zone 3: Between players in right back and middle back

Zone 4: Player that’s serve receiving in middle back

Zone 5: Between players in middle back and left back

Zone 6: Player that’s serve receiving in left back

Zone 7: Sideline closest to left back

Short serves

A: Right front

B: Middle front

C: Left front

How to Apply It

Serving zones allows for tons of different strategies. For instance, we keep the ball short when our opponent’s attackers are running across the net in serve receive. In theory, this will clog up the middle of the court and will sometimes prevent a team from running their middle attacker. For opponents who have a great middle attacker, throwing in short serves is important.

Another strategy is to find the outside attacker that’s stepping back into serve receive. Move her around. Serve her short and deep. Start tracking her tendencies to see if she passes better out of one specific rotation than another. If you keep pressure on your opponents’ outside attackers, they’ll often become tired and less effective.

We also look for rotations where there are stacks of players lined up on one side of the court, and try to serve on or over those stacks. This can cause communication errors between the front and back row. It also makes it tough for the passer that’s behind the stack to track the serve.

Practice Makes Perfect

This skill needs to be touched on in every practice. Some days we work on hitting zones, some days we focus on serving under pressure, and some days we concentrate on making our service better (faster, more aggressive, or more controlled).

Serving style is important too—decide what works best for your team. Most of my kids serve float balls because it’s harder to read as a passer, and you can control the serve well. Once in a while, you might get an athlete who can serve a topspin ball well. It’s important to evaluate this serve and decide whether or not you think the player is able to control it and can still put the ball in the zone you’re calling. If it works for your team, and your player is comfortable with it, go for it!

What if your players are missing serves? It might not be as serious as you think. We’re willing to miss serves deep if we’re playing a team with a lot of ball control. If we serve aggressively, we can hope to put them out of system and make them easier to defend.

But you don’t want to let it go too far. We set a goal for how many missed serves are allowed. It varies based on who we’re playing and how aggressive we need to serve, but in general, it’s two missed serves a set.

Even if your players don’t hit the zone 100% of the time, if they can do it the majority of the time, the results will speak for themselves.

Lind­say Peter­son has been a var­si­ty head coach for eight years. She played for the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Alaba­ma, help­ing them win the DII Nation­al Cham­pi­onship in 2003. Peter­son has led her Mil­lard North High School team to the state cham­pi­onship tour­na­ment sev­en times, win­ning in 2016 and 2018. She was named one of the top 40 coach­es in the coun­try by the AVCA, and Coach of the Year by the Oma­ha World-Herald.

Peterson wrote this article with the help of her assistant coach, Lindsay Grant. Grant has coached at Millard North High school for eight years, and is also a club coach for Nebraska Juniors.


Dominate the Offseason in 5 Steps

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Coaching doesn’t end after the final game. Here are five tried-and-true tactics for taking better advantage of your offseason.

The offseason may represent a lull in action for teams, but not for coaches. The minute post-season play is over, you start going over your mental to-do list for next season. Player admission and eligibility, team camps and your state coaching certifications are all top of mind, not to mention a fundraiser for next year’s team. 

Raising funds in the offseason is often required, especially with the rising cost of playing sports compared to registration fees and what high school budgets can cover. You want a fundraiser that will bring in the most money possible, but it can be difficult to find the ideal method.

In this eBook, we’ll cover how to get your offseason started off on the right foot, give you new and profitable fundraising strategies, explain the tried-and-true fundraising tactics, and provide a real-world example of a small school in Iowa that won a state title on a tight budget.

Step 1: Rest

It’s hard for coaches to remember that it’s called offseason for a reason. While it’s important to get to work and improve, it’s even more vital to rest, both mentally and physically. Competitors are often trained into thinking hard work is synonymous with more work. But when it comes to the offseason, working smarter should be the goal. So take a week off (or a few) to recuperate from the strains of season.

Step 2: Reflect

Time away from the gym or field provides a clear mind to reflect objectively on the previous school year and season. To prepare for the future, it’s imperative to evaluate the past. Identify the major strengths and weaknesses of the team last year. Ask yourself questions like, “how can I innovate different areas of training to take my team to the next level?” Thinking through these things will help you build a stronger game plan for the summer.

Step 3: Invest

Use this offseason to improve yourself. Look into books without a sports focus that will challenge the way you approach everyday life. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covery may be a good place to start. Discover a more effective form of leadership by listening to the Learning Leader Show, a podcast made up of interviews with the most fascinating leaders across the world. Attend a coaching clinic to find innovative coaching methods in your specific sport. The offseason is the perfect time to educate and challenge yourself.

Step 4: Prepare

Through strategic planning, you can maximize the offseason and make major progress towards your biggest future goals. Take advantage of the time to prioritize what areas are most important. Consider the resources you’ll need for success, like gym space, access to video or weight-room equipment. Will you need to fundraise to get these things? Mapping these out in advance will help prevent future

Step 5: Progress

Set goals and track team progress along the way. Consider your team’s vision and create goals to help the team get there. Start with smaller weekly goals— these can be anything from maximizing player attendance at optional practices to attaining a new level of individual fitness. Achieving short-term goals will build the team’s confidence and culture.

 

 


The Best Camera for Recording Your Volleyball Match

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FebWhether you’re looking for an auto-tracking camera with hands-free technology, complete Hudl integration or livestream­ing capa­bil­i­ties, Hudl Focus stands above all other options. Find out why.

