Seven things that came up over and over when mentoring

1.     Volleyball is about seeing cues and reacting to the cues. 

 Often in Canada in women sport in particular we do a poor job of teaching reading cues.  The first system we teach is the slide line defense.  The ball moves this way the player in middle back goes to the side line.  Following the ball where it moves.  For this reason young players don’t need to know any other cues than the ball.If we would teach the young players to see the ball and then look at the attacker, even something as specific as their feet.  Still using the slide line defence, if their feet (approach) comes from out side in to the court we ask the athletes to go line seam, if the player stays in the court and approaches straight then go to the sidelines.  Now U-14 players are learning more about cues. Then they start  U -16 we add after they jump look at their shoulders.  If the shoulders stay turned then the athlete stays home more, if they rotate then the athlete rotates toward line a step. 

2.     Volleyball starts from the cues. 

This is to carry on from point 1. In volleyball the game is started by a whistle then after that the server has 8 seconds to decide when to start the drill.  But everything after that is decisions from what we see.

In many different drills I watched during my the last couple years coaches often start the drill by slapping a ball.  This is their cue to begin the drill.  But it isn’t game realistic.  That is based on a sound. The drill should start as a from a visual cue.  Usually a player or coach  tossing a ball high enough to them selves to attack or hit a down ball is significant enough for the athletes to begin the drill. 

3.     Players need more serving and hitting reps than coaches.

 Often as coaches we design drills where we are the center of the drill.  The more we can teach athletes to run the drills with tempo the more they will understand the game.  The more realistic it is for the level of play that the athlete will see.  At Jasper we were able to get U-13 athletes tossing and attacking their own toss.  Not very well but still well enough that we could enter the ball that way.

4.     Volleyball is random so create random drills.

  The best passing drill is pass set hit, the best attacking drill is pass set hit, the best setting drill is pass set hit.  The more we can teach technical drills with in the purpose of the game the more it will stick.  When designing drills think about what happens before and after that skill is needed.  When entering the ball into the drill find many different ways to enter it.  Examples are; off a serve, from a down ball, opposition tipping the ball, opposition sending a free ball the ball over and from a controlled attack. Each of these help make the game more realistic than a coach centered drill.

5.     The length of a volleyball match is predicated upon score not on time. 

This is why the length of drills should be based on reps or score.   Examples are Start score at 18 all and play to 25.  Serve 5 balls each and then switch roles. Make 20 overs in a row…

6.     Have a purpose.

There are many volleyball drill books with some great drill ideas, but as a coach we need to know what we are trying to accomplish.  Not just run a drill because it is a cool drill, or because I saw someone else run it. 

As mentioned above the best passing drill is a pass set hit drill. It is what the coaches focus on that makes the drill a little different.  For example we wanted to work on attacking for middles.  First we need to decide on the tempo we would like to run.  WE have come up with a numbering system that is based on when the ball is in the setters hand.  Third tempo set would mean the athlete has 3 steps left in their approach when the ball is in the setters hand. Many of our high balls will fit into a 3^rd tempo category.  A 2^nd temp set would mean they have two steps left when the ball is in the setters hand. This would be our x balls, back row balls or quicker tempo sets to outside attackers.  1^st tempo would be one step left. Many middles are first tempo, ball is hit on down trajectory.  Then we have a zero tempo.  The attacker is already in the air or jumping as the ball is in the setters hands.  Most university and national teams run this tempo with middles in front of the setter.

Then as mentioned in a previous blog, http://bit.ly/N7U7Iy we would run a high rep drill or tutor phase. Then after the athletes get a good sense of what it feels like in this situation we would move it to a mini game situation.  Ironically a lot of attacking drills we saw this summer were without a block.  Very rarely do attackers in a game get to attack against no blocks.  So the faster we implement blocking and attack around or off the more comfortable the athlete will become.  After mini game we then put it into a large game situation.  Our key words don’t change and the purpose doesn’t.

Finally number 7.  Challenge the athletes.

It is ok  for them to fail. We need to continually keep raising the bar.  Allow the athletes to fail and then sit back analyze the situation, what way can we work to be successful at this drill.  Failing means they are trying new things pushing their limits of success.  Teams that come from behind often are teams that believe they can come behind.  They have struggled and found different ways to succeed.   Here s an example of a drill we talked about this summer that makes it hard for a team to win.  Teams start at 20 all.  Play a game to 25, the catch is when a team gets to 24 they must win the next point, if not, they go back to 20.  The opposition keeps their points.  This is a tough drill to win, teaches teams there are no leads to big. To keep pushing.  

