Bye week ramblings Little insight into me

Bye Week

It's funny how, in this journey of life, even though we may begin at different times and places, our paths cross with others so that we may share our love, compassion, observations, and hope Steve Maraboli

This week was an interesting week for me.  I hope that we never have to experience part of it again.  Our athletes had to write final exams.  Usually these exams are written in December when there are no matches scheduled. They have the opportunity to focus primarily on the school end of being a student athlete.  Because of our 45 day strike the athletes had to write exams at the end of January.  To compound this the school puts tables in our gym to facilitate the finals.  Therefore we had no practice time last week.  We did get 1.5 hours at a local high school through the kindness of their PE staff.  Then to throw more fuel to the fire we are hiring a new women’s bball coach and all if the coaches are on the committee.  Our days were very busy as it was, now we have just a couple things more to do.  Luckily for us it was a bye week. 

As the week progressed I found myself very irritable and quick tempered.  During our practice I planned a 2 on 2 tourney.  This allowed me to watch and the athletes to compete.  Most of the athletes still had 1 or 2 exams left and were feeling emotionally tired.  We knew that we would have a tough time trying to introduce anything new. I was still really disappointed with our weekend against TRU. I just couldn’t shake it. Normally we would begin on Monday to get ready for the next match and not have as much time to dwell.  It is funny how quickly we can allow our own critic in our head take over. 

 I had made plans earlier in the month to go and watch a potential Junior college transfer play in Edmonton.  This also gave me a chance to go home a visit my mother and family.  I find getting to see them is very refreshing for me.  Then I also found out that the Alberta Volleyball had scheduled a coaching symposium the same weekend.  This coincided with U of Alberta and U of Calgary’s matches in Edmonton. Which meant old friends would be around.

Friday I flew in and again was delayed, after our 9 hour delay last weekend a 1 hour delay is a holiday.  Wow I was not a happy guy when I arrived in Edmonton, my critic was going crazy in my head.  I had a chance to spend 3 hours with my mom and just catch up on what the rest of the extended family is doing, and to just relax with her.  My whole life my Mom has been a big supporter of me and my pursuit in sports.  She tries to follow the team and knows a lot about them.  She grew up in a large family in Saskatchewan and played a lot of sports. This weekend she was telling me about her women’s hockey team she played on in high school.  How she wasn’t a great skater but was able to play because they needed numbers.  But they had a couple of strong players so they won a lot. If you ever wonder where my competitive streak comes from meet my mom.

Friday night I went to watch NAIT and Med Hat College battle it out.  Then stayed to watch the men’s match.  A real good friend of mine Simon Fedun coaches the men’s team, plus one of my closest friend Roger Redman’s son Ethan plays for Simon.  During Ethan’s recruiting period I found it totally unbelievable that Roger and Simon had never met until Simon started recruiting Ethan.  I had fun with the two of them during this process.  Ethan is a first year player so I expected to only watch him during the hitting warm-up but late in a set he was sub in to the middle.  I found it suddenly surreal watching Ethan play college volleyball.  Roger and I coached provincial team for Alberta together for 3 years.  Ethan would always come to the gym.  Roger would push two hockey nets together and Ethan would play in there during practice.  This protected him from random volleyballs and it also contained him to an area so we wouldn’t have to look for him constantly. One day Ethan was playing on the stage at the gym, and he started crying.  "Daddy, why aren't they saying up when then dig the ball" Here is this 3 year old coaching form the stage.  Watching him play seemed like it was meant to be.  All those hours trapped in the net paid off.

After the match we went for supper, Roger, Simon, Arch Beck, and a lot of officials.  It turns out there was an officials evaluation conference going on at the same time, so officials from all over Canada were there, so I was able to see all of them at once.  When you’re one of the few coaches at a table surrounded by a group of officials, get ready to feel some heat.  It doesn’t help that sometimes I might be a bit vocal towards officials.  I learned a long time ago that officials are trying their best and they aren’t out to punish you.  During a match they hold our teams accountable, and sometimes we have to hold them accountable for decision.  No matter how the match turns out the discrepancy stays on the court.  The handshake we do after the match between myself and the officials in always genuine.  I do appreciate their effort and respect the level of officiating they need to have achieved to be able to officiate at university level.

