Goal Settting in Volleyball

Jim Brogan offers the 10 Steps to Success on his web site.

Attitude: Your attitude is the strongest (or weakest) aspect about you. It will determine your self-image and how well or poorly you do at everything. No more “I can’t”.

Goals: Succeeding and seeing results should be a lot easier if you know what YOU want. If you enjoy what you’re doing and you’re getting better, then you will want to do it more. The goals become even bigger and better.

Objectives: These are the “little things” that constantly focus your attention on the information that will make a difference. The benefits of attaining your objectives daily create a remarkable determination to reach your goals.

Organization: Once you are on the path to accomplishing your objectives and goals you will want to reach your outcome faster. The best in every class, in every sport and every area of life, learn that time is very precious; It needs to be used wisely.

Inspiration: It is inevitable; we all get knocked down physically and mentally. When you were just a baby you fell down but got back up, otherwise you would be crawling everywhere. However, mentally staying focused on your goals and objectives can be challenging at times; Don’t lose sight of “why” you want those goals.

Commitment: You will face challenges from friends, classmates, teachers even people you don’t know. It is GOING TO HAPPEN, you can plan ahead of time that there will be pitfalls. Top performers and successful people always embrace the pitfalls but stay committed to their goals.

Leadership: When you set out to accomplish something friends notice. It creates a level of confidence, courage and determination in you. Little by little, people start to see and wonder how they can get the same results. People start to follow!

Accountability: You have finally learned that, no more blaming your challenges, failures or circumstances on other people. If there is something to get done, a decision that needs to be made, or a challenge to meet, you have proven that you can do it. “If it’s going to be, it’s up to me”.

Good choices, Bad choices, it's up to you : So now your friends depend on you. They watch what you say and more importantly what you do; Your choices and decisions will impact many. Their is no “pressure” on you because you are so confident you can make your own choices as opposed to the group‘s choices.

Success system : If you follow the system you will reap the rewards!

Parental Controls - For the Coach

A high school or club coach’s career is full of challenges. Often times you’ll spend all your free time figuring out the strategy to beat the cross town rival. You might find yourself trying to connect with an athlete to get that fire in her game that you can see in her soul. Sometimes the challenge of the season is to get your schedule set early enough so that everyone knows they have practice tomorrow. The hardest test by far, however, is in handling the unhappy parents of athletes on the team. Surprisingly enough, regardless of the “problem” perceived by the parent, experience will tell you that parent management is relatively basic if you are prepared. There are four basic steps in the process. Skip one and you’ll find yourself painted in an ugly corner.

1. Set Ground Rules for the Team BEFORE Concerns Arise.

A. Your perspective drives your coaching style. Make sure you communicate to your parents and athletes, your philosophy and expectations on every aspect that is important to you. Especially in the areas of commitment, attendance, play time decisions, goals of the team. This is more commonly known as your coaching philosophy, only with details.

B. If a parent feels inclined to discuss a concern, draw out the procedure of approach. Depending on the age level or topic of discussion, a good order of process would involve:

Athlete addressing the issue with coach
-if the issue is not resolved-

Athlete and parent addressing issue with coach
-if the issue is not resolved-

Athlete, parent, coach meet with the club director/athletic director
If the parent or athlete have an emotionally driven concern, require a 24 hour wait period so that all parties concerned can arrange a congenial meeting rather than subject anyone to a ranting rampage.

C. Insist that the athlete is involved in the communication process. This ensures that everyone is hearing and understanding the situation, and involves the growth and development of the athlete as a person.

2. Listen to the Message (not the delivery)
Everybody is different. Some are more emotional than others in terms of their children. Others jump right into the accusatory mode of destroying their child. Luckily, some parents will come with the appropriate mentality of wanting to understand the decisions you make as a coach. Sift through the emotional display. Hold on to and only address the parent concerns that are appropriate to discuss. Refuse to discuss other players’ issues or attitudes with a parent. Get concrete facts of concern. Most areas of discussion include play time for the athlete or playing to win as a team. Be sure you have a pattern of consistency in these areas. No one has to agree with your policies, they only need to understand. Areas that should be of utmost importance include the physical safety of the players, illegal activities, or inappropriate actions that will reflect poorly on your program. Rumors are exactly that. Address facts only.

3. Mirror the Parent Concern

First and foremost, the parent needs to know his or her voice is being heard. As an adult, they have that right to respect. Even if you have to take notes, reflect to the parent what you understand is their concern. If the parent has concerns about items that cannot be discussed, let them know up front that you are not in a position to address that concern and explain (briefly) why.

4. Find the Calmest Ground

Concerns have 3 end results:

A. Address the issue at hand, explaining, from the coach’s perspective, why you have made the decisions that have upset them. They don’t have to agree, they only need to understand.

B. If you have refused to discuss a topic (IE another player’s play time) and the parent won’t let it go, suggest they contact your club director/athletic director. Their job is to support you and protect the program. If your boss wants to change the rules, then so be it. However, more often, the parent will find a dead end there as well.

