Volleyball

Some observations on a season entering its third weekend as we ride our bus to God's Country (Iowa) and, in addition, to a chance to spend a weekend with volleyball, to see a couple of long-time friends.  Volleyball, friends...only thing that would make it better is if Julie, the puppies, and family were there, too!

*I was feeling a bit depressed yesterday--lack of sleep and basic exhaustion, mental and physical.  I have to watch for that--depression can take your mind and emotions in unhelpful directions.  It skews your weltanschauung.  (Yeah, that's right, I used 'weltanschauung' while discussing volleyball)  So in the middle of all this, Laura (my assistant)  comes up during a drill and says, "You know, you've been awesome this year with practices."  Not what I expected, so I responded with the eloquent "Huh?"  She then explained that she's liked some changes to drills, the warmups, etc.

A lot of the credit goes to John Kessel as well as Denise Sheldon for giving me the opportunity to do evaluations with USAV High Performance and then work with the Future Youth Selects in Vegas back in July.  You see, every coach has doubts about things--teaching ability, recruiting, whatever.  The time with HP confirmed some things to me in how I coach--and I've become more confident in those areas--and more sure that I'm right in my approach, too...something some of my players last year had me doubting unfortunately.

--You need to be specific, Jim.  (That's my inner English teacher speaking...correctly, I might add.)

Since the first time I heard Kessel talk, about four years ago at the AVCA Coaches Convention, I realized that I'd been approaching coaching wrong.  I KNEW I was wrong, knew what I was doing wasn't working optimally, but I didn't realize how to improve.  That seminar gave me my 'A-ha!' moment.  In Vegas, I got to see how those principles are applied at the highest skill levels (regardless of age).  I knew, but didn't know, that this was practiced as well as preached.

*If it's good enough for national-level programs, I'm stealing it for my team.  I did that with the dynamic warmups, the shoulder pre-hab to avoid injuries.  It's been good.  We haven't had any serious shoulder soreness, fewer injuries, and our trainer loved the dynamic warmup--thought I'd been studying up (I told her the truth though)

*The doubt I have about this current season remains--did I increase the schedule's toughness too much?  We dropped two tournaments with weaker teams, replacing them with this weekend's tourney and then another two weeks from now...in those eight matches, it is possible we'll play SEVEN NJCAA Top-8 teams, and the eighth team has a win over a D-1 Top 15 team.  When you play a schedule like that, you can lose quite a bit--and I hate losing.  A lot.

But there's the catch--how much better are you by playing weaker teams?  So I decided to follow the lead of teams like Illinois or Iowa State--we're going to schedule the equivalent of Long Beach or Stanford.  Those matches will prepare us for the post-season.  Could it keep us out of the national polls?  Yup.  I suspect if we make the polls, it won't be until October as the post-season nears.

*Are kids tough enough to deal with a ton of losses?  We are 3-5 right now, but we've lost to a couple ranked D-1 schools, another D-1 who WILL be ranked (since they've started the year 10-0), a top 10 D-2 team, another who'll be ranked this next week.  We beat D-2#14 in there with our wins, and one of those D-1 losses was actually and truly due to an official and not the teams involved. So we are playing well.  But can young athletes handle that?

I think the answer is yes.  Many players lose a ton of games during their club seasons--playing teams with accumulations of awesome talent.  How is this different....other than a W/L record is officially kept?  To me, it is the same thing. But I know there are examples of teams who lose out there that self-destruct, turn on each other or the coaching staff, and through that negativity/drama, destroy their chance at greatness--unable to look past the scoreboard for a match or two (in matches that are irrelevant--only region matches count for us for post-season standings and these have not been region matches)

*If the answer is no, and we DO have issues with the loss total, what then?  The answer is--steady on course.  I know we're on the right path, so I have to make sure we don't waiver and doubt.  That'll be critical.

*I received a list of academic-honored schools in the mail this week.  We aren't on it.  But I was annoyed by the list, seeing some of the schools.  Why annoyed?  Because I know kids who have transferred to those schools from LLCC--and while they struggle for "C" grades at LLCC because LLCC really does push for academic excellence (really!), they then go to those other schools and pick up 4.0 GPAs taking/retaking the same classes, then those schools get honored for being so awesome academically, when really--the kids are getting a grade, but not an education.

When did that happen?  It sounds crotchety, but it wasn't when I was in college--it's a phenomena of the past 20 years, I think (for things other than basketball/football), and it goes beyond sports.  Tuition rates have gone up so much--I'd bet grade inflation has the same curve.  Oh well.

*Do I hurt my team's chances of success by switching systems?  By teaching players multiple positions?  The educator in me says it is my responsibility to teach them the game, and that means all positions, all skills.  Middles need to know how to pass, setters to hit, etc.  Kids are forced to specialize way too early--so I have to provide the general fundamentals missed in jr high/high school.  The problem is that the competitor in me wants to win, hates losing.  How do I balance that without stressing myself out too much?

Well there you go...random bus musings from I-55.  Four hours to game time.  I don't know how the score will go--but I'm hoping we improve on last weekend--fix the errors, improve the good points.  Small, steady steps forward...