Who Makes you Better?

Who makes you better???

I just finished reading an article on the website positivelypositive.com written by Antonio Neves.  In his article he talks about finding people who help you achieve.  He referred to two types of people;  Allies of Glory and Thieves of Ambition. 

“Your Allies of Glory are those people that support you, encourage you, challenge you, hold you accountable, and push you to give your all without excuses.

Your Thieves of Ambition are those people that question your motives, support mediocrity, are afraid of success, enable your excuses, and accept the status quo.”

The whole article can be read http://www.positivelypositive.com/2012/07/25/who-makes-you-better/

In Canada we have our provincial team programs.  These programs are designed to keep our elite players competing during the summer.  It also gives them a chance to compete against other provinces top players.  In the last few years the prestige of provincial teams has dropped off a bit.  Coaches have not been encouraging their players to participate.(”thieves”) All the players involved in the provincial teams have made huge growths.  They have found away to make themselves better and are surrounded by like minded people.

Great examples of Allies of Glory could be found this past weekend at the National tournament. The Manitoba U-19 team  won the National Team Challenge Cup (ntcc). Derek Richels and Becky Young were the coaches of the Man 19’s.  Derek has been part of Brandon University since our inception seven years ago.  Along with Kevin Neufeld and myself, Derek has helped form the program.  It was great to watch Derek coach and see how he has created his own style and is very successful. Derek has sought out many different opinions.  He has worked with Dalhousie’s Rick Scott and spent the summer with Red River College’s men’s coach Dan Gilbert.  Becky was our captain for 3 years at BU and she was the head coach last year for 10 league matches and 5 exhibition matches.  Becky really understands the game and was a great addition for Derek.

Shanlee Mclennan was named MVP of the tournament.  I was so excited to see how Shanlee has grown.  At our end of the year Shanlee and I met and she set some physical and tactical goals.  She went home to Winnipeg and found a personal trainer and then started to train for competitive beach.  Any success Shan has some credit must also go to Wanda Guenette.  Wanda is Shan’s beach coach and  an Olympian in beach volleyball as well she played for over a decade on our indoor team.  Shanlee has definitely surrounded herself in Allies of Glory. In the semi-final and finals Shanlee had 51 kills on 114 attemtps with 9 errors.

Also on the gold medal team was Mary Thomson. Mary s a freshman coming in to our  BU program as a setter.  Mary probably could have played on the U-18 team but Derek and Becky chose to move her up so she would compete against the older girls.  Mary had the opportunity to set some against Sask in her 4 set victory.  Mary was lucky to be surrounded this summer by athletes who have played in one season of Canada West.  She was able to see how they trained and focused during the championships.  Just watching Mary play we could see the improvement in her game.  She is going to be very good.  One day she will look back on this summer and thank her Allies of Glory.

Also playing in the NTCC on Man 18’s were two of our freshman, Jodie Baker and Gillian Leech. Both Gillian and Jodie had an opportunity to play a lot and were a main stay on their teams.  Earlier this year Gillian decided she wanted to play university ball. She  knew she needed to commit herself to getting better. She also hired a personal trainer and started to get in better shape.  The volume of sets she saw in the NTCC it was a good thing.  Gillian has developed a powerful swing and has improved her jump a lot over her 6 months of training.  When she comes into our program in the fall she will have a seamless transition. Jodie Baker has grown up around competitive sports. She watched her older sister play.  Jodie ended up top 3 in the tournament with blocks.  Jodie also was selected to the Canadian Jr National Team.  Jodie will get an additional 4 weeks of excellence.  She will again see how elite athletes train and the necessary skills.

Lisa Nicol was  the head coach of the Man 18’s I was her mentor coach and she was great to work with.  We have invited her to join our coaching staff this season.  She will be able to give us a fresh insight with the team.  Lisa has  a passion for coaching and wants to be the best she can be.

Like the article said, Are we really surrounding us with the right people to help us get to where we need to be?  Am I really doing enough?

Jasper Volleyball Camp

Alberta Volleyball invited me to become a mentor coach at Jasper volleyball Camp.  I love this camp it is one of the best camps in Canada.  Jasper is an outdoor camp in the middle of the Rocky Mountain in Alberta where athletes from many provinces and states come to learn about the sport.