C. Agree to consider their concerns. Believe it or not, sometimes as coaches, we forget things or inadvertently neglect situations to which we should be attending. You don’t need to admit to any short-sightedness, but the offer of reconsidering your thoughts in a situation can at least leave the parent feeling respected whether you change anything or not. Always contact the parent with a follow up conversation or email to communicate the result of your reconsiderations.

It cannot be said enough that the parent, athlete, and coach perspective of the team’s management are three completely different views. The parent and athlete perspectives are legitimate personal opinions and should be addressed respectfully. However, in the end, it is the coach’s perspective that controls the program. Certainly as a coach, we’ve made mistakes, but they are our mistakes for which we must take responsibility and learn.

How Should a Volleyball Captain(s) be Decided?

In the Army, Air Force, Navy, or any Military Force there are always leaders of troops. These generals, lieutenants, and captains are selected by their time in the service, their physical stability, and they are required to take a responsibility test. After all these test, there is another process with higher ranked officers discussing if the potential candidates ability to lead. This process can very easily be translated onto the volleyball court when the decision of who should be the team captain(s).

Coaching Factors in Selecting a Captain

If the coach is the one to make the decision, he or she may very well take into consideration all the requirements that the military takes. The coach will look for someone who has played the game for a long time or has been playing for his or her team for a few seasons. The coach will look at their skills on the court hopefully showing physical talent in every aspect of the game: hitting, serving, setting, passing, blocking, digging, and so forth. Now there may not be a paper exam of responsibility like the military has but the coach will find someone who can be responsible for all the teammates both on and off the court.

The coach will have a good player(s) in mind to be the team captain(s), but is it the coach’s responsibility? Does the power rest in the decision of the people like a democracy? The point being, should the team players decide who they want representing their team and leading them into the battlefield of volleyball competition? If the coach were to choose someone that the team may not get along with or believes they should not be the captain, will the team respond to the captain when he or she is trying to motivate the team or assist them in a game or at practice? With this in mind, if the players of the team choose who they want to be their captain they most likely will respond to the leader better than if the coach picked someone the teammates will not follow.

Best Player or Best Leader?

With the power of who becomes captain in the player’s hands, will the vote just become a popularity contest? Will the team just pick the person who is the best hitter assuming that hitting is the most important aspect of volleyball? Will they pick the player who has the highest status in school or outside of school? Are the players educated enough to know what a true leader is and what responsibilities in lie in being the team captain? All these aspects come into play when a player makes a decision on who their team captain should be.

So where does the decision lie? Who has the authority to pick who leads the team? Does the coach who hopefully has played the sport, been around a lot of different captains or has been the captain on a team decide the team leader? Or should the players who have to listen to the elected captain pick who they want to lead them? For some teams and clubs it is all different in the decision making of the team captain.

The Key Factor: Leadership

Hopefully whatever process is taken the coach or teammates take into consideration all the aspects that the military takes when they promote a solider to a higher rank. The captain will be selected by their time with the team, their physical stability, they are a responsible individual, but most importantly they have the ability to lead a team to victories.

Coach J

When your son or daughter comes home saying they now hate volleyball...

It is sometimes perplexing when your son or daughter is a complete volleyball junkie - playing all the time, watching it on TV, having a wide array of t-shirts that somehow have the word "volleyball" prominently displayed - comes home saying they now hate volleyball. Sure sometimes they could be just burned out, but sometimes there are other factors (social, team, coach, playing time) that could be involved.

Recently we heard the "I hate volleyball" statement after a practice. Sometimes a coach can be demanding and I thought this was the case. I offered this example...

Assume you are holding your favorite cat, a big Tomboy bruiser, who is loving, but every once in a while is not above taking a paw swipe at you just because he feels like. And, today Tomboy is in your harms, happy, purring and content. I was using a butane lighter to ignite the BBQ grill and the metal tip was now hot, and I pressed the hot tip against the inside of the back legs of Tomboy. Tomboy immediately scratches you, bites you and runs off. I then ask you, "How mad would you be at Tomboy?" You reoly, "I am not mad at Tomboy, I am mad at you because you did that to Tomboy."

I then say, "Instead of me, Tomboy and you, imagine that it is the coach, volleyball and you. Some coaches will use volleyball to get at you, whether to motivate you, or punish you, or just because they don't know better. Don't let volleyball be a tool in this dynamic. Recognize the situation, understand it, and keep loving volleyball."

"Ahh... I get it," is the reply.

Volleyball Club Coaches are Like Portfolio Managers

A parent recently was complaining that there really was nothing she could do if she didn't like a high school volleyball coach or volleyball club coach; that she was really at the whim and favor of the coach, who just happened to not be playing her daughter too much in tournaments.

I stated that a club volleyball coach is different from a high school volleyball coach in that a club coach is more like a portfolio manager. We entrust our valuable portfolio to the manager and pay him or her a fee to manage and improve the value of our portfolio for a specific time period, generally of 6 months.

At the end of this time period our daughters are returned to us, hopefully with more value (and hopefully they had fun) and skills than when we engaged the coach at the beginning of the season.

If they are, we consider retaining the same portfolio manager for next club season, and if not, we find a new manager.