Bobcats Give Back

There was an article in the Brandon Sun today about our volleyball team and the influence they are having in the community.  In the article Chris Jaster mentions that we have 9 different athletes coaching in our community.  Not a bad feat considering we have 14 players.  Chris talked to the different coaches and the main theme was explained perfectly by Chloe Reimer. "I know my coaches at this level were so great for committing all their time and volunteering.  I know how much of an impact they made in my life. Hopefully I can do the same for them" 

One of the player's Chris interviewed was quoted as "We're getting coached straight by the pros. I have learned a lot this year and I think everyone has too.   I think it is really awesome (to get close to the Bobcats). I didn't ever think I would be able to, but now I can and they're coaching me and it is going just great." WE don't realize how much the athletes are looked up to.  They are role models for these young ladies.

Another athlete I overheard Chris interviewing said."I never thought I could play university but now I think why not Chloe told me I can."  All of a sudden these young players have a bit more confidence and expectation.  I know from my experience a little thing you say can go along ways.  I sometimes have athletes come back and tell me something I said that has helped them along the way and often I don't remember saying it. (Probably more an age thing now...)

I know these athletes coaches are young and inexperienced from a coaching point of view, but to the young girls they are coaching they are heroes.  If you ask the coaches they wouldn't know it, they are coaching for some fun and to help out.  The part that makes me the most proud of these athlete coaches are they could have chosen not to coach, but when asked they jumped too it.  In many small ways they are helping continue and build the program without even noticing it. Bobcats are making a difference.

 The next three weekends are very trying on our athletes.  We host 3 weekends of the club tournaments and we have the athletes referee.  It is a good opportunity for them to be on the other side of the whistle.  I feel it teaches them respect and patience for the officials we have.

It was a great learning experience for me.  One season when I was coaching in Grande Prairie at the junior college the league had a disagreement with the salary structure of the officials.  The officials being part of a union decided that they had enough matches with CIS and high school they wouldn’t officiate the ACAC that year.  Basically the ref’s went on strike. This put us in a big predicament in Grande Prairie.

We used some alumni men as our officials for most of the matches.  During one pre-season men’s tournament our alumni couldn’t officiate.  I then had to ref the tournament.  It was a relatively fun experience.  Since it was preseason the coaches were a bit more relaxed, but they all took the opportunity to disagree with my calls.  One that sticks out in my mind was Richard Schick.  He was coaching Red Deer College at the time and was playing against our Men’s team at GPRC.  This is a pretty intense rivalry at the best of time.  Early in the match a Grande Prairie player was blocked.  He was covered by a teammate but the ball stuck in his arms for a second.   The game continued.  Rich was up giving me the gears.  He was right I blew the call, about three plays later the same thing happened against Red Deer.  This time I was on my game and ready.  I blew it down.  Rich was up again, before he could say anything I yelled at him “Rich I thought about the last time this happened and agreed with you it was a held ball. That is why I am calling it now.  We will call it this way the rest of the match.”  Rich just laughed looked at Ron GPRC men’s coach and shook his head.  “Carter, how can you get mad at Carter”

That incident was a good lesson for me.  I have always since then went out of my way to meet the officials and talk to them.  I find that I am the same way, the more I know the official the more relaxed I am towards them when we disagree on something.

The first weekend was U-16. Our athletes had some funny experiences as well.  The parents were giving one of the first year players a rough time.  The players on one team really tried to sell touches.  Every hit they would call for a touch as a group.  The parents would then start giving the ref a rough time for missing the touch.  Finally she had enough and stops the match and gave the parents a bit of a tongue lashing.  After that they were good.  We talked after about having thicker skin on the stand and not engaging the parents.  Just gives them the right to yell more.

Another athlete called a player over the line on serve.  The coach protested that she wasn’t close.  The player referee, points to the black line.  “it the black line correct?” The coached just laughed and sat down.  We have received three emails stating how impressed they were with the athletes.  They were polite, understood the game and interacted well with the athletes.  Interested weekend,

This weekend U-14 

Lessons from the U-14's

This past weekend I had the privilege to coach our two U-14 volleyball teams in their first tournament of the year. This year we have 9 out of our 14 athletes volunteering at different levels of club in the city.  The athletes make it possible for other young players to succeed.  The young athlete really look up to the BU girls.  It is awesome experience for both sides.

This weekend also fell on the annual indoor beach tournament that our local technical college ACC runs.  It is called Son of a Beach.  It is a big event in Brandon with over 200 coed teams participating at different level.s It is the one event that I promise the team I won't schedule anything so they could participate in it.  OOPs I made a mistake on dates.  In-order to fix this problem  I decided to coached both of the teams.

I forgot how much we have to teach the athletes and parents at this age.  For most it is their first real competition that they will be a part of.

Lesson's

1.  Assume nothing.  The coaches handed out the draw for the players to see, they played their first game at 5:30 on Friday.  With the direction of be their a little earlier than normal so we can hand out jersey;s.  Well most of them showed up at 5:20.  That was 5 minutes earlier than they are normally at practice.  By the time the jerseys were handed out the opposition was attacking in warm-up so we just went behind and passed and ran for 3 minutes.

