Things I've Learned Coaching Volleyball

I've done something like this before, but as we approach the end of pre-season, I thought I should remind myself:

1. You don't win as an individual in a team sport.  The team wins and everyone is part of that.
2. Much like theater, there are no small roles--only small people.  The player who succeeds in very specific circumstances is just as important as the player in for six rotations.  Strive for a bigger part, but take care of business for the sake of the team.
3. Sports are better when you are having fun.
4. Coaches need to be grateful for what they have--for D-1 coaches complaining about flying commercial, remember me sitting on a charter bus...and I haven't forgotten the D-3 coaches driving vans OR the high school teams on school buses with no leg room and no A/C on 90-degree days.
5. Young people learn better by doing, not just standing and being lectured.  I need to continue to teach using different ways.
6. In a successful season, I learn as much from my players as they learn from me.
7. This year I've already learned that I *can* change.  It's hard breaking habits, but it's not bad or wrong to do so.
8. For every coach out there who is win-at-all-costs and willing to cut corners, there are a dozen doing it for the right reasons, maybe more.
9. Volleyball is a game.  It can help teach life lessons, but it is not life. 
10. Stand behind a cart if throwing/hitting balls that will be hit back hard...safety tip #54 right there.
11. It is possible to work, get a ton of stuff done, AND have fun at the same time.  Done wrong, you can work, not have fun, and not accomplish anything.
12. You win with people.  You can have a ton of talent, but if the talent won't work, won't be a team...you won't win.
13. I'm not going to be a billionaire this lifetime.
14. I need more confidence.  I need to realize I'm actually semi-competent as a coach...that I have//can/will make a difference to people.  It won't change the world drastically, but in time...oh yes, in time....
15. The players I've had trouble with inevitably have troublesome parents.
16. At crunch time, I didn't compromise my ethics/integrity--not at Satan's School for Girls and Boys and not in building LLCC's program.  Programs can have success with integrity--it doesn't need to be one or the other.

http://www.championshipproductions.com/cgi-bin/champ/p/Performance-Training/The-Human-Side-of-Coaching_GB-00939.html  --Call me biased, but I think this is a great book for coaches written by me (see? Now you get my bias).  Don't expect magic drills...this is about working with parents and administrators, using teaching theory (even if you aren't a teacher) to improve training, and even how to work with multi-sport athletes.  Most important--it's easy to read!

20 years ago, this week...NOT a good day (but with a good ending)

Twenty years ago was my last season involved with Ohio State volleyball and working as a D-1 coach (though I didn't know that would be the case...)  For OSU, that was a great season--led by a solid group of seniors, OSU won 35, won the  Big Ten, and reached the Final Four....I still have my Final Four ring.

Now, to be clear--I love Jim Stone.  He is a great mentor, a good friend, and has been since I started out there back in '92.  This isn't about him--I remained loyal to the OSU program until he retired.  I still root for the men's volleyball team because I feel Pete Hanson and Tim Embaugh are good people running a classy program--but that's the extent of my loyalty to that school.

You see, twenty years ago this week, the academic side of Ohio State tossed me out.  If you're reading this, you probably know me.  I'm not an idiot.  I'm a decent writer and frankly, I'm a pretty damned good teacher--whether it is English, History, or even Psychology.  No offense to anyone, but I've never met a better U.S. history teacher.   I need to go a little further with this--in terms of writing, I've done some novels, some articles, and even presentations.  I've written historical games.

This is NOT to go "Oh, wow, Jim, you are so wonderful...."  I merely want to show some credentials.
Because it was this week that Allan Millett, Joan Cashin, and James Bartholomew, my PhD committee, unanimously failed me on my doctoral exams.  The funny thing is--Millett, my advisor, told me that was going to happen in advance.  Twice actually.

The second time was in December of 93.  He said "If you don't quit working with the volleyball team, you won't pass your exams no matter what you do."

Professors have no rights on my free time.  If I turn in 'A' quality work (my GPA was 3.85, so yes, I was turning in 'A' work), then if I want to spend my time from 2-5 calculating hitting percentages, serve-receive numbers, and entering freeballs into drills--that's my business, right?  I wasn't skipping class or anything else.

