Focus on focus

 I have coached some pretty good players and some pretty good teams over the years. I have had some unbelievable athletes (One player won 13 varsity letters in her 4-year high school career.). I have also coached against some superior teams with some wonderful athletes. At times I found myself becoming more of a fan than a coach. (It was  a bit embarrassing when I found myself mesmerized by and cheering the play on the other side of the net.)  That said, we almost always fell short of our goal, playing the perfect match.  Now, don’t get the idea that a perfect match meant that we had to win.  I know that winning is the end all for many coaches.  Remember, my total focus was performance, not outcome.  We came close a few times.  I remember having to buy a few bags of candy after one match, but I’ll take you there later. 

Regardless of the potential quality of my teams or the overall skill level of my players, we many times lacked one of the most important component of success, FOCUS. Rarely, were we able to put 6 girls on the floor at one time who managed to enter that zone: every player for every point was present. It was like a great symphony. When it happened, it was amazing to witness. It was fun.  It did happen for short spirts, but very rarely for the entirety of a match.

I can remember telling—I’m not exaggerating here—every team with whom I have been involved that this game we are trying to master is not a game easily mastered. It’s damn hard. It take determination, desire, skill (a few unnatural), knowledge, experience and the focus to assemble them all for an entire match. Not one can be left out,  If one player leaves the zone, even for just one play, it affects the symphony we are performing.

I had this epiphany one summer while working a camp for Coach Condit at Miami of Ohio. After the evening session each day the coaches, all of them ex-players except one (that would be me)  and some of Coach Condit’s current players would play. Sometimes the campers would stay and watch.  As I think I mentioned or should have mentioned, I made it a habit of not playing, period, let alone playing  with a bunch of young women who had  either recently ended their college careers or were waiting for their next season to begin. My thinking here was why not keep everyone guessing and assuming I had played at a high level rather than demonstrating to the world that Philly had never played this game.  Well,  there is nothing better than a bunch of good looking (I hope I can say that), athletic women to talk a guy into anything.  My ego roared its ugly head. I played. 

I could hit a ball. I could serve a ball. But, I had no idea if I could dig a ball hit by one of these girls nor any idea if I could pass a serve from one of them. (And guess in whose direction all the serves went.  They showed no compassion. They saw weakness and they pounced. They just wanted to win…or laugh at me.).  I knew how to pass. After all I was beginning to learn how to break it down and teach it.  I had just never done it.  And I knew what was supposed to happen when someone hit a ball at me. I wasn’t sure if my body could do it. What’s that saying, “Talk is cheap”? I was afraid that I was about to become a living metaphor for that old saying.  

I knew I was as athletic as any of them. Play one-on-one on the basketball floor, we have a completely different outlook. Unfortunately, this was not a basketball camp. 

So not to run through every point of every game (Yes, they were “games” back then, not sets. Just to digress a bit: who came up with that verbiage? A set would be a group of things like games. Does no one play tennis,) I’ll just say that I held my own…most of the time. I just remember how mentally fatigued I was. I was totally focused on the ball, the other players, and what I was supposed to do each time the ball was contacted. This was just another proverbial walk in the park for everyone else. For me, this was a jump into the deep end of the pool knowing I had only told  people how to swim.

 I was exhausted.  I had never focused that intently. It was either focus or make a complete fool of myself. Pride is a great motivator. This gave me a completely new perspective. I realized that in order for my players to be successful, we were going to change our focus.  We were going to focus on focus.  This was another skill that needed to be taught.  

As I reflect, I realize that I fell short in teaching this skill. Oh, to go back …..

I’m sure there are books on improving one’s focus, but why read when you can create my own?

* For young kids, working on footwork will force them to focus.  Many footwork combination need to be incorporated. 

         Use the lines on the floor. Hop over and back with one foot, with two feet, a pattern mixing one foot and two.  Be creative.  Eventually they need to be able to complete these tasks without looking at the floor while they hop.  Like I tell them, “That floor has been there for a long time and has not moved.  It’s not going to start any time soon.”

        Try having a partner toss them a ball while hopping.

         Have them hop different pattern using an imaginary box. Carry a ball with you as you walk around. Periodically, toss it to different players.  The girls will need to focus on you while they focus on the footwork pattern. 

