Moving Forward Always

  Moving forward always.

I am quite excited about our athletes this week.  We had  Monday off all together, playing 5 matches on the weekend plus some travel it was a good break for the team.  Tuesday though we return with a vengeance.  The athletes had a weight session with our strength coach.  Here was the final part of our testing and Chloe max squatted 240lb.  The rest of the returning group had made significant improvement.  The team as a whole came back in decent shape.

Tuesday continued with a small group session with passers, talking about the minor adjustments that are needed depending on where the opposition is serving.  There have been a few studies that have determined passing and it relationship to the body of the passer.  Midline is still the most efficient and it is something that we want our athletes to work towards.  An athlete is way stronger directly in front of her core.  The next efficient is passing off left side of the body.   I believe if you have to take a ball outside your shoulders a player has more room for error on the left side of the body.  The last is passing to the right.  A player still needs to rep passing on the right side of their body, because volleyball is such a random sport.  Teams can adjust their serve reception to make it harder for opposition to serve this.

Another small group worked with Ashley on blocking, closing the block to the right side or setter.  She also worked with the outside blocker to reach back into the seam.  We need to get much wider with our hands on blocking.  At times it looks like we are diving into water with our hands on top of each other.

Then Tuesday ended with an hour presentation by Bobbi Schram on nutrition, pre and post game. What we can control and what we can’t.  It was full of useful information. Quite a few of the athletes new the information now it is just to put it into action.  As a coaching staff we decided we can control the 30 minute window of replenishing energy.  Bobbi suggested a granola bar that has Carbs and protein listed on the label.  WE have bought a bunch of the bars and will hand them out to the team after the match.  When thinking about this, we would be hard pressed to get back to the hotel in the 30 minutes.  This is one area that we can control.

Last weekend Becky Young had her first CIS head coaching victory.  Against TRU we decided that Becky should be the head coach for that match.  Becky was our team MVP last year, she has played alongside a few of these athletes for awhile. WE thought that by making her head coach for a few matches in preseason it would help establish her as a coach.  Second it gave me a chance to watch her coach and give her some feedback of what I believe is happening.  Third at Brandon University the faculty has the potential to go on strike within the next month.  If this happens as a member of the faculty I won’t be allowed to participate in any coaching activities.  So Becky and Ashley will log the majority of the work, with Kevin and Derek mentoring them and helping out when they can. 

Kevin is working hard at Neelin high school plus he is coaching the JV volleyball team.  He is training this team like an university.  I am positive that they have had more practices than most university teams in Canada.  So with that kind of commitment it is hard for him to make it consistently.  Derek has been coaching year round for 5 years.  This past summer the Western Canada Summer games went long into August.  Derek needs a break.  It wouldn’t be fair to him to pressure him to come back in full time.  He would do it but it wouldn’t be good for him.  If the strike happens Becky and Ashley get the reins. The good news is they both have been coached by some excellent coaches...we get a chance to see if any of stuck.

Lots of learning

Pre-season is a great time and a very frustrating time. 

We just completed our first exhibition weekend at U of R.  We ended up 2 wins and three losses.  The tempo if the play in the matches were very streaky.  It is not really a good example of the level of play that our league is at.  For our young athletes it was an eye opener.  Our goal this weekend was to play everyone a lot,  we accomplished this and were able to see some different things in each player.  Consistency will come, but for now we need to refine our team ideas.

The two weeks leading up to the Regina tournament we worked on just putting in some basic systems so we could look the part of a team during this tournament.  We worked primarily on what responsibilities we have on defensive end.  We also worked on what to call specific sets, so the setter and attackers would be on the same page. We also worked a bit on serving.  I think that we serve well, I was happy with the improvement of our serving skills.

The interesting thing about volleyball is that the game is so random.  To introduce systems usually we talk in predicable terms.  If the middle does this then we do that.  But volleyball is not black and white; it tends to be played more in the grey.  The middle came 31 but the setter was pushed back so it is further inside, do I help block or release??? The play is a scramble and the ball is set and out of nowhere an attacker has a full approach, do I block?