Saturday I went to St. Albert to watch Roger’s daughter play in a u-16 tourney.  I wasn’t going there to recruit, I was going purely to watch Janai play.  It turned out the matches were being played in my old high school. Driving in to the parking lot brought back a ton of memories.  The funny part of myself being a university volleyball coach is that I never played volleyball in high school.  Most of my old high school friends are dumbfounded to how I ended up with a full time coaching position.  To be honest, after last weekend so am I.  I really enjoyed watching the match.  I found it really funny to sit in the stands and watch the game with the parents as Roger was coaching on the bench.  I was texting him the parents suggestions, but more just to see if he would check his phone.  I was looking for some ammo for the evening when we would go watch the university matches together. My relationship with Roger is a lot of teasing each other and setting each other up like that.  Considering how we met it only makes sense.  Roger and I were in a volleyball skills class at university.  We had never really talked at all in the class.  I was playing Junior B hockey and we had a bench clearing brawl against Leduc.  That means everyone leaves their benches to fight.  Because we were travelling we had less players than Leduc.(If John and Dan Stankey reads this blog, you did start this. Look where it brought me.)

I ended up fighting two guys at once.(normally when I tell the story it is four, but since it is a respectable blog I shouldn’t exaggerate) Needless to say I won the fight, but my face lost.  The next day we had a written exam in class.  I had to ice my face on the way to school so my eyes would open enough to see out of them.  When the teacher walked into the class she saw my face and asked.  “what happened to your face” before I could answer Roger stood up and said” If you ever bring my sister home that late again I will break your legs”. A couple years later I was a groomsman at his wedding.

At the university match I was able to run into a bunch of people that I knew but more important a group of us that had coached together to a Western Canadian Championship. Pat Mcfeely, Roger Redman, Aaron Heineman, Ian Kulmatycki and myself.  We were all very young coaches when this happened 18 years ago.  As we watched the match we reminisced about that summer and other summers we had together.  It made me realise all the work we had put in to get to where I am now. Ian wasn't there so we took a photo and sent it to him.  I discovered that a lot of what I do is because of those guys.  We laughed and laughed.  Another friend Bob Gabruck, who is the real reason I am coaching volleyball.  Bob is from Killam and one day asked me to come with his new club team to a tourney in Rocky Mountain House.  Since Bob had defeated me in school league, I thought this would be a great learning experience. The rest is history.

Running into those guys couldn’t have come at a better time for me mentally.  When your involved in the day to day grind sometimes a person can lose track of how great an opportunity they have.  Also I had a chance to tell stories about our team and realize again what a great group we have.  In 18 years they won’t be talking about the x and 0’s it will be about all the other stuff.  Just like we did during the match.  The other thing that is important to note here.  When you win something big together you are bonded for life. That Western Canadian Championship was the first big one and as coaches we are all connected. Now to get this team to experience a big win together.

Ouch that one left a mark

“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened”

Winston Churchill

I often find in my day to day coaching that I come across situations that other teams face and I think  how would I handle that  or who would I use in this position if something happened to this player? As a coach we need to deal with the unknown on a regular basis, when something out of the ordinary happens we need an immediate response to the situation.  This past weekend was a good test of how we would respond.  I also have learned in the past couple of weeks that I need to spend less time worrying and more time doing.  An interesting revelation for me.

On our way to Kamloops we encountered a lot of delays.  What was supposed to be a nine hour trip turned into a 17 hour day.  We ended up waiting forever at airports.  I was really impressed with our teams.  (We travel with the men’s team to most of our matches)  It would have been really easy for the teams to get whinny and complain about the situation, but they took it in stride. Most used the opportunity to study as we have final exams this week.  Others found ways for the team to bond together, to touch base with team members that they haven’t had a chance to talk socially with  for awhile. 