* Play Simon Says. That’s one of the oldest games of focus.

* Change Simon Says a bit.  Create responses to what the leader does. If she raises her hand, the girls have to spin around.  If the leader claps, the players must jump. If the leader jumps, the players must sit down. Create any reaction to movements from the leader.  Make it fun.   Be creative.

* Every drill should require focus on performing the skills  properly.  This requires the coach to  be actively observing and correcting.  (Yes, they may flip you off  when you turn your back at times, but get over it.)  Training them early to do everything with skill-performance/skill-perfection in mind will create  much more effective practices and lead them to much greater success. This should start when the girls are young. This expectation should not be something new when they get to high school. 

           Even something as simple as passing a ball to the setter before hitting a ball forces them to focus. A bad pass means not getting a great set. With a drill like this, the coach must require perfect form with the pass. The girls will turn this into a standing-upright-arm- swinging-pass-and- a-lazy-approach drill if the coach lets them.

If one sees the importance of demanding skill perfection in one’s drills, one must understand the necessity of knowing how to teach the skills and recognizing when they are not performed correctly.

       

Another story

 After taking over the WHS program, I had my share of assistants. All well meaning, trying to learn. One of them took the head job at a high school near my home after I resigned my position in the late ‘90s. I would talk to him at times about his team. He kept using terms like “I won this match,” or “I’m doing this at practice.” (He used the word “I” way too much, but I digress) He wanted me to stop by and see one of his practices. So I went.

He had a lot of enthusiastic girls who worked hard. It was the end of July, so it was hot.  The team looked strong and athletic.  After watching the team run through some warmup stuff for 15 minutes or so, he wanted to show me this new drill he had come up with or seen somewhere.

First problem in my opinion, all of his drills were timed drills. Second problem, too many players no involved. Let’s get back to problem 1. He had his players (all varsity players) run a digging drill.  One player on a box on one side of the net who hit balls at a defensive player on the other side.  The defensive player started at the left back, dug a ball, ran back to the middle back, dug a ball, moved to the right side, dug a ball, an then played a tip.  She would then begin the process again. The scoreboard was set to 1 minute. Her objective was to see how many times she could go around the circuit.  

After all of his defensive players had gone through, he walked over to me and something like, “I love that drill.” I told him it was a great conditioning drill, (I lied, anything related to a volleyball skill must be done properly, so as a conditioning drill, it was also terrible.)but that was it. He wanted me to explain.  I said, “Of all the players who went through that drill, not one did anything correctly. They need to learn the skill of digging a ball before you do something like that.” By the way, there was no corrective encouragement, only encouragement to go faster. I did not mention to him to inefficiency of the drill. One player hitting balls at another while the others screamed encouragement and shagged balls is another immense waste of time.

The players should go as fast as they can and as slowly as they need to while perfecting a skill. 

Purpose for Everything

 It took me a few years before I realized that the book of volleyball drills I had purchased right after I accepted the assistant coaching position was not helping my players get any better.  I ran different drills from the book every night at practice. Serving drills. Passing drills.  Hitting drills. We did them all. And the only thing  I’m sure of is running those drills made it look like I knew what I was doing. As for the players getting any better, miserable failure.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, my teams became expert drill runners.  No one  better. No way. We could run the hell out of a butterfly drill. Everyone knew what to do when a ball was shanked into the bleachers. If there would have been a state tournament for running drills efficiently, we would have been down in Indianapolis drilling for a state championship.  

It took me couple of seasons to understand that these drills were doing most of the players absolutely no good. As I said, they were getting better at performing the drills, but that was it.  It was like an English teacher telling his students to write a 5-paragraph essay. Most of the kids had been taught to count to 5; however, writing a well constructed paragraph was…..well, as I said, they could count to 5.  Drills are just tools.  Used incorrectly, they can cause long term damage. And I was causing a bit of damage. 

With this in mind, I began to handle practice like a classroom. I took an outcome-based-education approach: Everyone would learn the foundational fundamentals of striking a volleyball before we would run any “advanced” hitting drill. We are talking hand positions, ball position, footwork, body position, etc. We would cover it all.  Everything I did at practice would have a purpose: MY PLAYERS WOULD LEARN VOLLEYBALL SKILLS.  I followed the same philosophy with every skill. Don’t get the idea that winning matches wasn’t my end goal.  I knew that skilled players led to successful teams.

