Your Yes I Can Gold Gift Message
January 28th, 2008 at 5:31 amCreating a Blueprint for
Success
-By Tom Houser
Back in 2005, I had a 15's team in which neither
the players nor the parents griped, whined or
complained. Even though there were 11 of them on
the team, they restrained any outward show of
attitude and disappointment. Thus, even though we
were the 15 B team in our program, we beat our
Roanoke A team and the best Richmond team. And
both victories occurred at our first tournament!
The two seasons since, I have had a lot of success
with my 15's teams in Roanoke and I've had very
very few issues and problems. But that 2005 team
was so special.
Well, I have 11 girls again on this season's 15's
team. We're not very tall. Most of my MB's haven't
ever played the position before, and my setters
aren't quite physical enough to make the antenna
sets like I want. However, last weekend, we played
5 matches against teams that were obviously bigger
and more powerful than we were. They were also
just as skilled. Yet, we won three of those
matches, and lost the other two in three games.
How did we do it? Was it our serving? Our passing?
Our hitting? (It wasn't our blocking!) Yeah, it
was some of each. However, for the first time
since 2005, I have a team of players and parents
who show no outward frustrations over anything,
including playing time. They are constantly
supportive and cheering. And -- the coolest part
-- when the bench players got a chance to play
this past weekend, their head was clear and they
played just as well as they do in practice! It was
awesome!!
How did I prepare my team?
SERVING:
This year I must have a very good serving team. We
must (a) serve in the court and (b) to target.
Those are absolute musts!
We've also done a number of short serving drills
at practice, and thus we'd discovered which of our
girls can serve short consistently. We probably
served 20 aces just with our short serves this
past weekend and got another 30 shank passes. We
were the only team that would serve short about
25% of the time. Coaches, any height player can
serve short.
In one match, with the score 12-13 in the 3rd, my
assistant coach gave our 8th grade right-side a
"3" target. Whoa! On the first day of the
tournament, the girl missed two 3-zone serves. But
on the third day, she served an ace! And she
served two more points for the victory!
At this time, we have only 1 girl on our team who
we trust serving a jump floater. But our team
worked on that last night for 15 minutes! So I'm
expecting more jump serving in the next few weeks.
When one of our MH's missed 3 serves in one day,
she was done serving for that day. We can't have
players making unnecessary serving errors, because
we don't have the hitting and blocking to make up
for it.
PASSING:
At practice, we pass and pass and pass. I know
that you're saying, "Of course, Coach Houser, we
all do that."
But not only do I run pressure drills and goals
drills, but we also keep stats on serve receive
about once a week. I've done this for 15 years now,
starting the first week of practice. Someone once told me,
"Want to change a players behavior? Then measure
it." Sure is true! We grade passers in the 3,2,1,0
method, and post the results at the next practice.
We have determined who our 3 best passers are, and
they passed the court the entire weekend. If one
of them got into a funk, we reduced our serve
receive to two passers. I used to stick with
three, but unless the server has an overwhelming
spinner, serve receiving with two good passers is
better than serve receiving with two good passers
and one average passer. Hey, our opponents aren't
stupid! They know that if I move a new passer into
our serve receive formation that she is probably a
weaker passer than the one who was moved out of
the formation.
WHAT THE COACHES EXPECT:
The positives! We expect effort, support and smart
play. We expect setters to call the ball, hitters
to ask for the ball, back row players to cover,
etc. When we finish a match, we have given our
best effort and we have no excuses.
What we don't expect: I don't expect everyone to
jump serve. Some of coaches this past weekend had
nearly all their players jump serving; yet, they
were only placing 70% or 80% of those serves in
the court. "But Coach Houser, our girls need to
learn and practice those serves." Then don't
complain when we beat your team! "We have to jump
serve in order to beat good teams and make
Nationals." Really? Well, my team won 3 of 5
matches against the "beast" teams this weekend and
we have only 1 jump server.
We also do not expect our small hitters to
challenge the bigger blockers. I think it's dumb
to ask my 5'5" OH's to hit against those beasts.
We teach our players to hit around, tip over, etc.
Our opponents expected the big hit, thus they were
all playing deep on defense. So our tips, rolls,
and dumps scored easy points. "If you don't teach
your kids to hit the ball, you're letting them
down." Really? I teach my kids to win. I teach them
to play smart. 5'5" hitting into two 6' blockers
is foolish, it's a formula for losing. I'd rather
win. Wouldn't you? "If you don't teach your kids
to consistently hit the ball, then you won't beat
any good team." Wrong there also, and we proved
it! "Tipping and rolling are for sissies." Well,
then we're a sissy team that will beat your team.
I'd rather win than be beastly losers.
