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A Question of Confidence

-By Mike Tully

Despite a season filled with lots of success, our
team recently dropped its last match of the year,
losing in the state quarterfinals.

As part of our end-of-season analysis, one of our
coaches offered this observation: "We did not have
the confidence to play our game."

Not only did his comment strike me as correct, it
reminded me of the affirmation section in the book
"Volleyball Cybernetics," by Stan Kellner and Dave
Cross.

Two of the 20 affirmations explicitly mention
confidence. One of them says, "My potential is
unlimited. I compete with the confidence of a
champion play by play." Another one goes like
this: "I possess all the confidence, control and
concentration necessary to play my best."

Confidence also looms as a theme in the book "Go
Girl," by Olympic beach volleyball champion
Natalie Cook. In describing her journey from
Olympic bronze medalist in 1996 to gold in 2000,
Cook says, "I didn't know what it meant to really
believe in myself. My self-belief was all
superficial, and soon cracked under certain types
of pressure."

Whether you're on the Olympic of high school
level, or any stage in between, confidence can
make all the difference. So my goal during the
off-season will be to learn as much as possible
about confidence:

What is it? Where does it come from? How do you
develop it? How do you work it into practices?  

So my purpose in this article is not to teach
anything about confidence. Instead, it's to affirm
a commitment to learn. Between now and next
season, I'd like to grow more than my opponents
do. Whether this knowledge comes from a book, from
another coach, or from coaching a club team, I
want to understand more about how confidence
works. 

I'll begin by re-reading "Volleyball Cybernetics."
After that, who knows?

-Mike Tully is a member of the "Yes, I Can!"
coaching staff. You can hear him now on his "Pep
Talk" hotline at (973) 696-6743.