Russ Paddock the men’s coach/athletic director was with us so he was very involved in the decisions that were ahead of us.  In the Winnipeg airport while we were waiting, we were handed 3 different boarding passes, as West Jet was trying to help us get to our location.

We ended up flying to Kelowna and having to bus 2 hours.  We arrived and were settled into our hotel by 3:30 am.  This is 5:30am on our body clocks.  TRU was very accommodating and gave us a little later practice time so we could sleep some.  That is what impressive me  about most of the schools we play against in Canada West.  The understand the travel and know we need to be accommodating.  We owe them now. Everyone wants to win, but knows that one day it could be you.

We practiced at 11am.  You could tell the team was very sluggish.  As a coaching staff we tried hard to get them up and moving.  We started with a serving game that has one partner serving to another partner. They try to catch the served ball on the other side of the net the partner then , runs to the end line on her side  and serves back.  The trick to this game  is that anyone can knock the ball away  from anyone else before their partner catches the ball.  We call it hamburger and the team is pretty competitive at it.  They end up really competing and lots of running after balls hit away.

Then we went to a serve and replace drill, one that I explained last time. Then we got into our typical game day practice.  The rest of the day the athletes napped or studied.  I was very worried about this weekend.  This is a team we have traditionally beaten and they have improved a lot.  They have some older players who are playing well.  Plus they run some pretty wacky rotational stuff.  Our team really needed to focus on the game video and watch more of it. 

We ended up playing like we had travelled all night and TRU played exceptionally well.  We tried every combination of things we could to try and fight our way out of this funk.  But in the end we were not prepared.  WE were  just a split second late on making our reads, and that transferred into being late on our movements.  This loss falls on me.  The old adage players win and coaches lose is true in this situation.  I didn’t stress the importance enough of this weekend and the prep.  With final exams coming into play I should have known that the focus of the team would have be academic. ( I am excited about how well as a team we are doing academically it is a strong sense of who we want to be.)Instead of being lenient and understanding of their situation last week, I needed to be a bit more demanding and  Require them to do more. To schedule more things instead of trying to limit the contact so they could study.  Realistically the team would consider the volleyball their most important class, and would willingly be involved in more video and discussions.  Coaches often we think of ways to try to limit the contact time so that they can have more time for school. 

The second day we played much better we were prepared, but again our confidence in tight situation wasn’t there.  We tried a few different things and by the end of the second set Brianna Walsh was playing regular minutes for us.  Brianna is a First year player from Calgary.  She is a very good athlete with a lot of upside in this sport.  She is a jumper, for this reason we put her on the floor thinking she could put up a decent block and add to our ball control which was sporadic.  Kellie ended up with a deep bruise in her calf during the second set, basically a Charlie horse in her calf.  Kellie toughed it out and played well for us as she limped around the court. Chloe went back to the libero position hoping to help solidify our passing and defense.  WE lost the second set 31-29, we had opportunities to win the sets and just couldn’t put it away.  We won the third 25-15 and played well.  The change allowed us to be in system more and run our faster offense and we scored at will.  The fourth set things we going well until 17.  Then we were stuck again in a rotation and fell behind by three. The teams then traded points and we lost 25-20. 

Back to back losses were not good for our play off hopes.  Realistically we needed to win one of the matches.  But now we need to refocus and find that 1 win somewhere else.  WE definitely have a tough road but it is very much possible.  WE have an incredible record at home and we need to find success on the road.  As my Friend Brad Murrin used to say “nothing feels better than winning as an underdog”

I love the way this story is going to end....could be one for the books.

Confidence wins

Confidence is a funny thing. Confidence comes from having success. It comes from a person’s social environment and what they experience.  It is a hard thing to gain easy and to lose.  As coaches we often spend a lot of time dwelling on the mistakes that a person makes.  Often it is pointing out the same errors over and over.  Tony DiCicco in his book “Catch them Being Good”, suggests we do the opposite, we look for when they do the action or tactic we expect and then show them this on video.  If you cannot show them accomplishing it, then show them someone else who does it correctly. In practice he believes we should never refer to the error, but only the action we need. The idea of a blooper film to show the mistakes really reinforces the errors.

