Give the Boys a Chance

I simply would like to ask everyone reading this blog to share, as I am about to, their best practices, other sport successes and brainstorming thoughts on how to give boys 5-18 years old a chance to make volleyball their sport for a lifetime.

LIMIT Your Coaching…

As I have found, some of the coaches most needing to read the science and ideas in this blog are simply not reading the ideas in their entirety.

There is NO Magic

There is only hard work, the science and randomness of our sport. At the start of my coaching, I was looking for “the answer” or the “drills” that would make me a winning coach. When I discovered the science of motor learning, I also learned that there is no magic, thanks to the knowledge of a coach that has been my mentor for nearly 40 years.

Please Know What Marfan Syndrome Is…

If you come to visit us at USA Volleyball’s offices in Colorado Springs (please do!), and I am in town I will take you on a tour. One of the first stops, after the “Gold Room” where all staff meetings are held surrounded by pictures of all the US Olympic gold medal teams to date, beach and indoor, is this corner by CEO Doug Beal’s office. It is one of several statues commissioned in honor of 1984 Olympic silver medalist Flo Hyman.

Sunlight or Shadow Coach?

At the 2014 Sitting World Championships in Poland in June, I watched a wide variety of coaching styles and while there are over 20 nations and their cultures competing here, the styles fall into basically two different camps...

FUNdaMENTAL Volleyball

The word FUNdaMENTAL hints at two very important factors for all players: having fun and developing good mental skills.

Change

I have written more than once about focusing on what you can control. This choice is important not only in sport, but in life itself.

Need a Coach?

As we grow the game together, there are three places we need to create for kids to get a chance to make volleyball their lifetime sport...

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

In advance know that this is a two topic blog, woven together by my favorite songs. This first part is for those coaches who need to know more about developing creative players with VB IQ, then I will close with things I have learned from my recent losses of those dear to me.

3000 Years of Life and Games

I returned this week to a special place of ancestors, a village I first was lucky to visit a decade ago, the Makah Nation.