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USA Volleyball Education is focused on improving developmental and educational opportunities across the sport of volleyball from grassroots to the national team level. Our goal is to provide the opportunity to access, complete and apply high-quality information and methods in the technical, tactical, physical and emotional aspects of the game for athletes and coaches while providing training, support and resources for other key stakeholders including officials, parents and clubs.
For years, the focus of volleyball in many areas and across various levels shifted to a mindset of winning at all costs.
What we now know is that the most successful teams in the world have developed a model of training and a culture that supports a holistic approach to athlete development which not only sets them up for competitive success on the court, but values and emphasizes the important of athlete health, well-being and long-term involvement in the sport.
The USA Volleyball Development Model was created based on the idea that volleyball in the U.S. could be taught differently, resulting in long-lasting positive outcomes across all measures of performance while keeping kids involved and loving the game longer.
The five pillars of the USA Volleyball Development model provide the basis for a holistic approach to the core elements that are vital to supporting development at every level and across age groups.
USA Volleyball Education is committed to providing support for the volleyball community with a role-based approach to education and training. Whether you’re planning practices, cheering from the stands or making the right call, we provide the tools and resources to help you succeed.
USA Volleyball partner Sports Imports has provided USA Volleyball coaches with drills for use with their Trainer+ and The Vertec.
If you live in a place with thousands of players, this article might help you get better. If you live in a small market with just a few or maybe no players (yet), this is a competitive advantage to help you take on those teams that seem to have all the talent.
Words have little meaning to beginners in motor learning.
The term false or fake fundamentals, along with the concept of irrelevant training, is one that it seems coaches, parents and players simply want to ignore. Understandably so, as it gives them a feeling of success and mastery, even though it is not helping them in competition.
Spent some time in June based out of Pago Pago, teaching the coaches and players one of the farthest “regions” that USA Volleyball supports, American Samoa. Since 1878 the US had a naval station there, and during World War II a 2,500 ft long run way, airbase and mobile hospital.
Sometimes as coaches, we need to stand back and see if we have taught them anything (the ducklings.) If you are simply quiet, and let them have a little independence, they’ll prove your worth as a coach.
This year marks my 40th year of coaching youth volleyball, which I define as 12 and under. The last few years I have seen growth in this area, but far too much of it simply is adults coaching the adult 6 vs 6 game to little kids.
Watching some 80 year old players at the US Open and seeing their joy for a sport of a lifetime has me wondering why any kid in the last few decades stops playing.
This month some kid I know really well has his senior year athlete banquet. I was looking at the Princeton website, and at the top of the athletic department’s home page was a quote I had never heard that impacted me.
There are long time players who reminisce about the way volleyball used to be played in the days of sideout, not rally, scoring. I remember the competitions that started at 8 a.m. and went until 4 a.m. the next day, or speaking to parents about their child still playing in an event after midnight.
Sharing the science and my thoughts based on motor learning as to it relates to most machines
Lately I have been wondering why so many well meaning coaches, and players, speak to the importance of ball control. I know I will be up against the many attendees of the Church of Tradition and Ball Control (CTBC as I call it) yet this is really important stuff to change.
So the glow of your child being chosen to play for a club, perhaps even the experience of having to choose between multiple clubs and not cut, has faded. In the heart of the season, coaches begin making decisions on playing time based on what they have seen in practices and tournaments.
The fact that things in sport are no longer athletic battles, but learning competitions is shown with the release of Faster, Higher Stronger. I hope you find time to learn, by reading what Wired magazine editor Mark McClusky has diligently compiled on how athletes learn now.
Despite IMPACT, CAP, VCT, and all that we know about teaching in a way that kids learn to love sport, coaches still don’t know that learning is done by doing, and not by watching.
One of the topics in my clinics is working on getting our sport families to think divergently – where it is not just “this OR that” but “this AND that.
Recently, I spoke at the AVCA Convention to an overflow crowd, using a ribbon down the middle of the court (thanks to Sports Imports for the use of a box and standard to give me an anchor point). The title of the talk was Small Sided Games for Warm Up. I showed 1 v 0, 2 v 0. 1 v 1, 1 v 1 plus 1, and loser becomes the net games.
Burnout in Sports was originally written as a guest blog for Christianvball.com. As someone who has not yet burned out on the sport I love, still playing in the dinosaur division with my son and doing my sport 7 days a week for over 40 years, I hope to share some ideas with you on how to avoid burnout. In no particular order, I share my “Top Ten” thoughts in the hope one or more might help you.
This end of the year blog is where I share what/where I have learned. It is mostly books, but also some video clips I found worth watching. I love that Michelangelo at age 87 said “I am still learning.”
There is something that all coaches need to make part of their training at any level. It is breaking tradition to manage and be comfortable with the risks of variance as found in volleyball. Two-time Olympic medal winning coach Hugh McCutcheon termed it risk management.
About a decade ago my kids and I went up to Lander, Wyoming to run a high school volleyball camp at the base of the Wind River Range, and home of the famous “cheesewheel” (a batter fried cheeseburger) and NOLS, the National Outdoor Leadership School.