Nope.  I was naïve.  Life doesn't work that way.  I knew it from the first question I was asked.  My fields were Tokugawa Japan, US Military, and Modern US History, so the first question I was asked--discuss the difference in opinion between Churchill and Atlee related to British efforts against Japan.   Hmmmm...Tokugawa Japan is gone by the 1800s and Churchill/Atlee aren't American.  Great....I didn't study the right things.

After the smoke cleared, I was told I knew little about history and that my writing was so deficient that I offered no hope of passing an advanced degree (never mind that I already held an M.A. in Composition/Writing)

When it was done, I called Stone.  He said he wanted to have a beer to celebrate....but I'd told him if I was more than 60 minutes late, the news would be bad.  It was 90 minutes.  He was stunned that they did it.  I think at the time he felt guilty--somehow partially responsible.  He wasn't. It was absolutely my choice and because of my time in his program, I'd make the same choice again for what I learned on that court.  Probably good he met me--in those hours, I learned to empathize with those stories of grad students going on shooting binges.  I thought about it--I can't lie.

Hard to believe that was 20 years ago.

But it ended well.  I realized that day that I need to teach--in a classroom or a gym.  I don't want to be a bully picking on grad students because I was picked on myself when I was a student.  History is NOT about memorizing little nuggets of trivia.  It's about critical thinking, it's about applying the past to the present, about knowledge of other cultures and times.  History can bring others to life if taught well.

Yes, it ended well.  I moved back 'home' (because it wasn't quite home yet) to my wife pregnant with our first child and here, I had the chance to teach for a few colleges, coach at Satan's School for Girls and Boys and now Lincoln Land.  I've helped 100+ young people succeed in college or found them scholarships--I've seen them grow into doctors, accountants, moms, dads, state troopers, combat medics, writers, artists.  None of that would have been possible without Millett's ego driving me away.

That choice helped make me a better person--because it made me know how it felt to be incredibly bullied--I learned the difference between instructing and teaching. 

Without their decision--I don't get 4+ novels published, start Jolly Roger Games, coach volleyball at a high level (or get to work with USA High Performance).  No Jolly Roger--no trip to see the Scorpions in concert in Germany, no meeting guys like Alan Moon, Richard Launius, Jason Matthews.

Yeah, this is all a rant, disjointed.  But seriously...life is not easy.  It WILL suck from time to time.  But it is how we deal with the adversity that determines who we are, who we become.  I survived it.

And still got to teach history AND coach volleyball.

(Now if I could just remember all the seniors off that '94 team....Laura, Jenny, Carrie, Gabi...Tricia(?)....sigh, the memory fades a little down the road.

Volleyball and the Power Puff Girls

The last post I wrote was about friends and an appreciation that comes with time.  So when I put my computer away in the bag, went to meet my daughter, I heard something thwap the side of the bag.  I don't normally think about it--it's normal because on the side of the bag, I've got a keychain, given to me fourteen years ago.  It looks like this:

That's right--it's Mojo Jojo from the Powerpuff Girls.  It's been with me everywhere I've gone.

Back at the end of the 2000 volleyball season at Satan's School for Girls and Boys, we had senior night for the team's three seniors: Beth, Emily, and Stacey.  At the time, the players also wound up getting something for me as coach--usually a funny tie (I still have them all...), but in this case they also got me the Mojo keychain because each of the seniors received a keychain as well--a different Powerpuff Girl for each of the three.

I asked "Why am I getting Mojo Jojo?" (which caused some surprise initially that I'd know who he was...sometimes high schoolers forget that coaches are often parents...or maybe just like cartoons). 

The answer came from junior Jody, "Because you're their pimp daddy."
Fair enough.

The thing is--fourteen years later, all three seniors still have their keychains, too, though because they've been used as regular keychains, they've all had the paint worn off.  I think only mine has the paint on it still, but I'm not sure.  Think about it--little one-dollar trinkets, given as a senior night gag really, and more than a decade later--everyone still has theirs. 

I think that says something about the whole team--and just as importantly the bond between those seniors (one of the two most successful groups to play at SSGB) and between players and a coach.

It is a great memento of a wonderful season.  (You can read more about it in my coaching book here....)  But I like it not just because of the season, but because of those three seniors and what they've done since that point.

Emily: Physician and mother of two.
Beth:   Department Head at a community college, mother of one.
Stacey: CPA and mother of two.

Successful women professionally and happy in their personal lives--everything a coach could ever want for his players.

