Email Campaign Archive

Keeping the "Big Picture" in Mind

-By Tom Houser


In the past few days, I’ve been talking to some
coaches. They’ve been talking about their
scrimmages and first matches, and I’ve been
surprised at how random their thoughts were. Here
are some examples.

"I took my best hitter out of the scrimmage
because the opponents were so weak."

"I couldn’t decide whether to let my 2nd team
girls play or not."

In each case, I’ve asked the coaches, "What were
trying to accomplish during the match/scrimmage?"
The answer is usually, “What do you mean? We were
trying to win. Is that what you mean?” No, it’s
not.  

Right now, while you have a moment, answer these
questions:  

1) What skills does your team need to be playing
better in the most important match of the season?

2) In other words, what are your team’s deficiencies
that are going to keep your team from reaching the
team goals?  

When you answer those questions, then you have a
reason for your decisions regarding playing time,
practice plans, etc. The answers will give you the
direction that you need to help your team do the
best they can when those key matches occur.  

I don’t have a lot of patience with experienced
coaches who don’t see where the team needs to be
in 2 or 3 months. I don’t admire coaches who
design practices, choose their starting lineups,
substitute, etc. without any goal in mind. That’s
what we call a “rudderless ship” situation.  

Note: I didn’t say above, “What must you do to win
the conference championship?” or “What will get to
a 20-win season?” Only a small percentage of teams
will win their conference or win 20. I’m asking
you to decide what skills your team must improve
upon to win 12 rather than 9, or to win 9 rather
than 6, or to qualify for the conference tournament?   

I’ve written previously about what to accomplish
in a scrimmage, so I won’t go into detail here.
But I spoke to one coach last weekend who hosted a
STAR camp this past summer, and asked him, “What
does your team need to get better at?” He
answered, “Everything.” I said, “No, pick 5 to 10
specific things, write them down on paper, put
them on clipboards and have your bench players
make tick marks each time your players do those
things. Pick three to concentrate on each game,
and after each game, give your bench players three
new sheets with a goal at the top of each. Some of
them will have the same goal as in the previous
game, but some will be different. Each goal is
something that you’ve worked on in practice, that
the girls know is important, but they just aren’t
doing them in practice to your satisfaction.”  

I spoke to another coach. “You’re going up to
Central on Tuesday?” “Yep. What do you know about
them?” I answered, “They play in a really little
gym, their fans can be brutal, they’ve won their
conference the past 5 years, they made the state
final 4 last year (a great feat in Virginia when
there are 130 schools in each classification) and
their coach is a conditioning, hard work,
run-into-walls kind of coach. And her kids love
her.” The coach answered, “Then we may lose. Oh,
no. We wanted to go undefeated.” I said, “Sure
your goal is to win. But you may lose. Hey, it’s a
non-conference match. If you lose to them in
August, OK whatever. But you may see them again in
Regionals in November. So what do you want to
accomplish Tuesday?” She answered, “I don’t know.”
I responded, “You can make winning a positive, you
can make losing a positive. You can make a
positive out of winning big or losing close, or
losing big or winning close. Regardless of the
outcome, if you have your long-term goals in mind,
you can say to your team ‘We did x and y better
than at any time all season. However it was j and
k that kept us having the outcome we really
wanted. We start tomorrow working on j and k to
make us a better team. Deal?’ " 

This past club season, I was given the top 16’s
team in Roanoke. Our goal: Make Nationals. What
were my personal long term goals for our team? I
knew what they were after being with the team for
about 10 practices.

a) Bonding b) Serve Receive c) Defense d) Tough Serving.

You may say, “Every coach would pick those four
things.” OK, maybe so. But I would speculate
that many coaches pick no goals at all. They
just look at the big picture of “playing well”
without ever concentrating on the small details
in that big picture.  

Last night on the phone, a coach told me, “We won
our first two scrimmage games 25-6, 25-6.” I said,
“Were you playing well, or did the other team just
stink?” She said, “We were playing well.” I asked,
“What were your particularly pleased with?” She
said, “What? Everything.” I said, “How was your
hitting? Passing?” She said, “Well we only serve
received about 10 times in those two games, and we
only hit about 15 total balls. The girls were
actually a little bored, so I kept my best players
out of the next 2 games so the opponents could
compete a little better.”

This coach has entirely misinterpreted the first
two games. In her mind, since her team won big,
that means they played well. How can a coach
determine ANYTHING about the quality of the team
when in 30 minutes the team only receives 10
serves and only attacks 15 balls?  

Back to the list: Did you notice what I didn’t put
on my list? I didn’t put setting, blocking,
hitting, hustle, conditioning, or running plays. I
didn’t put them on my list because (1) they
weren’t as important or (2) I decided either we
had them under control (setting) or it would just
work itself out (running plays).  

So this past season, every practice, every
tournament, every day I would think, “What can I
do to improve us in those four areas?” When we got
to our Bid Tournament, no we weren’t a really
fancy offensive team like some of our opponents.
No we weren’t doing x plays, or tandems or even
jump spinning or over-the-shoulder rolling. No,
our setters weren’t jump setting every ball. But
we were serve receiving well, playing defense with
all we had and serving as efficiently as I could
have hoped for. And we won the tournament, just
like I thought we would.

Finally: For years I’ve heard school principals
and camp directors say, “Goals are very
important.” But to me, they’re common sense,
ESPECIALLY if you’re the leader. If you’re the
principal, the head coach, or the CEO, and you
don’t know where you want to be in a month, in 3
months, in a year, then how can you make a map on
how to get there? How do you know which direction
to go, if you don’t know where you’re doing?  

I encourage you all to make your list of long-term
goals, and then each day take one more step to
getting there!



-Tom Houser
Director, STAR Volleyball Camps
Author, “I Can’t Wait” Drill Collection and Ebooks
Head Coach, 2009 Roanoke Junior 16 Nationals
Old Dominion Region Champion
Junior National Participant-2006, 2009
www.coachhouser.com