There is so many little intricacies that a player learns over their five years that are hard to teach.  I compare it to catching a fly ball in baseball.  You can explain what to look for and demonstrated it, but it isn’t until they have seen thousands of fly balls does it become natural and people don’t have to think about where it is going.  The same pattern of development for defense and serve reception in volleyball occurs.  Often we hear coaches ask why can’t they see that.  The reason is because as a coach we have watched hours upon hours of volleyball.  I remember as a starting coach, watching a practice and Keith Hansen from Red Deer asked me what I thought the trouble was with a player’s arm swing.  I used the stand by…low elbow, but the truth was the arm was too fast I couldn’t see it.  After hanging out in his practice for a couple of months suddenly bang, I could see the arm, my vision had caught up to the game and I was able to identify errors. 

Ever since that day, I try to remind myself during pre-season to talk a lot about vision.  What are the clues we look for?  When I was first introduced to the game we used to explain to our team that they needed to be stopped on arm swing of the attacker.  I find that our team is always moving still when the ball is contacted.  Now WE say stop on the jump.  That will then have us actually stopped for the contact of the ball. Then when stopped we can identify traits of the attacker.  Teaching young athletes to forget about the ball and watch the surroundings is a tough concept.  When we did it this past weekend we were good.

As a team we need to understand that it is a long season, still a month till we play.  We need to spend more time and energy learning the game and building confidence in our skills within the game.  This week we will focus on playing the game out of system.  If we can cut down on the number of unforced errors we will win more matches. 

Last weekend we asked the team to swing hard, we need to hit the ball harder more often, so with that came a lot more balls being hit out of bounds. As a coaching staff we need to just suck up that error and reward them for taking the risk to hit hard.  Eventually they will find the court with that pace.  Just need more opportunities.  Next weekend is U Of W tourney another opportunity to improve.

Preseason Starts

Friday our first preseason competition will start.  We are playing in the Cougar Invitational Tournament in Regina.  This will be the first opportunity that our team has to compete.  It will give the coaching staff a chance to evaluate the players in game situations.  

We have decided to not dress one of our fifth year players this weekend.  Claire is coming off a shoulder surgery this summer, and has just started to go full out this past week.  We feel the volume that players will get this weekend will only lengthen her recovery time.  

Also  truth be known I am so competitive, our goal this weekend is to play the younger athletes and let them get some experience at the CIS level.  WE will need everyone to play at some point in the season and there are only so many opportunities to get the younger players some minutes.  So back to me being competitive, as we get into the tournament sometimes I find myself coaching for the win and play our vet’s way more than I originally planned.  So not dressing them eliminates that opportunity for me. Our young players are extremely athletic, but as a coach I understand the older players and know what they bring to the table. So a bit of a comfortable feel to play them.

WE have spent the last two weeks working on systems and basic skills within the systems in order to have some sort of team feel to this tournament.  I am a firm believer that if the skill is completed relevant to how it will be used in the match, the better it will transfer to the game.   So for example blocking movement is more relevant when they know that they are expected to help on the middle and then get to the outside.  Also they will find the most efficient movement for them if the game plan changes and we spread our blockers a bit more and need to move back in to help on the middle.

This tournament features 8 Canada West teams.  In our pool is Manitoba Bisons, Thomson River wolf Pack and the host Regina Cougars.  Regina is a perennial top ten team and is one of the oldest teams in the league this season, they will have big expectations for the year.   Manitoba are always ranked in the top ten in the Nation as well, but they have had a large turn over this year.  They will have the same feel to their team as we do with two fifth year players and a couple of 2nd and third plus 6 freshman. Both Kristi Hunter and Tricia Mayba the Bison's fifth years played on the FISU team this summer. with all the trash talking I did in jest this summer about them being Bison's I am sure they will bring their A game. 