2.  Educate the parents.  In the first warm-up we had a parent come on to the court to give feedback to his daughter as she was going through the hitting line.  I started to laugh and politely asked him to head back up into the bleachers.  He responded my daughter just trying to help.   I thought this was great, smiled and responded  "not now she is not, she is our player. She becomes your daughter again when the match ends" The rest of the weekend he was very loud positive supporter of all players.  We didn't cover this in our parent meeting at tryouts.

3. The Wave and High 5's are a big part of the game.   I was sitting on the bench as we scored a point the players on the bench started doing the wave down the bench.  I also learned you should change your leg cross every 5 pts very important for focus on the bench.  The players who weren't in the match were having a ton of fun on the bench.  I wonder if some time we take this a little too serious at the university level.  I need to encourage our athletes to have fun while being a support, but still remained focused.

4. No matter the level it is a serve an pass game.  Also as long as the games not over we have a chance.  there were some amazing runs of serving.  Teaching the athletes basic passing strategy.  The ball goes where you lean.  That lesson alone helped fix some of the problems.  If you want the ball to go forward, you need to lean forward.  The ball keeps going backward off the serve...I would ask "Whats the rule?" they would often figure it out on their own.  The second rule we put in was back row calls off front row.  That solved a lot of who gets which ball issues.

5.  WE also talked in between sets about what happens after an error. We discussed how everyone who made the error felt, and as a team how can we fix it.

6. We also learned no such thing as positioning.  Switching is a complicated thing when your worried about where to go to high 5 who...One young athlete I told her she was setting this match. (We use a 4-2  Front setter all the time).  She replied I am a middle. I waved my hand and said TADA, now you are a setter.  Then we went out.  I believe at this level we can teach systems, but we can also have them play all positions.  It gives them a greater understanding of the game.

This weekend coming up we are hosting a U-16 tournament,  I have all the players refereeing.  I reminded the first year players to interact and be fun in the hallways.  One of the players on this team will be on your team in your 5th year.  Set the tone now.

Thoughts on CIS WVB Nationals

First off Congratulations to UBC the 5 time National Championship.  They were pushed hard in the final by Alberta Panda's.  Interesting to note that the Panda's had a run of 6 in a row so it was interesting to see these two powerhouse programs go at it in the final.

I think the final eventually came down to serving and passing.  Both UBC and U of A serve the ball incredibly tough. U of A was first in the nation in serving errors and second in the nation is serving aces.  By the looks of the stats and nationals U of A was feast or famine with their serving.  Watching them play through the nationals and then also having played them the last weekend of regular season this was obvious. I would have to change my mindset a lot to buy into this type of serving plan.  I was getting frustrated with the misses just watching the Nationals.  It appeared to me that Laurie just took it in stride, she trusted their ability to "sideout", she had to stress at all with their serving. UBC was 9th in service errors and 5th in aces.  Again they were a tough serving team.  UBC tended to serve the ball a little easier later in the match and after timeouts.  They wanted to the opposition to earn that point.  UBC is also the tallest team in the league and has 3 international level outside attackers, they had the ability to score in transition. They trusted their block defensive transition game and in the end it was this that helped them 5peat.

The second thing I really noticed is both teams played a real disciplined block defensive game.  The two teams were a different style.  U of A had their right sides start in a spread at the antenna and UBC started in a bunch block.  UBC also runs their setter out of the middle when she was in the front row.  Interesting note UBC ended up using a double sub in the 4th and 5th sets to go back to a regular middle late in the sets.  This kept them  with 3 front row players in crunch time.  Both teams seemed to block the line and try to funnel the attackers cross court.  When either setter started forcing the ball tight the opposition block was successful. When they set the ball off the net the attackers were successful. The match ended on a forced set to the right side that was tight.

The 3rd point is recruit the best athletes.  Both U of A and UBC have players on their team that have national team experience. UBC has 3 outside attackers that practice with the National A or B team.  The tournament MVP Lisa Barclay, played on the FISU games team this summer.  Lisa is from Brandon and we were excited to see her win and play so well in the final.  It also was a little disappointing that she didn't stay in Brandon to help build and win with us.  But in talking with Lisa, the academic money she gets plus carding money is more money than we could offer her.  In the end Lisa made a choice that was good for her, and obviously she has improved a ton.  But Brandon will always lay claim to some of her Success.

U of A had Alena Olmenchenko from Kazakhstan join their team this year.  Alena was a little unorthodox as she always took off on one foot.  Attacking and serving she would run the step foot work.  At 6'4" she hit the ball at angles we don't see to often and put up a huge block.  She was the player U of A needed to put them over the top, and really deserved to win the match.

McGill winning the Bronze was unexpected as they had upset Laval in their league championships. So they entered into the tourney in 5th.  McGill won their quaterfinal against St. Mary's from Halifax.  St. Mary's had two outside attackers that were legit and used them a lot.  McGil had a balanced attack, but really they relied on their defense to win games.  I called it the "rope a dope" of volleyball.  Keep the ball in play and force the other team to be consistent, eventually they will make errors.  It worked well for McGill down their playoff stretch and helped them win their first medal at Nationals.

Three medal winners each with a different style of play.  I think that this demonstrates that it doesn't matter which system you play.  What matters is the team buys into the system and executes it well.  Can't be second guessing or making drastic changes in the stretch run.  Tom Skinner our sport psych likes to say.  If the coach is still having to demand system work when the team is entering the playoffs the team is finished.  The players should own the team by that time and take responsibility for each other and themselves.  Coaches then give information for the team to use.  The belief in each other and the system needs to be solid.