Well, tryouts are done and now, so is the first practice.
(Quick spoiler--when organizing a practice, I've always tried to use the stuff here, but this year--we're also 'forcing' the use of stuff you can learn here or in the 'Growing the Game' blog.)
There's also an anomaly in this--last year for club, it was recommended by physicians that I not coach a team or be active during practices. With a couple new coaches on board--that made it rough to effectively be a technical director! Yikes. But--that's important context.
Last year, the players we had got better by the end of the year--they reached their goals of not getting cut by a school team, being all-area, the usual goals kids have. But a lot of the practices were drill-oriented (yeah, I know...another one of THESE posts...) and a common comment was "I thought it would be more fun". Fair enough.
There's another club in our area--they want to be serious about volleyball. They are going to practice every day, travel every weekend--they told parents kids shouldn't be playing other sports...which really chafes my shorts, by the way--look, I coach college ball, so I'll give my opinion straight--go ahead and play all the sports you want, be in band and madrigals, if you're good, you're good. They talk about drills and the seriousness of it.
So there's an obvious contrast in approach going on.
Last night's training (it's KILLING me to change my use of 'practice' to 'training'...but I'm trying):
HP Dynamic Warmup
3 courts with stations:
1: one with serving/Serve-Receive, going both ways, so we get a lot of reps
2: Quick discussion of what we call our sets, then hitting lines--with an easy swing to the hitter, so they transition and pass before they hit.
3: Review of team defense, then a couple hitters hitting balls at 6 people on defense so they learn by doing.
--Groups rotated every 15 minutes, so no one stood around much or had time to get used to a routine.
We then put two teams on two courts and:
First: Played 6 on 6, working on players initiating play, not the coaches--and making sure that the next ball was entering play as soon as the last was down/out/finished, so we kept a brisk pace going. Players not in were responsible for counting balls--every 5, a person switched in on the fly (like hockey). The intent was to get a bunch of swings and using our set-designations while also playing team-defense.
Last: We played 20 minutes of Speed Ball. This forced players to move around and still call sets--but also gave us serve receive practice using 3 people (our most likely formation)
HP Dynamic Cool-down
And then it was over. And then the players complained--not that it was boring or too easy. They complained because they didn't want to quit! They didn't think two hours could fly by that fast. Before they were out of the gym, one text-messages a friend that she'd missed an awesome evening (her friend was at her hs team's end-of-season banquet) and at least a dozen kids told their parents there "I can't wait for Thursday." And I don't think we would've got that running drills.
* * *
One of the coaches for our high school teams this year is a former LLCC athlete, all-conference, all-Region. Afterwards, she asked "Are you sending a list of drills for Thursday?" I said "Nope," and explained the intent (...something I SHOULD have done before tryouts with her and our other new coach--and I 100% pooched it....I hate screwing up).
We discussed the value of game-like situations and the value over drills, etc--and her response, "Why couldn't you have been that way as my coach five years ago?
It's rough to change your ways. I TOTALLY get that--but as adults involved in teaching--it's our responsibility to get better, to show young people we are working to be the best we can be, so we can help them be the best they can be.
Not sure how to create a practice like this--ask someone. I certainly haven't invented the wheel here. Get to a HP clinic, heck--send an email asking for help to the USAV people...but give it a try. It DOES work.
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