It is a 6’s camp, played outdoors but based on improving the indoor game..  Everyday you wake up and go outside and have a chance to see some amazing mountains.  The coaches here are university athletes and club coaches and some college coaches.  AVA hires mentor coaches to help raise the level of instruction for the “campers” Every night we have a coaches meeting to talk about different parts of practice planning or drill construction that we see and try to ask questions to improve and challenge the coaches.  The coaches also ask a lot of questions, which makes it even more enjoyable. The camp then improves volleyball as a whole coaches and athletes.  I also find that I learn lots from the younger coaches who have such a great passion for the game.

My volleyball-coaching career really evolved out of jasper.  I was here as an instructor for a better part of 10 years.  It was at Jasper where I was able to try out different coaching techniques and discuss coaching philosophies with other coaches.  I remember sitting in our dorm room planning practices as a large group.  We would share ideas of how we would go about progressing from basics to game play.  We would draw out plans on the chalkboard argue about key points in different techniques.  Play some card games.  Over all was an incredible experience. I also took my first level one course here.  It was a week long course with just volleyball coaches.  We were immersed in volleyball.  I was able to meet the provincial team coaches and found out about that level.  I set a goal of coaching at that level.  When I first told some friends one day in the next five years I would coach the provincial team they all laughed at me.  A hockey guy thinks he can coach provincial team. Now coaching with Canadian National Team and at Brandon University I am able to realize how lucky I am and how far i have come. 

The coaches get along with each other quite well at the camp. They also tend to find different ways to involve the campers in pulling pranks on each other.   It was here at Jasper that a lot of my friends were formed.  Rod Durrant Head Coach U of C, Shawn Sky Head Coach Mount Royal College, Dan Ota Head Coach Dalhousie University,  Dale Johns assistant coach U of A, Sylvain Loiseau Sherbrook College, Ron Thomson Head Coach GPRC, Keith Hansen RDC  and Shayne White Head Coach Wilfred Laurier, all worked here at different times with me. Mark Paas gave me a lucky rock here at Jasper as I was heading off to coach at GPRC (he also taught me to sumo wrestle).

The coaches’ sleep in classrooms on the floor. Taking turns sleeping in the dormitories and supervising the athletes.  They have a chance then to talk to the athletes and tell them about there experiences.  It is a chance for these coaches to help create a vision for the athletes.  At lunch they eat in a meeting room in the curling rink.  Shirley has catered the camp as long as I have been a part.  She makes great food and the campers really enjoy it.  Also at this time the coaches again mingle with different tables and tell volleyball or life stories.  I love sitting back and watching, this is truly a place where grass roots meet the mountains.
 

Why they Make National Team

My national team experience has come to an end for the summer.  I really enjoyed the summer with the A and B teams combined.  It was nice to be the good cop for a change. But the experience was even more exciting to see the improvement and commitment of these athletes.

It is interesting to discuss how they all got to the level of the national team. They took many different routes to make the team.  Some were child prodegies others just kept building towards it.  It isn’t really a secret, they put the time in the gym and on the court.  Athletes I talked to about their experience in youth volleyball did more than the average.  Many had coaches that would put in extra time with them in the gym. 

They had the opportunity to play on the provincial teams.  They loved the sport of volleyball and found ways to play.  Many of them put up nets in their backyards.  They would play balloon volleyball or sock volleyball with a family member over couches. 

Most of them have a point in their career where they weren’t very good and had to grow into their bodies.  They had supportive coaches that saw they had athletic potential and encouraged them to keep playing.  They had friends who also loved the sport so it seemed normal to be playing all the time. They are never satisified with good enough.  There is always something for them to work on or improve.

When I was coaching the Killam Spartan’s we had many players who were talented to go on to play at the next level. But it wasn’t commonplace yet.  When they would leave to go play provincial team most of the friends couldn’t understand that commitment.  Why would you give up your summer playing volleyball.  If they left to go play Juvenile  (U-18)volleyball 2 hours away they would also be told of the parties they missed.  They had pressure from boyfriends to not be gone as much.  Many would give up the dream.  People at the national team level found ways to overcome this.

We hear in the news the 10000 hr rule of purposeful practice will make an expert, but quite often in Canada we believe in breaks or else they will burnout.  Most research tends to agree the main reason for burnout is because athletes have too much success early.  They achieve tons of accolades and awards.  As they move up levels it becomes harder and harder to achieve the same level of success.  It then gets to a point where they just give up. 