When we did run drills, my focus was always on how the skills were performed, not on the outcome.

The beginning of a system

During my 40-plus years of coaching, I was fortunate to work with 9 players who were gifted enough to earn scholarships to D1 programs. I also worked with a number of players who went on to play college volleyball at other levels. Was I the reason that those kids had the opportunity to compete after high school?  Maybe a little. But, I can take full credit for 1. Yes, only 1. 

She was an above average player who was overlooked by everyone. She was about 5’ 10” and played middle on a pretty good team. After the season her mother called me to see if there was anything I could do to find her daughter a place to play. Through a phone call to the Miami coach, I found out that Kent State had just hired a new coach, and he need a few players. I contacted him. He asked me to send him a skills tape. He saw it and signed her. So my networking skills, not my coaching skills proved to benefit her.

All of those kids would probably had their opportunities to play after high school regardless of who happened to coach them.  I am  definitely proud to have been part of each girls success,  but realize that I had played  only a small part.  

I take much more pride in developing players with much less natural ability like the little 5/6 grade teams that I trained.  My daughter’s team needed a coach , so I volunteered. 

After one loss, I was waiting after the match to make sure all of the girls had rides home. A parent from the winning team approached me and complimented our team.  She said, “I know we won, but your girls are doing it right. You are teaching them the right way to play.” Her daughter’s team had a few very strong girls who could serve well, and her team made no attempt to score points by using all 3 contacts. Their girls would just bang the ball over on the first contact. We lost because I told the girls regardless of the score, we were going to try to pass to the setter’s box, set to a hitter and strike the ball properly.

I was very happy that someone in the crowd appreciated what my girls were trying to do. The training system I was using proved to be successful.  

Of the kids on my daughter’s team, only one went on to play college volleyball. I’m not sure many made it through their high school programs. The one girl who went on to play in college at a small D1 school went from being the shortest girl on the team in 5th and 6th grade to playing college at about 6’.  It’s all in the genes. 

Ego vs Reality

To review,  I’ve admitted, when I started coaching volleyball, I knew less than nothing about the sport. I had a great deal to discover not only about volleyball but also about coaching.  

Well, Sue got married and moved to Wisconsin after my 2nd year with the program.. By this time, I had climbed up the volleyball knowledge ladder from knowing less than nothing to knowing very little. But I was captured by the sport. (I also began to realize that my chances of becoming a head basketball coach in Ft Wayne had left the barn. I was not Lutheran.) I set my sights on taking Sue’s place as the  head volleyball coach at WHS.  Although no money exchanged hands, I was given the job. (There was some embarrassing begging, though) 

The program I inherited, was pretty good. I think our record was something like 30-5 my first year. We developed a huge following. We were the buzz of the school. (Remember, I still had little idea what I was doing.) I began to think I was a pretty good coach. After all, we were winning. People in town took notice of our team.  I was soaking it all in. 

Unfortunately, a dark cloud blew in. I lost the final game of the sectional for us. I say “I lost the final game” because I did: I was so nervous, I handed in the wrong lineup….twice. Mind you, we never changed the lineup all year. Some how I screwed it up. Importantly, I figured that we were good enough that we could play through it. I was wrong. We lost. I had to live with that for one calendar year. That was my first big coaching lesson. (We will talk about that lesson later.)

The 365-day wait was well worth it. The girls avenged that loss (Instead of just writing down the number on the lineup card, I actually wrote down the names with the number in each spot and had someone check it) The team went on to finish tied for 3rd in the state tournament. It’s important to know that this was before the IHSAA instituted the class system. They were that good. 

Of that team, our middle went to Miami (Ohio), our setter went to South Carolina (She was so good that in my time “coaching” her, she was called for only 1 ball handling error.) and 1 of the outsides went to the Air Force Academy.  I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THOSE GIRLS GETTING THOSE SCHOLARSHIPS. But,  I almost got caught in a dangerous trap: thinking that I was a great coach because my team had lots of success.  That I was a success because my team was successful. In reality that team was successful because we had two D1 athletes, 1 that went D2, and a group of strong girls filling in the blanks. Hell, if I would have stayed away the year before, they might have done it 2 years in a row. 