WE DON'T COACH SCARED:
Well, we try not to! Haha
We tell our girls, "We don't coach scared, and you
don't play scared." If one girl isn't doing the
job, we put in a sub. We must trust the sub to do
the job she's been trained to do. If a girl can
serve short 90% of the time, then we ask her to do
it. If a girl misses a line shot, we say, "If you
get that set again, hit the line again." If my
setter gets called for a lift on a dump, I tell
her, "I'd have tried the same thing. The next time
we give you the dump signal, do it again."
This weekend, one of my players was playing as if
she couldn't be taken out. (Actually, she
shouldn't have been. There was no one on the bench
who could play her position.) After a while, I got
tired of her careless mistakes and put in a girl
who had no clue how to play the position. I didn't
take time to fuss at the girl who came out because
we were too concerned about helping and reminding
the sub about her position. Well, we came back
from 12-18 to win 25-22. The sub started the next
game also. The first girl got the message that her
position wasn't secure. When the starter got back
on the court, she played great the rest of the
weekend.
BUT THE BIGGEST REASON.....TEAM:
At practice last night, I told the girls, "Being a
team is why we won all those tight games." Everyone
felt the support of her teammates, including
the girls who weren't in the game. Whenever a
player on the court looked at the bench, she saw
teammates cheering; not sulking.
How did this happen? Well, I must admit that it's
a fortunate circumstance to have the right kids
and the right parents. However, my assistant and I
did have some to do with it! Here's a list of what
we did:
a) At the first meeting of our team, I told them
that if playing time was going to be an issue,
they were free to leave the team at that time. But
they better not leave in February.
b) About once a week we gave the girls a 2-minute
preaching about "team," about playing time, etc.
We shared with them what had happened to girls --
no names being mentioned -- who made mistakes
before!
c) I sent the parents a "From My Heart" email
that I'll share with you soon.
d) We did a lot of team bonding things, gone out
to dinner, out to a movie, have taken lots of
pictures, have celebrated birthdays, have had each
girl tell what they admired about other team
members, etc.
e) We've shared the Roanoke Juniors playing time
philosophy with them: "Playing time will not be an
issue".
I could type for three more hours about our
setters, our blocking, our perimeter defense, etc.
However, I'll conclude by saying 90% of what I'd
told you above is in my control. That's why my
teams win so much. However, I have much less
control over whether my players accept the team
concept that we preach. This year it appears that
they do accept it. And if it continues the way
it's started, this will be a glorious season!!!
It'll be a season to remember.
-Tom Houser
Head Coach, 2007 Roanoke Juniors 15's Open
Director, STAR Volleyball Camps
Author, "I Can't Wait" Drill Collection and Ebooks
www.coachhouser.com
-By Tom Houser
Back in 2005, I had a 15's team in which neither
the players nor the parents griped, whined or
complained. Even though there were 11 of them on
the team, they restrained any outward show of
attitude and disappointment. Thus, even though we
were the 15 B team in our program, we beat our
Roanoke A team and the best Richmond team. And
both victories occurred at our first tournament!
The two seasons since, I have had a lot of success
with my 15's teams in Roanoke and I've had very
very few issues and problems. But that 2005 team
was so special.
Well, I have 11 girls again on this season's 15's
team. We're not very tall. Most of my MB's haven't
ever played the position before, and my setters
aren't quite physical enough to make the antenna
sets like I want. However, last weekend, we played
5 matches against teams that were obviously bigger
and more powerful than we were. They were also
just as skilled. Yet, we won three of those
matches, and lost the other two in three games.
How did we do it? Was it our serving? Our passing?
Our hitting? (It wasn't our blocking!) Yeah, it
was some of each. However, for the first time
since 2005, I have a team of players and parents
who show no outward frustrations over anything,
including playing time. They are constantly
supportive and cheering. And -- the coolest part
-- when the bench players got a chance to play
this past weekend, their head was clear and they
played just as well as they do in practice! It was
awesome!!
How did I prepare my team?
SERVING:
This year I must have a very good serving team. We
must (a) serve in the court and (b) to target.
Those are absolute musts!
We've also done a number of short serving drills
at practice, and thus we'd discovered which of our
girls can serve short consistently. We probably
served 20 aces just with our short serves this
past weekend and got another 30 shank passes. We
were the only team that would serve short about
25% of the time. Coaches, any height player can
serve short.
In one match, with the score 12-13 in the 3rd, my
assistant coach gave our 8th grade right-side a
"3" target. Whoa! On the first day of the
tournament, the girl missed two 3-zone serves. But
on the third day, she served an ace! And she
served two more points for the victory!
At this time, we have only 1 girl on our team who
we trust serving a jump floater. But our team
worked on that last night for 15 minutes! So I'm
expecting more jump serving in the next few weeks.
When one of our MH's missed 3 serves in one day,
she was done serving for that day. We can't have
players making unnecessary serving errors, because
we don't have the hitting and blocking to make up
for it.
PASSING:
At practice, we pass and pass and pass. I know
that you're saying, "Of course, Coach Houser, we
all do that."