The world of volleyball is fast-paced and has pushed coaching staff and analysis departments to streamline their workflows, in order to create more efficient and effective evaluations of players’ performances and development. When thinking about your own process and analysis workflow, one of the first things to assess is how you capture and share your team’s performances on the court.

Traditional volleyball video cam­eras and iPads are ade­quate for record­ing games and prac­tices, but the need for dedicated, reliable resources can often mean they fall short in stream­lin­ing coach­ing work­flows or providing consistent, high-quality video.

That’s where Hudl Focus comes in. It’s a pro­fes­­sion­al-grade cam­era that not only han­dles the record­ing of your volleyball games, but also the upload­ing and shar­ing of game footage — all automatically.

Plus, if you play an away game at a gym with Hudl Focus the film can be automatically uploaded to your account right after the game with the Focus Exchange Network—available with all athletic department packages.

We’ve built an entire Blue Springs High School activities YouTube channel. We’re sending every game to the same place so that everyone knows where to look for these films. We’re changing schedules to make sure our underclass kids are getting their games livestreamed.Coach Nolan Hochgrebe, Blue Springs High School, Mo.

Focus Features

  • Consistent, high-quality video: The camera records in HD and uses AI technology which means your team will never miss a rally.
  • Film multiple angles: The camera angles include a zoomed in view of the court and a full 180 degree-view of the court during a game or practice recording. Plus you can view a static angle of the left and right half of the court during a practice recording.
  • Easier than a three-step approach: Hudl Focus also has an intuitive app that makes setup a breeze and doesn’t require an expensive third-party installer. Plus, software updates are sent straight to your camera so you’ll never miss a new feature.
  • Full Hudl integration: When the match is over, your game will begin uploading to Hudl right away. And with Hudl’s video coaching tools, you can jump into your analysis faster than ever—no long processing times.
  • More access to film: Automatic recordings from a professional-grade camera mounted in your gym unlocks more coachable video, more video for highlights when your athletes are getting recruited and more moments for family and fans to enjoy.
  • Livestream your way: Provide a mod­ern and mem­o­rable fan experience, allowing you to control where you stream, and how to feature sponsors to earn money from your stream. Check out our livestream FAQ to start broad­cast­ing your games today.

Hudl Focus Indoor is available as part of an athletic department package. Contact Hudl to learn how to secure your camera.

 


Club Athletes Use Hudl to Develop Skills and Navigate Recruitment with Confidence

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An Oregon-based club invests in industry-leading performance analysis platform to help players maximize their potential and reach the next level.

Club volleyball is as competitive as ever, with top clubs looking for ways to separate themselves on the court while providing players with a path to the next level. Oregon Juniors Volleyball Academy (OJVA) invested in Hudl to help athletes develop these skills on the court and in recruiting.

Some coaches, like 15s coach Juno Cruz, bring iPads into training to show clips or film on Hudl. He believes integrating technology accelerates the learning curve while helping players buy into their development and take ownership of their future.

“As I’m showing them

you can see that they’re getting more confident,” Cruz said. “With confidence you get better play, and with better play you build more confidence. And as a coach, I want to build more confidence.”

This past season, Cruz challenged one of his middle blockers to play a new position: outside hitter. Although she agonized over the change at first, Hudl enabled Cruz to pinpoint her growth via film and analyze her statistical performance.

“When you move a player, they’re uncomfortable. They don’t want to believe they’re going to be good at something they haven’t done yet,” he said.

After only a few matches, Cruz said the athlete saw a future for herself playing outside.

OJVA athletes have bought in on using these tools to improve their performance. Not only to quicken their growth, but also as a means to play collegiately.

Sophie Scott is a middle blocker who is committed to play for the University of California-Berkeley. Scott started playing club volleyball in sixth grade and joined OJVA for the higher level of competition and training. She uses Hudl at her high school as well and believes that having video and data has helped her to study and improve her play as well as get recruited.

Speed. Efficiency. Impact.

These skills translate into everything volleyball players must do, whether that’s reacting on defense, transitioning to the attack, or punishing an opponent that’s out of system.

The same can be said for the recruiting process. With an abundance of student-athletes competing for limited spots, finding ways to stand out and earn a roster spot at the next level requires fast, adaptable tools that meet college coaches and recruiters where they are.

During the pandemic, recruiters relied almost exclusively on video to evaluate up-and-coming talent. As the world evolves into a more hybrid recruiting environment, combining in-person and online evaluation, today’s student-athletes must take the initiative to market themselves and capture a recruiter’s attention.

With Hudl’s comprehensive recruiting profiles, athletes on Hudl can feature their academic and athletic achievements, along with highlights and match film in a single resource that recruiters want. Players can even message verified recruiters to express their interest in a school while providing a glimpse into their potential.

Emily Warmenhoven, a senior outside hitter, joined OJVA as a freshman in high school. Now she’s committed to Belmont University. She said Hudl makes it quick and easy to create highlights and share them with recruiters.

“It’s been super helpful, not only to improve our own game, but also getting committed,” Warmenhoven said. “It’s super nice where it cuts out your own clips, so I can see just the film of me and create highlights reels.”

For a club that’s regarded as the best in the region, OJVA uses Hudl to stay ahead of the game. Their innovative training technique leverages cutting-edge technology to help athletes reach their potential and blaze a trail to the next level.