An appreciation of friends

So yeah...been a while since I had the time and wherewithal to write a blog entry. 
I had an interesting conversation with my daughter today about friendships--interesting questions.

How do you define friendship?  Can it be defined--or is it "it just is".  
Does age matter?  Does gender?
Can you stay friends with people you've dated or "liked"?

The funny thing is I know a -ton- of people, I'm friendly with about 98% of those and at one level those are 'friends'.  There's not a word to describe them other than that--and they are people I DO care about--past players and coaches (Laura, Kelly), some former students and a couple staff from Satan's School for Girls and Boys, the people I work with at Lincoln Land, etc.

But then there's an inner circle of friends--for lack of a better way of putting it.  I think that that's a function of time as much as anything else.  When I look at that inner circle, the length of time I've known those people tells a tale:
Baron:  40 years
Dave:   29 years
Erik:     30 years
Eric:     39 years
Larry:   32 years
(And then the 'youngster'--Mrs. Dietz):
Julie:    24 years

And none of that is meant as a slight to other good friends--it just shocked me how long I've known the friends closest to me--which is probably a function of everyone getting older, I suppose.  But how do you explain that to your daughter--someone who hasn't been alive half as long as some of those friendships have existed?  Since she went to Uni--she's only really known the same set of people for 4-5 years....no friendship can run that deep when it's such a short amount of time.

I think that is especially important with dating relationships--now that I'm older and MAYBE wiser.  Kids always seem to think they have a perfect relationship, everything's so intense because it's all new--but only time can assure the friendship sticks, puts down roots so to speak for the long run.  I want to laugh--because I suspect my mom understood that even though it was never discussed.  So now I have to wait 15/20/30 years before my kids go "Hey, dad..." with an insight into friendship...and then I can whip out a link (or whatever we'll do in 2044) to this and say, "Ah, hah!" and point out my wisdom for their benefit.

All that's a long way around saying I'm blessed with a great circle of friends.  I should probably tell them they are appreciated more often--then again, that'd probably get me ridiculed and taunted (I've known these guys a long time...)

But really--how do you define friendship, something unique in a relationship between two people?

Uni High: A rough mileage calculation...

So today, Brigitte graduates from Uni.  It's a bittersweet day--because it was only yesterday that she was five-years old, dressing up for Halloween as a fairy princess, etc, or sitting on my lap along with her brother as we watched Star Wars movies and stuff like that.

After getting let go from Satan's School for Boys and Girls, we had the kids go to a different school for a couple years, but unfortunately (and it is a different issue) the academics available to our oldest children, weren't up to snuff--and the attitude of the administrator at the time was unacceptable.  That's how we wound up with the commute to Uni.

People've asked for a long time about the cost and everything--but Uni doesn't charge tuition.  The real cost came in time and gas money (we can never replace time, just make sure we invest it wisely--and Uni was a wise use of time...)   When Erick graduated, I figured out the mileage, but I've forgotten since then...so why not calculate the whole shebang?

IMPORTANT INFO FOR THIS:
Distance from home to Uni:  66 miles
EIU to Uni 35 miles
32 weeks of school/5 days per week = 160 days
Absences due to illness cancel out weekend days added due to sports = 0 days
Extra days such as prom, Homecoming, and Theatre = 5-10 days/year

For nine weeks/year (45 days)--I do the driving. (28.125% of miles)
For three weeks/year (15 days)--I drive but have to go SPFLD->Champaign->home (9.375%)
For twenty/ weeks/year (100 days)--Julie did the driving. (62.5% of miles)

My mileage = up+back = 132 miles.   132 x 45 = 5940
The spring practice schedule = 156 x 15 = 2340
Eight years total = 66240

Julie's drive = 66 + 35 + 35 + 66 = 202 miles x 100 days = 20,200
Eight years total = 161600

So the total mileage = 227840, not including extra trips to sporting events in the evening and such.

Cost:  My car gets 25 mpg/hwy, so 66240 / 25 = 2649.6 gallons of gas.  If we assume a rate around 3.40/gallon (ballpark estimate over past eight years), gas cost = 9008.64

Julie's car gets 44 mpg/hwy, so 161600 / 44 = 3672.7 gallons of gas.  Cost = 12487.27

Totals now:
227840 miles
$21,495.91 (gas)

Oil changes...if done every 4,000 miles, I needed 16 oil changes due to the drive, Julie required 40.  56 oil changes at $45/visit (trying to factor in wear on other components, etc).  This is another 2520.00 of cost.