The athletes on the national team faced these situations as well.  Many of them haven’t had a summer off since they were 15.  They keep training and get better.  The training load for the five weeks was high.  They trained twice for 3 hours  6 days a week plus did weights 3 times a week.  I was convinced when we retested them after 5 weeks their testing would be down.  All but 3 improved with this schedule.  Yes the trainer had some monitoring injuries and soreness, most of which was there long before this summer.  When I look at some of the younger athletes they would get 40 swings in a 3 set match in their grade 12 year .  They would play 4 or 5 matches a day.  This also was done with no strength and pre hab,

As coaches we often look for a quick fix of the team or intervene quickly when the drill isn’t working.  It is ok to have them struggle through the situation.  It is ok to fail.  My friend David Johnson was inducted into the Alberta Volleyball Hall of Fame this weekend.  In his speech he mentioned his mother feeling so bad for him after a tough loss.  He said to her you have to be willing to risk the loss in order to find the success in winning.  We need to teach it is ok to lose to put ourselves on the line.  But come back with a vengeance and work harder to put yourself in a situation to succeed.

Leave No doubt

Team Canada update.

Well we have finished our 4^th week of training with the combined A and B national teams.  It has been a fun summer.  I enjoy the time with the national team and getting to know the different players involved.  It always seems different when we line up against each other during the season.  We are into the intra squad games and have played 3 round robin games.  Team 2 which I am part of ended round 1 in first place.  When your team is not playing the athletes are responsible for being the officials.  Here are Kelsey and Jamie after their ref duties.  They do everything 100 percent.  Even dressed in their official clothing.

I am reading a book right now called “Leave No doubt” written by Mike Babcock.  Mike was the head coach of the Olympic gold medal Canadian hockey team.  It chronicles his thoughts during the build up for and the two weeks of the Olympics.  The book has many great underlining themes.  I will mention two of then that stuck with me so far.

The first comment Mike made was about pressure and loving it.  By placing yourself in a situation to have success automatically brings pressure.  There are two ways to look at it.  1 is the fear of failure and the second is accepting and enjoying the moment.  Too often as the season gets down to crunch and the pressure starts to mount we look for ways out. Or look for reason or excuses for possible failure.  Instead of looking at the pressure as a reward for all the hard work and dedication we have put into the sport.  The Canadian Hockey teams had pressure.  Playing in Canada where anything less than a Gold medal is considered a failure.  Mike found ways to relish the experience.

Early in the book Mike said he has had a series of “dream Jobs”.  He never really set out to become the Olympic coach.  But he kept challenging himself.  His first job at Red Deer College was a dream Job.  Then as he moved up in the ranks they were all considered dream jobs to him. I too feel this way.  I remember all I was hoping to be is a high school coach.  I wanted to run my own high school program build it up to be a recognized program and to move athletes on to post secondary.  I remember the huge disappointment when I was turned down twice in the County of Flagstaff for two different high school positions. But in looking back I think that not getting those positions kept me motivated and made me search out different ways to improve myself so I could get the next high school position.  Then Rod Durrant called me. Something came up and he needed me to cover a weekend for him with Mount Royal Men’s college team.  Watching the warm-up and thinking how cool that was to be a head coach at a CCAA college for 1 weekend.  (We won both games over SAIT).  That was my dream job…then two years later talking with Ron Thomson at GPRC.  When I received the job offer to fill a 1 year sabbatical for David Kay I was so scared and excited at the same time.  I remember my first practice scared to give much feedback to the 3^rd year players…soon getting comfortable and making a mark on them.  That whole year was a dream for me.  Then when David retired from coaching I was offered the head coach position.  Three years in I was getting bogged down by some of the politics that come from institutions and I had to remind myself of my dream job.

Now I sit around the lunch table with the young national team athletes and listen to their excitement of being part of the National team and feed off their energy.  I am Head Coach at a great institution (Brandon University). I have tremendous support from the community and the school, I have to keep reminding myself how lucky I am.  I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be working with the National team, now this is my fifth summer.  I started to take some of the excitement for granted and reading Mike’s book put it back into perspective for me. 

National team again (fitness testing info too)

It has been awhile since my last posting.  It has been a crazy couple of weeks for me.  I put on 9800 km on my truck in the last 4 weeks which mad it a little hard to blog.. 

Now I am settled in rez in Winnipeg and back with the National women’s team for the last 3 weeks.  This summer it is a different format of training than the last two summers I experienced.  Lupo and Scott ( national team coaches) have decided to train the A and B national teams together for the first 3 weeks. We will then split into 3 teams and play a triple round robin tournament. The coaches of the 3 teams are Danny Da Costa from St. FX, Scott Koskie and myself.  Then they will cut down to the A team and will participate in the Pan Am cup in Mexico. 