Coaches, there are far too many of us who have the idea that our ability to coach is somehow related to our records.  “The more wins I have, the better my coaching is.”  For 95% of us, our wins and losses have a direct correlation to the God-given talents of the kids who happen to live in our district or choose to play for our clubs.  Stop deluding yourself into thinking that you are the reason for the kids’ successes.

Coaches, please don’t let your inflated ego stand in the way of actually coaching. We must determine our success by the improvement of the not-so-gifted rather than the stats of the stars.  Learn how teach the game!

Quick story: “Welcome to coaching girls.”

Not only had I never played or coached volleyball, I had never coached girls.  No matter what you hear theses days, boys and girls are different animals. It took me a while to come to grips with that. 

I traveled with the varsity to South Bend Clay for a tournament and my first experience at a girls’ athletic event. Nothing was that much different through the warmups and pregame. 

Once the first first ball was served, that dramatically changed. I was sitting next to Coach Wilkerson (Sue) preparing to observe, to learn, and to basically stay out of the way. I had no idea how the match environment would unfold. I assumed that it would not be that much different than the basketball games that I had coached. That assumption quickly evaporated. 

As if coordinated (I found out later that it was indeed a coordinated event.) the players on the bench began doing cheers. Yes, planned cheers!  Foot stomping. Hand clapping. Leg slapping. Memorized chants.  I looked at Sue and said, “What the hell is that?”  After she stopped laughing, she looked at me and said, “Welcome to coaching girls.” (By the way, some of them were much better at cheering than actually playing the game.) 

It was at that instant I knew that I had to rethink my approach.

Never played

 Let’s get this over with right now: I have never played in an organized volleyball program. Nope, never. I went to college to play basketball and baseball and ended up playing baseball and golf.  (Well, I played each for one season only. Big mistake.). So why should anyone take what I say seriously?  It’s all about perspective. 

When Coach Wilkerson found me sitting on the floor in a  hallway in Neff Hall at IPFW waiting for one of my masters classes in 1981and ask me if I wanted the job as her assistant coach in her volleyball program, my response was, “I don’t know anything about volleyball.”  She didn’t care. She knew I was a coach (basketball at a different school)and she was desperate. She also knew the an extra $1000 was a welcome addition to a 3rd year teacher. I think that broke my contract  through the $12,000 mark for the year. 

To my point:  After  I worked out the basketball scheduling with the head coach of the basketball program for whom I was working, I knew I had some work to do.  Remember, at this time I couldn’t just pick up my iPhone and search Google or YouTube for information on coaching volleyball.  I had to get every book I could find on teaching/coaching volleyball.  I also understood the one rule in teaching material with which I was unfamiliar, I must at least appear more knowledgeable than the students. I spent hours paging through the books I could find.  I was determined that all of those girls would think I knew what I was doing.  

I also knew that the freshman girls (Coach Wilkerson wisely didn’t trust me with the reserve team.) were not very good.  I didn’t think it would take much to convince them of my”genius.”  I also knew that if we as a team focused on breaking down the skills and perfecting them, I could point the girls to small successes regardless of the outcomes of the matches.  So we focused on passing, passing, and passing.

I observed other coaches, went to clinics, read books, and used trial-and-error in practice to fool them all. I convinced the girls that the only thing on which we measured success was how well we passed.  “Don’t worry about that score girls. We passed well but need to keep working on it.” Luckily they bought it and had no idea that the reason we didn’t work on much else in practice was because I had no idea how to teach the other stuff. At that time, I didn’t fully understand what other stuff existed.

I have spent my entire volleyball coaching career with the realization that I am at a disadvantage when it comes to certain aspects of the dynamics of what happens when the whistle blows and the competition begins.  Someone who has played at a high level may have a better feel for the flow of the game, where her eyes should be focused on defense, or what an opponent may be thinking during an attack. I acknowledge that. However, because I came to understand the game from a completely skill-focused perspective rather than a player’s perspective. I have developed the ability to teach volleyball rather than just play volleyball. I may not be able to hit a quick tempo ball, but I can sure as hell teach you how to do it. 

For the vast majority of young players having a teacher of the game is much more important than having a player of the game be in charge of her future on the volleyball court. If you are lucky enough to find someone who can do both, you have coaching gold.