227,840 miles
$24,015

Ok--before including "time" into this--the financial cost of this is $24,015 in maintenance on the car.  We should then add $30,000 to it--because once you get over 200,000 miles on a car, you're looking at ultimately needing another.  Erick went to Uni from Fall 2006 until Spring 11.  Brigitte graduates now, so there were two years of overlap (thus the eight years).

Cost per year (basic):  $3001.87
Just on that--is it worth the education they received?  Absolutely.  Heck, count the overlap as double-value and the cost drops to $2401.50/year.  Even better.

Now lets add that new car on.  That makes the 'cost' $54,000 (we'll round it off).

Cost/year now: $6750.00
Cost/year (doubling up): $5400

Think about the tuition rates at private schools (Lutheran, Satanic, or whatever).  If you do not practice that same faith--those numbers are well within the range of tuition costs.  The cost at Sacred-Heart Griffin in Springfield is $7,925/year.  Davenport Assumption is $6,910 (with a subsidy if you are Catholic).  ..and remember, we've built a $30k car purchase into my cost-assessment!


But what about time?  Two adults driving.  If we presume 60mph, it is a total of 3797 man-hours behind the wheel.  We can value that at $15/hour--so the money-cost of that time is $56,955.
That expense would add:

+$7119/year to costs, so that we'd be looking at:

Cost/year: $13,869
With doubled-up years: $12,519

$12,519/year x 8 years = $100,152 total expense.

Of course, adding in those man-hours is unfair.  It's 500 hours/year...but it was time in a vehicle with my children (or for Julie), time spent talking and discussing and listening to music together--not time staring at a TV or isolated from one another.  Think about families you know--do those families spend 2-3 hours together actually talking, etc every day?  That's why including that cost is unfair.  I enjoyed those hours--whether talking about movies, music, or our attempts to go the entire drive while only using one syllable words AND discussing issues like Whorf's Linguistic Hypothesis as we do it.  Yeah, there's a cost to spending that time driving to/from school, but those hours with the kids...priceless.

Whew.   Glad to have calculated that.

Maybe next time I'll calculate my OTHER driving for Lincoln Land....I swear, I'm in the wrong life--I should've been a long-haul trucker...

High School Teaching (A Decade Gone now...)

This week is the ten-year anniversary of me being fired at Satan's School for Girls and Boys.  It's a bittersweet thought because I loved teaching high school.

Of course, if that doesn't happen, I never get to teach/coach at Allen County or coach at LLCC, and if not at LLCC, no trip to nationals, no AVCA membership and conventions, or presentation and book.  It's not like it's been ten years of misery by any means.

On the other hand, ten years at SSGB and I'd have 400+ wins and, I'd put $50,000 on this--there would've been at least four trips to State during that time.  A pity the total still stands at zero because there've been some good players through the SSGB program.  Feh--that's whining and we do not have the ability to go back and change things--and as I noted in a different blog, change something in the past and you're going to eliminate a bunch of good things that come down the road. 

It doesn't change my feelings though--it's despicable for a superintendent to remove a faculty member because someone's dad threatens to stop donating to the school because of a grade or playing time.  If you are a Catholic institution, you should always, always, place integrity and ethics above money.  That's a life lesson--there's always more money, always fundraising, but once you compromise your morals, there's no getting those back.

I hope my former students, former players, realize that.  It makes it funny when I get accused of lying or being unethical/inappropriate.  Because it's lying.  I've got a bazillion faults--those ain't them. 

I gave 100% teaching. 100% coaching.  I'm proud of where those students have gone, what they are doing--whether it is starting a family, working on a doctoral exam, working in the family business, or serving in the armed forces.  I tried to make you work hard because that's what brings success in life.  I tried to model ethics and integrity, so that when you got into your careers, you would also be known as someone worthy of trust.

The best?  You're all so different--music lovers, readers, family men/women.  I love Facebook so I can see what you are all up to--even if I don't ever do more than (lamely) click "like".  As a teacher, I am absolutely proud of all of you.  I just hope that with 10-15 years of perspective, you found the work I asked of you to have been worthwhile.