This past weekend we had two big matches to play. Our team is on a 4 match league win streak .  UBCO  is only 2-8. Even though their record wasn’t great they are a strong team and had a real tough first semester. With such a tough schedule it was incredible for UBCO to come out of the first semester with 2 wins, keeping them in the hunt for a playoff spot.

Unfortunately for them their setter was injured and had to come to Brandon with their back up setter only.  Watching on Friday, people could see that the UBCO Heat wasn’t as confident in their team concept.  WE didn’t find out until the hitting warm-up that they were going with a different setter.  The new setter set a high ball and it allowed their attackers to change a bunch of their hitting angles.  More time to see things, plus our block timing would be different.

Steve Manuel, UBCO Coach, is famous for having teams that compete hard and have strong ball control.  So we knew this was not going to be 2 easy matches.  The first day you could feel the difference in confidence levels in the two teams.  WE had our libero, Lindsay McLaughlin diagnosed with a small fracture in her wrist so she is out for awhile.  WE decided to put a first year leftside Shanlee Mclennan in that position.  Shanlee had basically never played this position, but she has the right disposition for making a difficult change.

The libero position is one of the more mentally challenging positions in sport.  It is very hard for them to directly lead to points.  They can make a great pass and the other team could still end up with a point.  They shank a ball and everyone knows where the point is scored.  To play this position and be good at it the athlete needs to have high self-esteem.  We discussed with our team to really keep it positive.  Social influence within the team will help with Shanlee’s confidence.

Friday we won three straight and played fairly well.  Jaryn Ruether, our fifth year player, is in nursing and she came straight to warm-up from her clinical practicum.  She looked fatigued before the match started, but played her usual steady self

The best part about our schedule is we play the same team on consecutive nights.  The coaching in Canada West is very strong and Saturday’s matches are always close.  Steve looked at his situation and needed to make a change.  He needed to play to his teams strengths.  UBCO came out with their setter playing out of the middle.  She is a good athlete and this really enhanced her strengths.  Plus it was the first time we had ever looked at this.  In this type of set up the setter needs to dump some so the opposition middle blocker has to be aware of her.  We asked our middle to wait and chase the set.  Have high hands and try to deflect the ball up on the dump.  Plus we moved position 1 into the pot more.  We won the first set easy 25-18, but you could see UBCO figuring out this line-up.  Second set we won 25-23.  Our confidence was starting to shake.  Jaryn Ruether was a steady force for us out there.  She was finding different ways to score, she ended up with 20 kills and 17 digs through the match.

UBCO wins sets 3 and 4.  So now we have to head to the fifth set.  In between we talked about who we are as a team, and tried to bring focus backed to worked for us up to that point.  WE jumped out to a 7-1 lead. Then 8-2 at the change of sides.  12-7 I took our first timeout with the hope of maintaining our aggressive nature.  They were climbing back you could see confidence building in them.  12-10 I took our final time out.  WE couldn’t get out of this rotation.  They were serving us tough and we were relying on our outside attacker to score in tough situations. WE ended up down 14-12 before we finally sided out.  This is when I saw something in our team that hadn’t been there before.  Up to this point all match the team was trying hard to stay positive, help each other out of the rut.  Again confidence is something that is gained from a group of people or previous experience.  A big dig transition and block score.  Then a hitting error on their part ties the game.

We have comeback from down before and you could feel our confidence grow when we tied it up.  UBCO hasn’t had the success we had the first semester, I could sense a panic on their part.  We ended up winning 17-15 and kept our playoff hopes alive.  I wonder if they would have had a reverse schedule would they have been more confident in these situations.

So success adds more to our team self-concept and hopefully it can carry us through this next weekend.  We are at 8, magic number is 9.  Let’s get it done fast.

Determination time

Teaching determination.

After our home tournament we had to re-evaluate where we are heading.  In the tournament we played more people in different situations and were able to evaluate personnel and also where our system weaknesses are.  It also allowed us to compare our present athletes to each other and try to project where their skill level will be down the road.