The other pool consists of University of Alberta Panda’s, Calgary Dino’s, Winnipeg Wesmen and Saskatoon Huskies.  Alberta has been at nationals the last two years and return everyone from those teams, except for one player.  Calgary also returns a veteran filled team.  The quality of the competition is why we want to play our younger players.  So they get a true feel of what the league is about and understand the level we need to train at.

Of course every team goes in with the hope of winning the tournament, and the tourney is used to help with national rankings for the start of the year.  Instead of setting result goals( medal) our goals is that we want to finish on the positive side of the plus minus.  Potential plus points are kills, blocks, aces.  Potential minus points are errors (Hit out or into net, being blocked), missed serves, being aced and ball handling errors. For us our goal is more team plus points than team minus points.  This will be the first explanation of managing the ball. It will be fun!

Retreat and Standards

This weekend we took a huge step with our team.  We had a quick 7 hour retreat on Sunday.  We met with our leadership coach Dr. Skinner at 1pm.  He then went over our team values.  These are the things that are mentioned in the last blog (Team-First, Loyalty and Honour).  With each of those three values Dr. Skinner went around the room asking different players to define what they mean and to give an example.  He broke it down to game, practice, school, social life.  It was great to see some freshman players speak up about their experiences.  The interesting topic was Honour.  It is not a word that a lot of the athletes associate with a team concept.  In Brandon, the university women’s volleyball team are considered one of the top female role models in the area.  A little reminder to them to be aware of what they do in public and pictures they post on their facebook page...etc  Everyone is watching a judging, you are a Bobcat.

After this session they split into groups and participated in a digital scavenger hunt. The scavenger hunt is a great way for the new athletes to get to know where everything is in the city.  It is also a chance for everyone to make a bit of a fool of themselves in front of each other.  This will help break down barriers between fifth years and first years.  Some of the pictures were; posing as a mannequin in a store window, spelling cats out with your body, riding a ride in the mall, sitting on a slide, air banding (word from the 80’s) on a stage...

Then we came back to our meeting room and split into groups, they then worked their way through 10 questions.  These questions were to show each other’s personality and a chance to understand each other.  One of the questions was “what is a fear you have for this season?”  The fifth year athletes both said “it their last one” a couple of freshman said letting down the older girls. I felt it was a great bonding activity, plus they found out a lot about one another. 

Next we had to compete.  We decided on spoons the Card game.  We broke the team into groups of 5. Then put out 4 spoons.  You then have five sets of numbers.  All four suits of the aces, all four suits of the Kings...  Shuffle them up and then deal out.  Every person passes one card at a time to their left.  When someone gets all four of a kind they grab a spoon.  Once one spoon is grabbed the rest grab a spoon.  The last one to grab the spoon gets a letter.  It was a lot like horse in basketball.  The game started out fairly quiet and tame, but after five minutes people were cheering and screaming.  After 20 minutes we stopped and debriefed the game.  We asked the athletes if it was a fun card game, then how you could tell it was fun.  They were cheering and competing. One player actually shoved another player out of the way to make sure she wasn’t left without a spoon.  We then asked them how we can transfer that to the volleyball court. If volleyball is suppose to be fun, why don’t we play the match like we do the card game.  Of course playing CIS there is more at stake for the athletes and coaches than a fun volleyball game, but I think the message of celebrating success and bringing positive energy did get through.

Then Dr. Skinner came back and went through the values again.  This time he was asking for negative examples, things that teams have seen in the past.  It was a very open session that was important for us. 

After this we wanted to leave the room with 8 -10 Standards, actions that we want to have as our baseline for behaviour this season.

