Campfires

In the last couple of months, I have had conversations with coaches about their team’s lack of intensity and desire when it comes to the backcourt in volleyball.  Whether it is on serve reception and/or defense players are letting the ball drop.

I believe that the athletes want to learn to improve and they are not lazy.  In addition, it usually is not a technical issue as they can perform the skill in a one on one situations. This is usually a read and react situation.  Today on a blog post on "At Home Court" the author, discuss that a questioning of the decision they make slows the player down a tenth of a second.  At the lower levels, it is probably longer. 

A good defense example is the ball is tipped to the center of the court (pot).  All of the players react to it but eventually all stand and see the ball fall between them.(The Campfire, because it looks like a group of people standing around a campfire watching it) 

All the players read the same situation they were just unclear whose responsibility it was to dig the ball.  A typical reaction is for the coach to yell “ call the ball”  but this doesn’t really solve the problem.  If all of the other players were removed from the situation, each one of the defenders probably could play that ball.  In a one-player drill, they can execute this coverage flawlessly. 

The team needs to decide who is responsible.  Is it the player behind the block who is held high just for tips? The rest of the team is worried about hard driven balls.  Is it the responsibility of the off blocker, who has to react and move to the middle of the court? Is it your middle back player who rushes up to dig this ball as they are moving in the direction of the net? All of these scenarios are correct if it is what is agreed upon by the team ahead of time.

Once these are agreed upon, it will be easier to train this scenario.  This is why I feel it is important to have multiple players in the drills.  We have to learn to read and react together.  This is the same for serve reception.  The players need to agree ahead of time who is taking which seam, who is getting the short serve…etc.  We rarely to serve reception drills with just one player. We try hard to include the decision making into each situation.  Then the coaches will find that the intensity and desire will magically improve as players are moving and reacting to the different situations together.