As a whole the coaching staff is really impressed with the direction our team is heading.  After the disappointing result in the tournament the team’s commitment has jumped up 2 levels.  They realise that everyone around us is improving as well.  For us to achieve our goals, we need to improve at a faster rate than our opposition.

WE decided that since the week directly after the tournament was a bye week  that we could spend a little bit more time pushing players to make change.  WE would stop a drill and ask them to create the appropriate skill over and over before we would start competing again.  We made every drill a competitive drill.  Everything had a winner and a loser.  It was one of the rare times that I had to be bad cop.  I once read in a book by Jimmy Johnson when he coached the Dallas Cowboys “turning the thing around”  in there he talks about positive coaching. He explained he would be positive, positive positive positive, then bang negative.  The negative moment was so rare that it had a huge impact on the player.  Then he went on to say you have to celebrate with the player when then do the action right.  This week we put that theory to the test and it helped make huge improvements.  Before the week started we talked with the team about staying together and being positive.  That as a coaching staff we would be a little bit more negative and it was their job to keep the air positive.  By letting them know ahead of time helped create a positive air of change.

We also designed drills that would have players competing individually. An example of a drill would be server vs passer drills.  In these drills the only way to score was to pass a good pass (three pass), but to get into the passing part of the drill you had to force someone to pass bad by serving them tough or strategically.  If the passer scored a point, then the server  had to run to the other side of the court and serve from that side. A consequence for not winning directly on that point.  If the passer passed a zero or 1 pass then the server would become target and the target would become server.   Lots of running and movement. An unintentional by product of this was the athletes holding each other accountable.  If someone would pass a 1 then everyone would let the target know.

We also designed  drills that were very hard to score in.  Since volleyball went to rally point in the late 80’s every ball scores a point.  We have found that players accept the scoring of the opposition too easily.  We wanted to mimic every ball worth a point but still make it incredibly difficult to win the drill.  We decided to use a plus minus system.  Team A is trying to get to +7 and Team B is trying to get to -7.  The drill itself has one score.  Team A wins the rally goes up + 1, the next two balls team B wins suddenly the score is -1.  WE would have a serve and four down balls, then other team would serve.  Trying to mimic long rallies in a match but still scoring on each ball.  +7 seems to be a good numbe,r + or -5 was achieved a couple of times but the last two points were extremely hard to get.  WE eventually had a winner and the attackers were exhausted by the end of the drill.

Another drill we competed hard at was win 3 down balls in a row and your team  win the right to serve.  Two coaches on either side of the net will put a free ball or down ball into the winning team’s side.  Whichever team wins three of these free balls in a row has a chance to serve.  If they can win their serve point then they score a point. 

All these drills are meant to teach the group determination.  When they have an opportunity to score be excited and put the ball away. If we have to give a free ball then we head to the net with incredible determination instead of being back on our heels hoping for the other team not to score.  We need to change our mind set from oh no.  To bring it on!.  If they have done something that forces us to give a free ball then we want to win with a block or dig transition, so we can look across the net with the attitude is that all you got!

This is a big weekend for us coming up.  We play UBCO. They are a new team in Canada West.  Their record is 2-8 at the Christmas break, but their two wins came from beating U of Winnipeg and U of Manitoba, the fourth and fifth ranked teams in Canada.  When you take a look at UBCO second semester they have 6 or 7 matches that are winnable for them.  That would put them at 8 or nine wins.  We need to hold them down this weekend and climb up the win category.  This is basically a playoff match already.

Love the playoffs!!!!

My coaching brain and 5%

I often find my friends who aren’t involved in coaching world have a trouble grasping the amount of time we put in thinking about our program or the sport directly.  We will go out to a movie and they will come out talking about the music and different action scenes.  I often say, I could use this clip for when I am talking to the team about self-talk, or how to build confidence.  This would be a good moment to bring up team and commitment to each other.  My friends laugh at me and would often say give it a rest.