Brandon University Bobcat’s Standards for 2011 – 2012 Season

Being on time Be an positive energy creator	This shows you value your teammates time as much as your own
Take care of yourself (physically, mentally, spiritually)	Value workouts, nutrition, time away from team.
Commit to team ( School, Culture, Weight..ect)	Ask your self does this help us get better?
Hard work	Be ready to practice every day, do what you can to make us better
WE are this year’s team	Everyone comes from a different background, work hard to buy in to this team, not try to make this year’s group  your past teams.
Respect	Coaches, players, staff, opponents, league, community
Ask for Help, or intervene if help is needed	Team is more powerful together; don’t let things get out of control.  Issues that come up we will confront quickly.
Stay in the moment	Work hard to be present on each play, conversation.
Make it memorable	Each player’s responsibility to get involved in the team.  To get to know everyone on the team.  Create memories

Then after the classroom session we went to a players house for a team BBQ.  It was a fun time, everyone chipped in with the work and food was prepared and the chicken was cooked quickly.  It is September and everything is always roses, but right now I love the make up and personalities on our team.

Go Cats!

Defining Values

I had an interesting meeting with Dr. Tom Skinner.  Tom is a professor in the education faculty. He also is a former coach of Brandon University Hockey Team; he is the Head Coach of the Romanian National Hockey Team.  Tom is also heavily involved in Hockey Canada teaching sessions on leadership. 

When I found out the Tom was right at our school, I slowly started bothering him until he finally agreed to work with our team a little.  Now entering our fourth year together, Tom is heavily involved in the success of our team.

During our meeting we were discussing how we should conduct our team’s Standards meeting.  Standards are our values and actions that we feel we must have in order for the program to be successful and cannot run the program without.  So Tom challenged me, he asked me to define what  I feel my top three values are. He wanted me to explain my definition of each and give some positive and negative examples.

I think almost every coach will have the same variation of these values.  Mine are in no specific order, Team First, Loyalty and Honour.  The last two we painted in the team room on the wall.  This is reminding the team everyday what they are about.  

Team First; to me this means making decisions that have a positive effect on the team.  Players who consider the overall good of the team in all aspects of their life are team first players.  Examples of this would be when you are tired and not really having the energy to go and work on foot speed and plyo’s.  A team first person would make the decision to go and work out.  A good real life example is Tom Brady from the Patriots, after they won the superbowl the Patriots were invited to go to the White House.  The flight for the team was leaving at 7 am.  Tom was in the weight room working out at 4:30 because he knew he needed to get stronger for the team to repeat.  

Loyalty;  This one is very important.  For me this means that you will keep the trust of the team.  What happens within the team stays within the team.  All teams go through problems, but what you say outside to the community is important and positive.  It also means you will keep teammates accountable to hold up the standards.  It also means athletes will take time to mentor the younger players, make sure they all fit in and feel part of the team.  Negative actions are obvious here, talking about situations that happen within the team, complaining about playing time or coaches decisions forming cliques and not including everyone.  Not sharing information or your own knowledge of a specific situation.

Honour;  Is being a person who players can say I played alongside her.  Being classy when involved with the community, attending classes, volunteering for things outside sport.  In sport what one person does affects the whole team.  How often do we read in the papers, former athlete charged with…Instructors refer to students as that women volleyball player_________ insert name?  This means that one person’s behaviour in class and in the public will affects the team as a whole.  We try not to tell athletes how they should live their life, but if they tarnish their reputation it spreads to the whole team. A player is in the paper on television, so they are in the public eye. People watch for them and look for them to screw up. I tease the athletes that I find out how their weekend went before practice on Monday.  I was shopping once in the grocery store in Grande Prairie, and a sponsor told me my young first year setter was making out on the dance floor with the setter from the men’s team.  So Monday at practice I asked her how her new boyfriend was, and was he treating her well.  She was surprised to find out I heard about it already.  People like to show they are in the know so they’ll tell one of the coaches every time they see a person in public whether it is good or bad.

The last thought is memorable; For me I have learned that individuals are responsible for creating their own reality and being involved in the team helps create those memories.  Some athletes are shy and tend to be a bit of wallflowers, we need to find ways to get them involve so they create their own success and memories.

Those are the values that I hold dear, and I hope that my teams represent throughout the years.  I feel for the most part the teams have bought into this and the ones that don’t end up fading away.

Start up Chaos.

Welcome to University!