Also this year Lupo is giving some of the more veteran players the some time off to recuperate some injuries and refocuss. That means this is a good opportunity for some younger players to get quality international experience. 

We started the training camp with 49 players from across the country.  The first couple of days we did ball control and physical testing.  The testing part is interesting because it is a skill too.  Some players will test better because they have completed the different requirements and understand how to recover and use it to their benefit. http://bit.ly/L0jxtD  this is a link to Volleyball Canada’s website and a draft of all the tests and protocols.  I recommend you check them out.  Testing is always a stressful time for the athletes.  At Brandon University we test 3 times a year and no matter how we try to calm the athletes down they still stress out when the time arrives.  We had four players spike touch 3.17meters or higher this year.  (10’4” for people like me who still work that way).

After the testing then there was plenty of drills and competition with everything being statted.  Lupo was especially concerned with the setters and their efficiencies’.  Basically how did the team kill the ball in relationship to each setter.  So the teams would stay the same and the setters would rotate around.  It was a close decision.

In the end Lupo decided to take 33 players included the A team athletes that returned.  Nine of the players were on the B team with us last summer, so they were more comfortable this time around.  Kristi Hunter was the most impressive for me as she improved her spike touch 4 inches from last summer and was now touching 10’2.5”  Her coach from Roblin will be extremely proud of her.

In a typical week the team trains 6 hours a day. They have Weds and Saturday afternoons off plus all day Sunday.  The volume is surprising for the first year athletes.  It feels like you eat, train, sleep all week. Thursday the team quits at 6 pm and they do an hour of yoga.  Which is really good to help with flexibility.  It will take awhile but in the end it will benefit all the athletes.

A typical training session begins with Lupo introducing the expectations and drills of the day. He then gives the team 30 secs for them to focus on their own specific goals.  What does each player need to work on.  Sometimes the drills will focus on transition but an athlete might have a personal goal of using less movement in the arms on defense.  They would use the 30 secs to then see themselves and focus on their personal goals as well.  Myself I often remind myself to stay positive and to encourage the athletes.  Working with the national team the expectatons are quite different.  It is a big jump up from university volleyball.  Some of the systems we run in CIS wouldn’t work at the international level because of the speed and size of the opposition.  When Lupo and Scott swing off boxes the first couple of times people think that is crazy hard, but soon realize that is what the matches are really like.

After the 30 seconds Scott will run them through some ball control drills.  Scott is the master of the Ball control warm-up and keeping it different every time.  Every once and a while he will throw in a fun game.  One day we played a 1 bounce volleyball tennis 3 tournament.  The ball had to bounce and then you had 2 contacts after to play the ball over.  Most of the time it is contacts with the ball over the net.  Working specifically on improving movement and the “touch on the ball”  After their will be a drill that will focus on the topic.  In this drill it will have high volume for the athletes.  For example we were working on finding the pace and rhythm in the shoot sets for both leftside and rightside.  The athletes would be in groups of three and would hit 10 shoots sets each and then another group would be in.  Of course this was all done from a pass and an easier serve.  The best drills are still serve, pass set hit drills.

After this Lupo will then go into his main drill.  He will do 1 drill for an hour and half.  During tryouts it was sometimes 2 hours of the same drill.  This is tough on some athletes. It requires a lot of mental focus to stay engaged in the drill for that long.  Now two weeks in it just seems normal.  The athletes are doing a great job with their attention.  I find that in younger club we need to have 7 or 8 drills to keep their attention.  In university often we will have 4 drills over the two hour period.  National team 3 drills for 3 hours.

At the end of the practice he will debrief and then they have 30 secs of time to evaluate what they did in the practice. To note what they should work on during the following practices.

How to say goodbye to a mentor and friend

How to say goodbye to a Mentor and Friend?

On Thursday night at 7:45pm Bob Gabruck lost his battle with Cancer.

Bob is the reason I am a coach at University.  Bob is the founder of the Spartan Volleyball club.  It is a small volleyball club in central Alberta.  It was built to improve volleyball within the county of Flagstaff.  It was also built for the daughters of his friends so they had a place to continue to play. 

What was suppose to be a couple years turned into a 25 year passion for Bob.  Over that time he and the Spartans have had tremendous success. During the hay day of the club they had 2 bantam U-14 teams and 2 midget U-16 teams.  Every girl who participated in the club got an elite experience.  Competing in tournaments all over Alberta and Saskatchewan. Bob set high expectations and demanded commitment.  Bob also encouraged and scheduled so players could continue to play other school sports.

