Being the Role Model.

Playing university sports can sometimes be a difficult venture.  As athletes they are constantly on display.  Imagine for a moment every Friday and Saturday everything you do that week is judge on one outcome.  Then put that evaluation on TV, radio and in the paper. It can be a challenging.

We also ask our athletes to be role models for young up and coming volleyball players.  After our matches the athletes will always take time to mingle with the young girls that come to our match.  It is a great reminder of the situation they are in.  Often we get so involved with living our daily lives that we forget how much of a hero they have become to the younger girls in Manitoba.

When we have our U15 club tournament in March I remind the first year athletes to be nice, one or two of these players will be their teammates when they are in their fifth year.  The interaction they have with them can have an affect later.

This past weekend we had split with Thomson Rivers University out of Kamloops.  They are a team we traditionally beat.  But a good recruiting year and a change in coaching staff have the Wolf Pack upsetting teams all first semester.  We won in 3 on Friday and felt good about our chance on Saturday.  But found ourselves chasing all the time.  The last couple of weeks we have found ways to overcome this and push to a 5 set victory.  But this Saturday we just couldn’t. We lost in straight sets.  As you can imagine we were very upset as a group. This was not what we had planned.

We had some teams come to watch our Saturday match.  During the match one of the young girls found out one of her Grandparents had passed away and had to leave.  Her teammates had bought shirts.  They came down after the match and explained to one of the players what had happened.  The team then brought the shirt over and had all the players signed it for the girl.  The Bobcats were extremely disappointed in our play that night, but still took time to engage with the young group. They went out of their way to make sure the player felt ok.

 I didn’t know this had gone on.  When our coaching group finally arrived in the team room the signing of the shirt was finished.  We finished our debriefing and then left as usual.  It wasn’t until I received a thank you email from the coach that I discovered what the team did.

This is the kind of role models we always hope our teams will be.  After all volleyball can seem all encompassing when our season is on, but it is such a small part of whom we really are.  I can say today I am really proud to be a Bobcat.  It is easy to be a good person when your happy and winning it takes real character to put someone else first after a difficult loss.

Power of positivity.

If you find spelling or grammar errors, they are of my own doing. I am writing this at home after finishing a good book. Called the Energy Bus. 

We are now six matches into our season.  We presently sit 5 and 1. We are also ranked 3rd in Canada.  You would think from looking at this that everything is going fine.

We have gone to 5 in every match so far this year. We have shown strong resilience during this steak.  We are finding a different ways to win each time.  The first come from behind victory was against U of C. We were down 2 sets to 0 when we decided to make a change. We subbed two players in.  Both Nikala Majewski and Courtney Roberts entered the match and brought a lot of energy which helped bring the match back. This was both their first times playing in Brandon and in front of our crowd.

The next day we were up 2 sets to 1 and let the fourth slide away. Our focus became about the outcome instead of the moment.  We talk about staying in the moment all the time but the score can be a big distraction. This is something we need to get better at.

I found myself getting frustrated with the lack of success we were having.  At one point I sat down and my body language was really demonstrating my frustration.  My Assistant Coach Teagan Hunter snapped me out of this.  She made a couple of suggestion of moves we should make and helped bring me back into the present. We and I recovered our focus and won in the fifth. One would think this would be a strong lesson for me, but it took a couple more days before I truly got it.
On Monday we were all tired. Our level of practice was starting to deteriorate. I found myself starting to yell and discipline to try to get the level back up. But realistically the effort didn’t fall. We were just really fatigued. We jumped a lot on Monday as we identified blocking as one of our major issues to work on.
Tuesdays practice was even worse.  It was as if a zombie apocalypse had taken over our team.  I again ended practice with a bit of a scolding.  Two of our leadership team and a fifth were sitting around and stretching after practice.  I decided to address this issue with them.  After I said my piece about leading by example they spoke.  I was getting really negative.  They understood that they need to be held to a standard, but when they also like to know when they are playing well.

This struck a nerve with me.  I pride myself for being positive. I try to celebrate when things go well.  I needed to find a way to get back to that.
Wednesday morning I read an article about an NCAA Football team and their Energy Bus.  I found out they were bases a philosophy on a book the group read. I immediately bought the book to read.  It was exactly what I needed.
 Two quotes right near the front hit home for me.
1. "We are Winners not Whiners".  We were 3 and 1. The team was extremely tired but no one was complaining but me. I was disappointed at our level. But when I talked with our leadership team I remembered all the extra going on for them.  We talked on Thursday about our goals again. Discussed our steps in how we were going to achieving them. We left for Edmonton on a very positive note.
2.  "Positive energy positive people create positive results". It is easy to sit back and find everything that is going wrong but our mindset is something we can control. We can choose to look at each challenge as a way to move us closer to our goal.  Each time a team finds and exploits our weakness it gives us a chance to look at this part of our game and move forward.
We have a strong positive vibe within our team. You can really feel our confidence grow with each new challenge we overcome together. It is up to me the Driver of this Bus to keep the positivity going.  That doesn't mean just throw out blank “way to go” statements.  It means teaching athletes to accept challenges. To communicate making sure they understand why things are happening.  As a coaching group we encourage our team to problem solve. We ask them to find solutions to problems that the opposition throws at us.  We want them to take risks. WE need to encourage risks.
I recommend the book to all coaches.  There are so many more things that we take for granted that it reminded me of.