I’ve recently been asked a few times in the same day… What do you
do all day? Here is my attempt to explain my off-season work as a coach.
First a little background information. I am a teacher and coach at
Brandon University. I teach in the Faculty of Education in the Department of
Physical Education Studies. I have to teach 6 credits a year (basically one
class a semester).
When I was teaching and coaching in Grande Prairie I was a
full-time teacher plus an off-campus coach at the local college. I was
basically doing two full-time jobs. When I was hired to teach one class per
semester and spend the rest of my time coaching I thought I was dreaming. Now
that I have been coaching this way for a decade, I wish I could just
coach. I really enjoy my teaching assignment and it keeps me sane. The
downside is when playoffs are rolling around and I have a two-hour education
class to teach that day, it becomes a real struggle.
I complete a lot of my prep for the university courses in the
spring. To stay current on trends in education, and especially with the
integration of technology in the class, takes some research.
I spend some time every day in April and May on recruiting. In
Canada, we don’t have very big recruiting budgets or assistant coaches that
devote a large part of their portfolio to recruiting. At Brandon it largely falls on me. I have a great group of friends in the
volleyball community; they keep me informed on different players in their
area. I will often call or text these
coaches in the evening to see if they have found a diamond in the rough or
changed their mind on a player they previously thought was great.
Every spring I choose one skill to research and see if it has
progressed. This year I am looking at serve reception. I like to watch some of
the top passers to see what they do. I also try to track passing stats for some
different plositions of the server along the end line . Does a serve from one area or another have more
of an impact?
Another important task is figuring out our schedule for the
upcoming season. This includes exhibition travel, weight-training days, sport
psych meetings, team building days, and finally league travel. We have a travel
agent that books our flights for both league and exhibition travel, which takes
off some of the load. With exhibition matches comes the travel advances for
meal money and booking of hotel rooms. I try to get the schedule out to the
players in April for the following season. The athletes then have every day
that we practice, lift weights, etc. That way it is easier for them to figure
out schedules for school. The out of town athletes can look at potentially
booking flights home, plus it gives the incoming freshman an idea of how much
is involved in being a university athlete. We often find our freshman get homesick
around the end of October. They just need a quick fix of being at home.
We also run a club. Lisa Whyte is the main coordinator of the
club, but I oversee the technical part of the club. I try to watch each of the
12 teams practice a little, and be involved on their bench during a match. I
tend to find myself gravitating a little more to the U16 and U18 teams as we
start recruiting at this age. We are hoping to have a few of them on our
university roster someday. I have sat on the bench for our U13 and U14’s and
each time I do I am reminded of what fun volleyball is to everyone. This means
most weekends are spent in a gym, either recruiting or helping with our club
teams. We have 8 of our university athletes coaching club, and some great
teachers from the area also coaching. They are all in it for the right reason,
to help athletes fall in love with volleyball and create strong social
skills.