When I entered in picture I was a hockey player that became a young rookie teacher in Alliance Alberta.  During that year I was the boys volleyball coach at the middle years school.  I really didn’t know much about the sport.  Other than what I covered in a introductory volleyball course I had taken at U of Alberta.  I was hard working but a bit out of my element.  During a tournament we were hosting in Alliance I met Bob.  Oh by the way Bob coached both guys and girls team at Killam during the school season.  If it was played at Killam public Bob Gabruck coached it.  (Badminton, Cross country, basketball, track and field, plus he was the commissioner for many sports.)

After meeting Bob I found out what was expected to be a Master teacher.  He made me understand that it was possible to work and coach lots of different teams.  Just took multiple coloured pens on a calendar.  So I too started to coach more teams in Alliance. 

During that year Bob asked me to Referee a match between the Spartan Club team from Killam and a club team from Forestburg.  After the match he asked me if I had any interest in coaching with him.  I like to think it was because he saw something in me as a coach, not because I was that bad as a ref.

Bob invited me to go to Rocky Mountain House for an Alberta Summer Games zone tourney.  I went to watch and see what it was about and remember watching the team march in during the opening ceremonies thinking that would be a cool thing to be part of. The next morning at 9 am Bob had convinced me to sit on the bench with him.  That is where it started for the next 6 years I would be sitting on the bench with Bob. Many nights spent in hotel rooms together, sitting in his basement discussing practice and matches.  Working camps together and in the end catching Bob's love and passion for coaching.

Bob organized a summer camp for may years in Killam and he would find some great coaches to come and work the camp. Many of the coaches are still heavily involved in volleyball Rod Durrant U of C men's head coach,  Richard Schick UBC men's head coach, Shawn Sky Mount Royal University head coach, Dale John's U of A long time assistant coach, Nathan Bennet Capilano College Men's head coach, Ian  Kulmatyci Dino's U-18,  Pete Kalis one of the best camp instructors ever was involved in the very first and help set the tone for the rest. Even though Bob never coached College or University he sure had some influence on the coaches of some programs.

One of my greatest memories in sport was with Bob.  We were coaching the Spartan’s and had a decent team.  We had finished fairly high in most tourneys.  When the tier 1 provincial championships came along we were clicking.  This was during the old school scoring where you could only score when you had serve.  We were down in the quarter finals 8-0 when Bob called a time out.  He just settled the team down, asked them to swing at hands a bit more. We won 15-8 and then won the second set.  In the semi finals we played the Calgary Dino’s club team.  They had won a couple of tournaments.  The team played great keeping pressure on them the whole match.  Doni Van Dresar was playing awesome.  She was attacking out of all three positions In the third set Doni collided with some one and had a charlie horse.  So we subbed in Kimmy Berg a smaller defensive player for her to serve and try to get Doni up and going.  By the time she got in the front row we could tell Doni was unable to go.  So Kimmy stayed in the middle and played hard.  The rest of the team picked up their defense and we advanced to the final.

The final was a blurr we played NAVC and won 2 straight. (Sorry Aaron for reminding you of this)  Here was a small town club team and we had beat the best of the big city all star teams.  It was amazing.  We ended up in Alliance restaurant on the way home from Calgary.  We had Queen’s “we are the champions” blaring over and over from a Jukebox.  It was an amazing feeling.  Here and now I was hooked and knew I wanted to be a coach.  Bob and I were so proud of the girls, the parents and the communities involved.  That was the beginning of a tremendous run of club volleyball.  This is still crystal clear in my memory. 

The Spartan club has produced many College and University athletes.  When I moved to Grande Prairie College  The Spartan’s became one of my prime recruiting locations.  One year at Canadian College Nationals we had 4 Spartans on the floor during our win. 

On May 26^th the Spartan’s are having their 25 year reunion.  It was suppose to be a show of Bob influence over the community and  players.  It was a chance for everyone to say thank you for everything he did. Liz Gabruck and her kids Kayla, Devon and Brandon, will still have a chance to see what they already know about the community and players love for Bob.  Liz said to me  yesterday the Spartan reunion needs to rock. 

To all the Spartan’s I am looking so forward to celebrating all the years of success and the personal success of the players.  I am also looking forward to celebrating Bob’s love for sport and his passion for coaching.  With out his role modeling I would never have ended up an University Coach. To the parent’s I want to celebrate all the stories…Just 1 request no throwing anyone in a bath tub!!!