The first week of school is always an interesting one.  At Brandon University the coaches are part of the faculty and we have teaching workloads.  Technically, this year we have 1/3 time release for coaching.  Which means we need to fill 6 credit hours of teaching besides the coaching. 

Personally, I enjoy the classes I get to teach.  It also gives me a reprieve from thinking about volleyball for a short time each day. The first week of school is always helping lost students try to find classes, trying to build routines with the team.

With the team having 6 new players all the routines (practice, studying, weight training, sport psych, eating, shopping and individual meetings) need to be worked out.  
In the practices one of our routines, we always start the practice with a quick explanation of what is happening, give the athletes 20-30 seconds to center themselves and focus on volleyball.  Then we step into the center circle of the gym to Cheer In.  To us this is a symbolic gesture that you are totally committed to the team for the entire practice. At the end of practice we then cheer out.  Cheering has been an interesting topic around the coaches as of late.  To often the cheering is token, it is suppose to represent who you are or what is needed.  Does it always have to be Bobcats, or Cats as we often shorten it too?  Or should it be defense, or hard work, or a mixture of the two.  


Other routines are put in place as well; such as which type of shirt is worn on which day, who puts up and takes down the net, where to wait for the team ahead of us to finish practicing, and when to arrive for taping and treatments from the teams therapist, or even how to sign up for treatment.

Also we meet with the entire freshman group, to help plan an overall schedule for them for the first couple of weeks.  With Brandon University being a small school, we have limited choices in class times offered for the athletes.  Most of the new athletes are in Sciences this year so they have a large number of labs to go along with the regular classes.  This makes it incredibly hard to organize study hall, weight training groups, and other things that pop up.  Most of the athletes will also have at least one night class a year.  So even study hall in the evening is hard to get everyone there.  So we rely a lot on the maturity of the athlete to make their schedule and to stick with it. That is why we like to meet with the freshman to help them with their schedule. WE have them put in all of their classes and their major assignments from their course outlines.  Next they pencil in all of the volleyball commitments.  Then we ask them to schedule 1 hour of study for each hour of class they have that week. They then realize that all the free time they once thought they had disappears quickly. At the end of the two weeks we will go over the schedule again with them and see if more time is needed for different classes or if they need to schedule in a break in the middle of their studying.

WE also had our first image setting meeting.  This is a chance for the athletes to think about what they want our team to represent.  We had the athletes write down four characteristics that they feel make a good teammate.  Then they were asked to write two behaviors that are destructive to the team identity. The purpose of this is to get them thinking about being a teammate.

This time of year it is easy to be a good teammate, athletes are trying to figure out who everyone is and need to take time with each other.  Next weekend we have a retreat day, where we spend a lot more time investigating each other’s personalities.  We do have quite a few type A athletes on the team.  They like structure and schedules.  Then we have the opposite side, the players who love problem solving, experiencing new things, clumping everything together.  It is important that both of these learn to respect and tolerate the other.  It is a tough thing for new players.  Especially if they come from schools and clubs where everything is done for them, then life at BU where the responsibility is put on them is very different.  Our older athletes all went through it and have to be good mentors for the freshman.  This also helps build team chemistry... Coach K in his book Leading with the Heart, he writes that he doesn't let freshman have cars on campus their first year.  He likes this because they then have to ask the older players for rides to places they need to go.  It forces them to interact with the older athletes.  I believe our school's situation also accomplishes this.  There is always a positive in every situation.

Who we are! Where we play.

WE are the Brandon Bobcats. We play in the Canada West Conference in the CIS.  The CIS is Div 1 for Canada. There are 3 other Conferences in the CIS. Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic The Canada West Conference has 11 teams that compete in the conference.  4 teams in BC, 2 teams in Alberta, 2 in Sask, 3 in Manitoba.  We will play each team twice during the season.  We will then have 20 league matches from Oct 30- Feb 11.  For example we will fly to Vancouver to play defending national champs UBC, we will play them Friday night.  Then we will turn around and play them again on Saturday.  On opposite years they will travel to Brandon.