But not only do I run pressure drills and goals
drills, but we also keep stats on serve receive
about once a week. I've done this for 15 years now,
starting the first week of practice. Someone once told me,
"Want to change a players behavior? Then measure
it." Sure is true! We grade passers in the 3,2,1,0
method, and post the results at the next practice.
We have determined who our 3 best passers are, and
they passed the court the entire weekend. If one
of them got into a funk, we reduced our serve
receive to two passers. I used to stick with
three, but unless the server has an overwhelming
spinner, serve receiving with two good passers is
better than serve receiving with two good passers
and one average passer. Hey, our opponents aren't
stupid! They know that if I move a new passer into
our serve receive formation that she is probably a
weaker passer than the one who was moved out of
the formation.
WHAT THE COACHES EXPECT:
The positives! We expect effort, support and smart
play. We expect setters to call the ball, hitters
to ask for the ball, back row players to cover,
etc. When we finish a match, we have given our
best effort and we have no excuses.
What we don't expect: I don't expect everyone to
jump serve. Some of coaches this past weekend had
nearly all their players jump serving; yet, they
were only placing 70% or 80% of those serves in
the court. "But Coach Houser, our girls need to
learn and practice those serves." Then don't
complain when we beat your team! "We have to jump
serve in order to beat good teams and make
Nationals." Really? Well, my team won 3 of 5
matches against the "beast" teams this weekend and
we have only 1 jump server.
We also do not expect our small hitters to
challenge the bigger blockers. I think it's dumb
to ask my 5'5" OH's to hit against those beasts.
We teach our players to hit around, tip over, etc.
Our opponents expected the big hit, thus they were
all playing deep on defense. So our tips, rolls,
and dumps scored easy points. "If you don't teach
your kids to hit the ball, you're letting them
down." Really? I teach my kids to win. I teach them
to play smart. 5'5" hitting into two 6' blockers
is foolish, it's a formula for losing. I'd rather
win. Wouldn't you? "If you don't teach your kids
to consistently hit the ball, then you won't beat
any good team." Wrong there also, and we proved
it! "Tipping and rolling are for sissies." Well,
then we're a sissy team that will beat your team.
I'd rather win than be beastly losers.
WE DON'T COACH SCARED:
Well, we try not to! Haha
We tell our girls, "We don't coach scared, and you
don't play scared." If one girl isn't doing the
job, we put in a sub. We must trust the sub to do
the job she's been trained to do. If a girl can
serve short 90% of the time, then we ask her to do
it. If a girl misses a line shot, we say, "If you
get that set again, hit the line again." If my
setter gets called for a lift on a dump, I tell
her, "I'd have tried the same thing. The next time
we give you the dump signal, do it again."
This weekend, one of my players was playing as if
she couldn't be taken out. (Actually, she
shouldn't have been. There was no one on the bench
who could play her position.) After a while, I got
tired of her careless mistakes and put in a girl
who had no clue how to play the position. I didn't
take time to fuss at the girl who came out because
we were too concerned about helping and reminding
the sub about her position. Well, we came back
from 12-18 to win 25-22. The sub started the next
game also. The first girl got the message that her
position wasn't secure. When the starter got back
on the court, she played great the rest of the
weekend.
BUT THE BIGGEST REASON.....TEAM:
At practice last night, I told the girls, "Being a
team is why we won all those tight games." Everyone
felt the support of her teammates, including
the girls who weren't in the game. Whenever a
player on the court looked at the bench, she saw
teammates cheering; not sulking.
How did this happen? Well, I must admit that it's
a fortunate circumstance to have the right kids
and the right parents. However, my assistant and I
did have some to do with it! Here's a list of what
we did:
a) At the first meeting of our team, I told them
that if playing time was going to be an issue,
they were free to leave the team at that time. But
they better not leave in February.
b) About once a week we gave the girls a 2-minute
preaching about "team," about playing time, etc.
We shared with them what had happened to girls --
no names being mentioned -- who made mistakes
before!
c) I sent the parents a "From My Heart" email
that I'll share with you soon.
d) We did a lot of team bonding things, gone out
to dinner, out to a movie, have taken lots of
pictures, have celebrated birthdays, have had each
girl tell what they admired about other team
members, etc.
e) We've shared the Roanoke Juniors playing time
philosophy with them: "Playing time will not be an
issue".
I could type for three more hours about our
setters, our blocking, our perimeter defense, etc.
However, I'll conclude by saying 90% of what I'd
told you above is in my control. That's why my
teams win so much. However, I have much less
control over whether my players accept the team
concept that we preach. This year it appears that
they do accept it. And if it continues the way
it's started, this will be a glorious season!!!
It'll be a season to remember.
-Tom Houser
Head Coach, 2007 Roanoke Juniors 15's Open
Director, STAR Volleyball Camps
Author, "I Can't Wait" Drill Collection and Ebooks
www.coachhouser.com