We have just officially finished our first semester. The athletes had their last classes on Monday and now face exams. This is the toughest time to be a student athlete and is a real unique situation for Canadian Athletes.
The athletes are expected to maintain a practice , physical training schedule and study for exams. We have found that this is a time to work on competing. We organize different types of tournaments in our practice time. We have played half court 2 v2 and 3 v 3. This allows our athletes to compete and get contacts. It also allows them to continue to work on block defence relationship. It is a perfect opportunity for the athletes to continue to improve without the stress of learning an oppositions tendencies.
We also use this time for mid season meetings. A chance to touch base with the athletes and to discuss the semester and guide them towards goals for the second semester. We have a general itinerary that we work through. 1. School, this is our priority and we want to make sure they are on track. During the year we meet with all the first year players ever Tuesday. They have to show their plans and routines for the coming week. Also a chance to remind them of different assignments. Kellie Baker our Captain has a gift with organization and teaching these skills that she has taken over the role as peer tutor. 2. Team, we ask the athletes if they can see any potential red flags. Is there anyone left out or not fitting in? 3. Specific volleyball skills, this is things related directly to the athlete. What do they see as their strengths and weaknesses. Then we compare them to what we saw as a coaching staff. 4. General volleyball, we discuss are team in general terms, what did they see the first semester. The athletes view will vary depending on whether they are starting or coming in on a role situation. This unique view can often help us move forward, and ultimately it will become their team.
I myself am very disappointed with our 5 and 7 record. But I am not disappointed with the team. We have learned to train and practice like a Top CIS program. We have bought into our team values and are working towards our goals. We need to learn how to win now. We showed flashes of brilliance and have shown we can compete with the best. But now we need to learn to not accept competing as our goal and to start demand winning. I am quite proud of our team and how far they come. I wish we had more wins to show for this.
In a lot of meetings we found that we have a decent I between rally routine when we make an error. We struggle to get over errors when another person makes mulitple errors. We then spend our rally trying to figure out how to help them out. Instead of focussed on what it takes to score on this rally. The other error is we spend to much time evaluating our game instead of playing. Sometimes a 1 scoring pass is a great pass. Then we need to find out how to win off that pass. Instead we let a poor scoring pass bring us down. Ron Thomson from Grande Prairie College had a different view on why this occurs. He thought maybe this occurs because of the way we design our drills. I think back to our practices and often we will do drills that are scored with a 2 or 3 pass earning a point, a 0 or 1 pass takes away a point. Another drill I use often is a serve and replace drill. If you pass a 2 you stay to pass again with no penalty. A 3 pass scoters you a point. A 4 pass or perfect pass will score you 2 points. But a 1 or a zero removes you from the drill. Instead maybe we should reward a team that can win with a bad pass. Make it worth more points. I onced coached a men's team, on this team we had a left side that would make poor pass on purpose so he would get set. When the game was on the line you knew he would hang the ball up just outside attack line. Not a great idea, but it sure taught our team we could win off bad pass.
Here is the highlight video we made for our team. We hope it will motivate them over the break.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ebmzrpp5rozafzl/first%20semster2012.mp4
The athletes are expected to maintain a practice , physical training schedule and study for exams. We have found that this is a time to work on competing. We organize different types of tournaments in our practice time. We have played half court 2 v2 and 3 v 3. This allows our athletes to compete and get contacts. It also allows them to continue to work on block defence relationship. It is a perfect opportunity for the athletes to continue to improve without the stress of learning an oppositions tendencies.
We also use this time for mid season meetings. A chance to touch base with the athletes and to discuss the semester and guide them towards goals for the second semester. We have a general itinerary that we work through. 1. School, this is our priority and we want to make sure they are on track. During the year we meet with all the first year players ever Tuesday. They have to show their plans and routines for the coming week. Also a chance to remind them of different assignments. Kellie Baker our Captain has a gift with organization and teaching these skills that she has taken over the role as peer tutor. 2. Team, we ask the athletes if they can see any potential red flags. Is there anyone left out or not fitting in? 3. Specific volleyball skills, this is things related directly to the athlete. What do they see as their strengths and weaknesses. Then we compare them to what we saw as a coaching staff. 4. General volleyball, we discuss are team in general terms, what did they see the first semester. The athletes view will vary depending on whether they are starting or coming in on a role situation. This unique view can often help us move forward, and ultimately it will become their team.
I myself am very disappointed with our 5 and 7 record. But I am not disappointed with the team. We have learned to train and practice like a Top CIS program. We have bought into our team values and are working towards our goals. We need to learn how to win now. We showed flashes of brilliance and have shown we can compete with the best. But now we need to learn to not accept competing as our goal and to start demand winning. I am quite proud of our team and how far they come. I wish we had more wins to show for this.
In a lot of meetings we found that we have a decent I between rally routine when we make an error. We struggle to get over errors when another person makes mulitple errors. We then spend our rally trying to figure out how to help them out. Instead of focussed on what it takes to score on this rally. The other error is we spend to much time evaluating our game instead of playing. Sometimes a 1 scoring pass is a great pass. Then we need to find out how to win off that pass. Instead we let a poor scoring pass bring us down. Ron Thomson from Grande Prairie College had a different view on why this occurs. He thought maybe this occurs because of the way we design our drills. I think back to our practices and often we will do drills that are scored with a 2 or 3 pass earning a point, a 0 or 1 pass takes away a point. Another drill I use often is a serve and replace drill. If you pass a 2 you stay to pass again with no penalty. A 3 pass scoters you a point. A 4 pass or perfect pass will score you 2 points. But a 1 or a zero removes you from the drill. Instead maybe we should reward a team that can win with a bad pass. Make it worth more points. I onced coached a men's team, on this team we had a left side that would make poor pass on purpose so he would get set. When the game was on the line you knew he would hang the ball up just outside attack line. Not a great idea, but it sure taught our team we could win off bad pass.
Here is the highlight video we made for our team. We hope it will motivate them over the break.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ebmzrpp5rozafzl/first%20semster2012.mp4
