Start up Chaos.

Welcome to University!

The first week of school is always an interesting one.  At Brandon University the coaches are part of the faculty and we have teaching workloads.  Technically, this year we have 1/3 time release for coaching.  Which means we need to fill 6 credit hours of teaching besides the coaching. 

Personally, I enjoy the classes I get to teach.  It also gives me a reprieve from thinking about volleyball for a short time each day. The first week of school is always helping lost students try to find classes, trying to build routines with the team.

With the team having 6 new players all the routines (practice, studying, weight training, sport psych, eating, shopping and individual meetings) need to be worked out.  
In the practices one of our routines, we always start the practice with a quick explanation of what is happening, give the athletes 20-30 seconds to center themselves and focus on volleyball.  Then we step into the center circle of the gym to Cheer In.  To us this is a symbolic gesture that you are totally committed to the team for the entire practice. At the end of practice we then cheer out.  Cheering has been an interesting topic around the coaches as of late.  To often the cheering is token, it is suppose to represent who you are or what is needed.  Does it always have to be Bobcats, or Cats as we often shorten it too?  Or should it be defense, or hard work, or a mixture of the two.  


Other routines are put in place as well; such as which type of shirt is worn on which day, who puts up and takes down the net, where to wait for the team ahead of us to finish practicing, and when to arrive for taping and treatments from the teams therapist, or even how to sign up for treatment.

Also we meet with the entire freshman group, to help plan an overall schedule for them for the first couple of weeks.  With Brandon University being a small school, we have limited choices in class times offered for the athletes.  Most of the new athletes are in Sciences this year so they have a large number of labs to go along with the regular classes.  This makes it incredibly hard to organize study hall, weight training groups, and other things that pop up.  Most of the athletes will also have at least one night class a year.  So even study hall in the evening is hard to get everyone there.  So we rely a lot on the maturity of the athlete to make their schedule and to stick with it. That is why we like to meet with the freshman to help them with their schedule. WE have them put in all of their classes and their major assignments from their course outlines.  Next they pencil in all of the volleyball commitments.  Then we ask them to schedule 1 hour of study for each hour of class they have that week. They then realize that all the free time they once thought they had disappears quickly. At the end of the two weeks we will go over the schedule again with them and see if more time is needed for different classes or if they need to schedule in a break in the middle of their studying.

WE also had our first image setting meeting.  This is a chance for the athletes to think about what they want our team to represent.  We had the athletes write down four characteristics that they feel make a good teammate.  Then they were asked to write two behaviors that are destructive to the team identity. The purpose of this is to get them thinking about being a teammate.

This time of year it is easy to be a good teammate, athletes are trying to figure out who everyone is and need to take time with each other.  Next weekend we have a retreat day, where we spend a lot more time investigating each other’s personalities.  We do have quite a few type A athletes on the team.  They like structure and schedules.  Then we have the opposite side, the players who love problem solving, experiencing new things, clumping everything together.  It is important that both of these learn to respect and tolerate the other.  It is a tough thing for new players.  Especially if they come from schools and clubs where everything is done for them, then life at BU where the responsibility is put on them is very different.  Our older athletes all went through it and have to be good mentors for the freshman.  This also helps build team chemistry... Coach K in his book Leading with the Heart, he writes that he doesn't let freshman have cars on campus their first year.  He likes this because they then have to ask the older players for rides to places they need to go.  It forces them to interact with the older athletes.  I believe our school's situation also accomplishes this.  There is always a positive in every situation.