Coaches Christmas

Coaches Christmas

Success isn’t a once in awhile thing, it is an all the time thing. A person doesn’t just suddenly become successful it is because they have worked hard to reach that point.  Then they must work hard to maintain that level.  Therefore success is a habit.

I try really hard to get away from volleyball for two days.  I found out a couple years ago that even a short amount of time helps with the excitement of second semester.  Coaching in the Canadian University and College is a unique experience coming from high school.  It is quite an adjustment for a coach as it is for a player.  The idea that you can take two weeks off for a break right in the middle of your season is definitely interesting. 

Taking two days off to forget about volleyball is awesome.  I was able to get to Winnipeg and visit with some friends.  Even though the conversation was about volleyball it was more about the state of the game in Canada and how we think we can improve it. 

The next couple of days were dedicated to recruiting.  At this point of the season we have a decent grasp on what we need to do to improve the team. There are some holes that we need to fill, players that are graduating, or areas that we need depth in.  Some recruits we have been talking with for a couple of years hoping to guide them to Brandon.  Others we will begin talking with.  I usually use the week before Christmas to call the Junior college coaches in Alberta and BC to get their opinion on who is playing well in their league.  I find that every coach including myself is a bit biased to their own player.  When I phone another coach to get an opinion on the different players from other teams it tends to balance it out. 

To me the cold call is the hardest, the first contact with a parent and a player.  I will google the athlete and read as many newspaper articles or information about the players as I can before the first call.  If a player is successful at golf in the summer it helps to start a casual conversation.  I don’t want the first call to be to formal, just a checking the interest type of call.  The follow up ones are easier to develop a bit of a rapport. During this time I also like to guage where are top recruits are at.  Some times at this point we need to scramble to fill.  This year we are fairly young in most positions so we are not so desperate to fill, we can take a bit of a risk on some raw athletes, or maybe try to change an athlete from middle to the outside.

After I finish a couple of days of trying to figure out where we stand, I like to go back and watch our matches, well parts of our matches.  I like to watch each set from 18-finish.  To see what we do during the crunch times of the match.  What should be our focus in the new year.  I am really happy with the result so far.  I really feel as if the team is committed to the program and our identity.  I worry about this time of year, just two weeks is a long time off.  We ask the team to continue with a jumping program and weight training.  We have found that this prevents shin splint issues when we return from break.  The body isn’t prepared for the load of the Christmas tournament.

The last thing I like to do is begin to watch our opposition that we play the second semester.  I sound like a broken record  but we have some big matches coming up.  I really believe that we have enough experience and the right make up that we can make a run deep into the playoffs.  I don’t think we should cancel out a chance at the final four or an appearance at Nationals, but we have to get there first.  So getting a big jump on our oppositions tendancies help.  Just so everyone understands, 2 hours of watching UBCO play on Christmas to wrap up their semester of competition.  We play them Jan 13 and 14^th.  They are a much better team than their record shows.  But I feel we match up well.

So for Christmas I asked for some great recruits and some important wins.  Oh and I bought myself some new shirts and ties.... Merry Christmas everyone.

December meetings testing and competing

We are officially on our Christmas Break.  With the strike this was a different December.  Traditionally we would practice till the Desks would go in the gym around Dec 8^thfor final exams.  Then we would focus on weights and some plyometrics.  This year since the strike went 45 days the school has decided to push exams until Jan 23-30^th.  Which gives us a bit more time with the gym, but it is a crazy time for students.

As everyone who remembers university life the end of semester are crazy and busy.  It is a weird time for a coach.  We found that the athletes are so focussed on their school that it is hard to teach new things or to fix some technical flaws.  We decided a few years ago that we can use this time to teach competition. We have since then started to have Queen of the Gym tournaments.  This is a tournament where you play with different people every game. If your team wins then you get positive points.  If you lose then you get negative points.  That way every point is worth two.  Lose 25-23 your down two but your opponent is up 2.  That is a 4 point difference. We hope that teaches our team every point is important.  Even if your down you need to battle till the end.

We had two good tournaments, 3 on 3 full court the first day, which Chloe won.  She is our leftside that was our libero at the start of the year.  She has strong ball control and found ways to win.  We talked in between each match about trying to be more strategic.  They have been playing with and against each other for a semester.  What are their strengths and weakness? How can your group use them to your advantage?   

Second tournament we ran was 4 on 4 tournament.  We had Sara and Becky from our coaching staff put on their gear and competed to give us 4 teams of 4.  It is fun to see them play.  Both Becky and Sara played last year so still are very skilled.  Becky ended up second in the tournament.  Our first year letfside Shanlee won the tournament.  Different than the 3’s tourney, Shanlee really cut down on her unforced errors and scored when she had too. At the start of this tourney we reminded them of what we are trying to do as a group, cut down on the unforced errors especially on the red trouble ball.

In this time we also do individual meetings with the players. We created mid term report card that we work through together.  We get the athletes to grade themselves on everything from individual skills to understanding and executing game plans, understanding their role and the acceptance of it.  We find that most athletes are very self aware.   They have a good understanding of their level of skill and their role on the team.  The team has a great feel about it right now.  Everyone is fitting in a feels like they are a valuable member of the team.  As a coach, my past teams always creep into my mind, I have had some very upset players in these meetings.  Even though I try to touch base with the athletes at least once or twice a month with a casual conversation in the gym, on a bus or in the airport I sometimes get surprised in the meetings. I know we preach that we are this year’s team and the statement is one of our standards.  I still remember the bad experience and try to avoid them.  For this reason I worry about some of the athletes who don’t get a lot of playing time.  I am happy they are all working hard and understand when they get their opportunity to make the best of it.