After the season we then have playoffs. The top 7 teams make the playoffs in our conference.  #1 ranked team will get a bye and the right to host the conference final 4.  The other 6 teams will play a best of three matches weekend at the highest ranked teams home.  Then the final four to determine the league champ and rankings for the Nationals.

This year Canada West Conference has 3 births at Nationals, so one team out of the final four will not make the National championship.  Canada West has won most of the national Championships in the last 25 years. With Quebec winning the two times that a Canada West team hasn't.

The Bobcat team will be on the young side this year.  We will have two fifth year players.  Leftside Jaryn Reuther and Middle Claire Willerton.  WE then have 3 third year players.  Starting setter Kellie Baker, Libero Lindsay Mclaughlin, and transfer Lexi Loewen.  We then have a tremendously athletic 2nd year group.  Middle Meaghan Robertson, who was on the Canadian rookie team. Middle Larissa Vonkeman who played big minutes for us at the end of last season.  Chloe Reimer who was our serving defensive specialist, who played some quality minutes at leftside as well. Chloe will be battling with Lindsay for the starting libero spot.  This will be a fun match up to watch. Tori Dakin a left side who we have big expectations for, who also showed flashes of brillance last year. 

This year we had a tremendous recruiting year, Niki Friesen a local athlete who jumps out of the gym. In the last testing Niki touched 10'1". She is one of the top outside attackers in Manitoba and arguably the country.  Shanlee Mclennan is another top recruit in Canada. Shanlee is a 6'1" left side attacker from Winnipeg. Shanlee and her partner won the Western Canada Summer Games Beach this August, so we know she is tall, athletic, and with good ball control.  Also rounding out the athletic outside attackers is Brianna Walsh from Calgary.  Brianna is a very athletic player who has a strong jump. Brianna is very cerebral, she understands the game at a different level.  Brianna grew up in a family of volleyball players, with her parents and her uncles and aunts being coaches and players.  So she has had the opportunity to learn the game at many different levels. Setting we have Jenna Poole from Winnipeg, Jenna has a strong quick release.  Jenna seems to be a very positive person who has a strong love for the game.  With her playing club with Niki the last season, there is a good comfort zone for both of them already. We also have another defensive specialist in Laura Popplestone.  Laura is another Brandon product who comes from a family of athletes.  Laura has played volleyball for many years, but she also played many other sports at the same time.  this is her first time focusing on one sport.  We are interested to see how she develops over this season. That is what I mean athletic recruiting class.  Last year was a strong class, but this group was stronger.  Our future looks bright for many years to come.

That is the basic make up of our team, young but extremely athletic.  I know we are going to be right in the thick of the playoff hunt again, so how our team gels together and how fast our young players can play with poise will determine our fate.  This is why I love coaching every year brings new hope and a new set of challenges.  WE have tryouts this week and start for real this weekend.  I can't wait to get going.

Why now.

I just finished answering a challenge from a friend to blog about my summer with the Canadian FISU games women's volleyball team.  It was a great challenge that I am glad I accepted. That can be read on http://accidentialcoach.blogspot.com  

When I signed up for the blog  the domain name accidental coach was taken. For this reason I decided to I added the I making it accidential coach. That is how the domain name came about, but I still titled it Accidental Coach.  I found that writing and blogging about the summer forced me to look at my coaching practices and how to implement them.

My friend Sandy McDonald explained to me, the benefit of keeping the blog going. He is a PHD in educational technology and has great ideas.  So I made the decision to create another blog.  This blog will center around the Brandon University Women's Volleyball Team. I am the head coach of this great team of athletes. I have decided to leave the Accidental Coach blog for my National team experiences, which I hope will occur again one day, thus Coaching Bobcats was formed.  I hope that those of you that find this link will enjoy reading it as much as I will writing it.

It is the start of the Bobcats 7th season so everything is fresh.  We have what looks like a tremendously committed group of athletes and coaches.  We can't wait for the season to start, tonight at 5:30 is our first chance to see the group together.


Go Bobcats Go!