This past weekend I had the privilege to coach our two U-14 volleyball teams in their first tournament of the year. This year we have 9 out of our 14 athletes volunteering at different levels of club in the city. The athletes make it possible for other young players to succeed. The young athlete really look up to the BU girls. It is awesome experience for both sides.
This weekend also fell on the annual indoor beach tournament that our local technical college ACC runs. It is called Son of a Beach. It is a big event in Brandon with over 200 coed teams participating at different level.s It is the one event that I promise the team I won't schedule anything so they could participate in it. OOPs I made a mistake on dates. In-order to fix this problem I decided to coached both of the teams.
I forgot how much we have to teach the athletes and parents at this age. For most it is their first real competition that they will be a part of.
Lesson's
1. Assume nothing. The coaches handed out the draw for the players to see, they played their first game at 5:30 on Friday. With the direction of be their a little earlier than normal so we can hand out jersey;s. Well most of them showed up at 5:20. That was 5 minutes earlier than they are normally at practice. By the time the jerseys were handed out the opposition was attacking in warm-up so we just went behind and passed and ran for 3 minutes.
2. Educate the parents. In the first warm-up we had a parent come on to the court to give feedback to his daughter as she was going through the hitting line. I started to laugh and politely asked him to head back up into the bleachers. He responded my daughter just trying to help. I thought this was great, smiled and responded "not now she is not, she is our player. She becomes your daughter again when the match ends" The rest of the weekend he was very loud positive supporter of all players. We didn't cover this in our parent meeting at tryouts.
3. The Wave and High 5's are a big part of the game. I was sitting on the bench as we scored a point the players on the bench started doing the wave down the bench. I also learned you should change your leg cross every 5 pts very important for focus on the bench. The players who weren't in the match were having a ton of fun on the bench. I wonder if some time we take this a little too serious at the university level. I need to encourage our athletes to have fun while being a support, but still remained focused.
4. No matter the level it is a serve an pass game. Also as long as the games not over we have a chance. there were some amazing runs of serving. Teaching the athletes basic passing strategy. The ball goes where you lean. That lesson alone helped fix some of the problems. If you want the ball to go forward, you need to lean forward. The ball keeps going backward off the serve...I would ask "Whats the rule?" they would often figure it out on their own. The second rule we put in was back row calls off front row. That solved a lot of who gets which ball issues.
5. WE also talked in between sets about what happens after an error. We discussed how everyone who made the error felt, and as a team how can we fix it.
6. We also learned no such thing as positioning. Switching is a complicated thing when your worried about where to go to high 5 who...One young athlete I told her she was setting this match. (We use a 4-2 Front setter all the time). She replied I am a middle. I waved my hand and said TADA, now you are a setter. Then we went out. I believe at this level we can teach systems, but we can also have them play all positions. It gives them a greater understanding of the game.
This weekend coming up we are hosting a U-16 tournament, I have all the players refereeing. I reminded the first year players to interact and be fun in the hallways. One of the players on this team will be on your team in your 5th year. Set the tone now.
This weekend also fell on the annual indoor beach tournament that our local technical college ACC runs. It is called Son of a Beach. It is a big event in Brandon with over 200 coed teams participating at different level.s It is the one event that I promise the team I won't schedule anything so they could participate in it. OOPs I made a mistake on dates. In-order to fix this problem I decided to coached both of the teams.
I forgot how much we have to teach the athletes and parents at this age. For most it is their first real competition that they will be a part of.
Lesson's
1. Assume nothing. The coaches handed out the draw for the players to see, they played their first game at 5:30 on Friday. With the direction of be their a little earlier than normal so we can hand out jersey;s. Well most of them showed up at 5:20. That was 5 minutes earlier than they are normally at practice. By the time the jerseys were handed out the opposition was attacking in warm-up so we just went behind and passed and ran for 3 minutes.
2. Educate the parents. In the first warm-up we had a parent come on to the court to give feedback to his daughter as she was going through the hitting line. I started to laugh and politely asked him to head back up into the bleachers. He responded my daughter just trying to help. I thought this was great, smiled and responded "not now she is not, she is our player. She becomes your daughter again when the match ends" The rest of the weekend he was very loud positive supporter of all players. We didn't cover this in our parent meeting at tryouts.
3. The Wave and High 5's are a big part of the game. I was sitting on the bench as we scored a point the players on the bench started doing the wave down the bench. I also learned you should change your leg cross every 5 pts very important for focus on the bench. The players who weren't in the match were having a ton of fun on the bench. I wonder if some time we take this a little too serious at the university level. I need to encourage our athletes to have fun while being a support, but still remained focused.
4. No matter the level it is a serve an pass game. Also as long as the games not over we have a chance. there were some amazing runs of serving. Teaching the athletes basic passing strategy. The ball goes where you lean. That lesson alone helped fix some of the problems. If you want the ball to go forward, you need to lean forward. The ball keeps going backward off the serve...I would ask "Whats the rule?" they would often figure it out on their own. The second rule we put in was back row calls off front row. That solved a lot of who gets which ball issues.
5. WE also talked in between sets about what happens after an error. We discussed how everyone who made the error felt, and as a team how can we fix it.
6. We also learned no such thing as positioning. Switching is a complicated thing when your worried about where to go to high 5 who...One young athlete I told her she was setting this match. (We use a 4-2 Front setter all the time). She replied I am a middle. I waved my hand and said TADA, now you are a setter. Then we went out. I believe at this level we can teach systems, but we can also have them play all positions. It gives them a greater understanding of the game.
This weekend coming up we are hosting a U-16 tournament, I have all the players refereeing. I reminded the first year players to interact and be fun in the hallways. One of the players on this team will be on your team in your 5th year. Set the tone now.
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