Lastly we fitness test.  We test three times a year.  We test in September when they arrive, then again in December, and then in May before the go home.  We usually get some big growths from the May to September from our first year players.  Over the Christmas break they still lift and work on a circuit.  We have found that the fitness test helps motivate people during this time.  Usually they see improvement from Sept till now.  Or they realize they need to put more effort into this part of their game. 

We have a tournament at home from Dec 29 to 31. WE have told each of the players what their role is.  We need to get some players quality contacts.  It is a good chance to reinforce our team character and have an opportunity to play some of the younger players in some different situations. This is a fun time for us as we are able to put the younger athletes in different situations without the pressure of league. 

http://www.gobobcats.ca/2011/12/07/conferences-of-canada-challange-set-for-december/  is a link to the tourney.  We are not charging for this tournament hoping to get as many youth teams out as we can.  It is a good chance to see the different styles of teams from the different leagues. 

Video

Here are some of the Video's Matt Packwood our Sports Information Officer put together on our website. gobobcats.ca  He did a great job thought I would show all of you.  The play by play voice is Tyler Crayston from CKLQ sports here in Brandon.

Less is More

This past weekend was a very important one for us.  We needed to get two wins at home, which would place us at 6 wins and 6 losses.  Being .500 would be incredible considering the strike and having to learn on our own.  We had a tough first semester with playing 3 top ten nationally ranked teams.

This weekend was Saskatchewan Huskies, even though they were winless heading into the weekend, we have learned that there are no easy matches in Canada West.  The Huskies had taken sets off some pretty impressive teams.  Leading up to this weekend was also my first time being able to be back in the gym for a full week of practice.  This made for an interesting dynamic.

We decided to take Monday off as we have been going for 6 straight weekends and felt that the extra day rest would be more beneficial than the practice.  Sometimes less is more.  Tuesday we went for 1.5 hours and had a practice with a lot of reps and movement.  We are able to put up two courts at every practice so it gives us a chance to rep a lot of different things.  It was a fun practice as we were hitting different tempo’s of sets.  Some of the outsides had the opportunity to hit some of the middle set selections and the mids had the opportunity to hit higher sets. It was a good way to introduce myself back to the team.

Weds though we got down to business, we watch video in practice and discussed what we would dot different defensively.  We would show it on a white board, then go on court and practice it.  I had used the same type of drill for this part of practice.  In retrospect it was too long of one drill for the time of night 8:30-9:30pm and the fatigue level of the athletes.  Earlier that day the athletes had a good weight session with Sean our weight coach, which help contribute to the fatigue level.  Thursday was more games specific and what we would try to implement offensively.

I also was a little grumpy this week.  I have a big fear of playing teams we should beat.  Maybe it stems from myself as an athlete and I would get complacent in training leading up to those games.  I really try to push the athletes so they are prepared to be in an extremely close match.  A few years ago a friend of mine, Frank Enns,  talked to me about different mind sets that athletes tend to have.  Athletes most often have an idea of the how we should do against a team before we play them.  We should beat this team easy, I would be surprised they get over 20.  Or this team is really good every game will be within one or two, or worse thinking we will be lucky to get to 20 on this team. 

Against Sask. I was worried of “they would be lucky to get to 20 on us mind set”  We used a video from Versus to help set the tone before the match.  Becky has been using videos before the matches and believes it is why we are on a run.  So we are not superstitious but why risk it.

 As it turned out We played really well Friday and had strong attention to detail winning 3-0 and they never got to 20.  Kellie set the ball very well, Chloe had 8 kills and jaryn had 9 kills with a hitting efficiency of .412.  As a team we were able to control the ball well and attacked over .300 which is incredibly high.

Saturday though was a different story.  We fell into our own mind trap.  Since the match the day before went so easy we were not as focussed in the process as the night before. Terry Orlick, a reknown sport psychologist wrote a paper “Winning after Winning” it can be found online at http://www.zoneofexcellence.ca/free/winning.html   It basically says that it is difficult to win back to back  and have success because things have changed.  For us we found our selves focussing on offense only. We had scored so well the night before, that when Sask made adjustments we struggled.  They changed their defense and we had to find different ways to score.  For this reason our total focus went to offense and we let slip our overall game.  We had 16 serving errors in the 4 sets.  We lost the third set and at one point in the third set it was 6 out 7 servers missed.  Sask serves incredibly tough and with our focus on offense we seemed to be suprized with the pace.  WE had more 0 and 1 passes than ever before.  The night before we were just focussing on the present.  It is a big lesson for us to learn and hopefully we don’t have to relearn it again this year.

We won the match in four, so we achieved our goal of 500.  In our after match debrief we discussed the level of focus and where it was at.  Then I was able to address the team and thank them for their commitment this first semester.  We have an impressive group of girls here.  Each one of them has contributed to our success and found ways to make us better as a whole.  Different people have all led in different ways.  Claire Willerton has been a tremendous leader.  She is a fifth year player, who we are converting to the outside. Claire has been asked to come off the bench and help us when we are in trouble.  She has done this without one complaint.  She is still practicing incredibly hard and showing what team first really means.  We know that Claire will be ready for the challenges that we face second semester.  It would be easy for Claire to be upset, but she has chosen the high road and is an impressive example.  Claire makes us better everyday. 

WE have a week off to recover from the season, then we will begin again on Dec 13^th as classes now go until the 20^th.  It is a chance to rep some things out.  I myself love to be in the gym with this group, but in talking with Bobbie our Strength Guru, this is important for the group.  Need to stick to schedule. Less is more.