Over Christmas or first part of summer I will try to read books as a type of escape from myself.  The Lord of the Rings are my favorite books, but there are so many examples of leadership in them.  I bought the movies to show sacrifice, and fulfilling a role with the help from friends. I also enjoy a good spy novel. The Bourne series is very fun read,  but again I  read this type of novel because I enjoy the strategy that the spies employ to get out of some situations.  But mostly I tend to read coaching books and business books on leadership.  I find the leadership strategies in business and sport over lap a lot. Phil Jackson's Hard Court Warrior, Leading with the Heart by Coach K is one of the best team leadership books, Education of a Coach about  Bill Bilechik rise to an NFL dominant coach, and one of my favourites golf is not a game of perfect.

The hardest part to understand from a coaches point of view is winning and losing and how it affects our psyche.  I find that after a loss, I have a much harder time getting my thoughts away from volleyball.  Losing drives me to an obsession, and sometimes makes it feel  lonely.  If we win on Saturday night then Sunday is a fun day, able to watch football and be talkative to people who are around.  After a loss, I tend to not sleep very much, I will go and watch last nights game again to see if there were anything that I didn’t notice, early warning signs that I should be aware of.  I can be in  a large group of people and not here a single conversation going on around me.  My close friends have learned to just leave me alone during this time. My friends in the coaching world will check up on each other especially after a tough loss.  We don't try to give advice in these situation just a quick reminder that we have a job in sport, and they are hard to come by.  

Once practice starts up again on Monday and the team starts working hard, we start to prepare for the next weekend then, I am happy.  I feel real lucky to have the committed group that we do here at Brandon.  This past weekend was not our best performance to date.  Arguably could be the worst we have played at home this season.  we have a pretty good home record going in league, and Brandon is a tough gym to come into and play.  We are proud of how tough it is to play here.  For that reason losing this weekend at home in our tourney made it even more difficult.

The concensus from my discussion with different members of the team, was now everyone understands how important quality practice is to our result.  This weekend we just showed up and played after having 14 days off.  We just talked briefly about the opposition and  worked on our systems.  We played everyone quite a bit more than we did during the first semester. On new years day I had a couple of the players text me with their new years resolution. WIN.  Knowing that the athletes spent their new years eve talking about what needs to happen in the second semester is very exciting.  I find that on a team if a coach cares way more about what happens then the team, it can be a very frustrating situation.  When the athletes demonstrate that they are commited and involved the more successful a team will become.

The fact that we came back into this weeks practice with a strong commitment is hopeful.  I am still stinging from the weekend.  We tried hard this past weekend but didn’t work as a collective whole.  I am re-watching the matches and making sure we know what we need to do.  Realistically we are close to beating most teams in Canada, all we really need is everyone to work hard to improve 5%.  For each player and coach that 5% is something different.  Some players need to find time for extra passing reps, some need to make changes on some technical issues, others need to take better care of their nutrition and physical fitness.  Each of us have that 5% we can do better.  We know deep down what it is.  If we decide as a whole that we can reach for that 5% we will have a successful season. Players have heard the coaching staff say things over and over to them.  Players are aware of what their role is on the team now and how can they improve it.  We asked our team to do two things in the next couple of weeks.  One is to keep the game in mind when they are training. It can be a simple as our libs is in a defensive drill, she is to set the ball to an attacker at leftside.  She uses her forearms to deliver the ball the entire time she is in the setting position.  When asked why she explained, I am the libero, I cannot overhead pass a ball legally to a hitter in front of the attack line.  This is her way to keep each drill game like in her head.

I heard a story of a boxer who refused to do situps in the ring.  His reasoning was I never want my back against the canvas. That only happens in a loss. So he would get out of the ring do his situps then get back in the ring to continue training.

The second is to compete in drills.  To find ways to turn some easy drills into competitions.  When in a serving and passing drill, serve strategically to beat the passers.  Keep a running conversation with them, put pressure on each other.  Challenge each other.  

WE will see what the second semester brings.  But right now this coaches brain is in a good spot.