We are on a bit of a winning streak and are sitting 5-1 in the league. The team is training well and making improvements. As coaches we are continually trying to move our group forward. During this past weekend we sat down as a coaching staff and had a good discussion about how we wanted our time outs to work.
One of the main elements we decided on is to be positive and keep the discussion about remaining in the moment. I find the easiest thing to do as a coach is to discuss the errors that have been occurring. In reality at that moment what has happened before must stay in the past. We want our focus to be about what we must do so we can score now. We need to give a specific message to our team. Quite often when I am mentoring young coaches I watch and listen in their timeouts and discover they often rattle off 7 or 8 different things for the team to focus on. This is too many points for the group. Another mistake I find that inexperienced coaches spend a lot of timeouts talking about energy and communication. They are very generic things. I believe that we should focus on things that are specific. A good example is a ball falling in between two people. As a team we need them to make a decision faster. We want them to decide the person who is in the best position to make a positive play. We have a rule, back row calls off front row, middle back calls off back left and back right. This is specific, not just a general discussion on call the ball.
How we get the athletes to reach this is also important. We will often ask questions to specific athletes in the time outs. I feel that asking questions to specific players draws them out of their heads and into the conversation. This gets the team thinking of a certain situation and they come to an agreement together. "They are scoring a lot from the right side today. Is there anything we should be doing that can slow her down? If we serve a different location will that have an affect on the type of set?" This allows us to guide our team to the answer we are looking for. Of course there are times when we need to build confidence in the team and quickly state a solution give them the answer. The thing is current research has shown that retention happens better when we people discover skills and strategies for themselves.
Against some teams we will use our time out as a strategy. Most coaches I have come across tell their players that after a timeout you should take a little bit off and put it in. We use this to our advantage. Jaki Ellis off of U of Alberta would go on huge runs of points when she was serving against us. We really struggled with the pace of her serve. Finally we decided to try to save the timeouts for when she would be serving. Our hope was she would serve a bit easier allowing us to side out more effectively. It seemed to work for us. Now we discuss timeouts as part of our game plan strategy.
The last thing I would like to mention is a phrase my friend Ken Briggs from MacEwan University use to say to me. "Don't over coach" To me this was wise advice. I repeat this to many young coaches. Too often we look for a quick fix when steady is the way to go. Simple clear timeouts are the most effective.
Against some teams we will use our time out as a strategy. Most coaches I have come across tell their players that after a timeout you should take a little bit off and put it in. We use this to our advantage. Jaki Ellis off of U of Alberta would go on huge runs of points when she was serving against us. We really struggled with the pace of her serve. Finally we decided to try to save the timeouts for when she would be serving. Our hope was she would serve a bit easier allowing us to side out more effectively. It seemed to work for us. Now we discuss timeouts as part of our game plan strategy.
The last thing I would like to mention is a phrase my friend Ken Briggs from MacEwan University use to say to me. "Don't over coach" To me this was wise advice. I repeat this to many young coaches. Too often we look for a quick fix when steady is the way to go. Simple clear timeouts are the most effective.
