Email Campaign Archive

Implementing a New Offense

-By Tom Houser


A Question for Coach Houser:


I’ve been asked by a friend to teach his players a
5-1 offense. When he is asking me to do a clinic,
does that mean he does not know how to teach it?
He’s given me 6 hours on one day. Any advice for me
would be great!


Coach Houser's Reply:

When you’re teaching a team a new offense, this is
your goal: To have the players understand it so
well that they will need no coaching/teaching
during the next scrimmage/match. They will only
need reminding. All drills have that as their
goal. All other goals are secondary.  

When my team is playing in front of fans, and I
have to do more than just remind my players, then
I either haven’t spent enough time practicing the
new skills, or my practices have been
inefficient/wasteful/incomplete..  

The good news about teaching a new offense: You
probably only have to teach three rotations, since
the team probably knows the others because of
their previous offense. So review over what the
players should know, checking on their knowledge.
Then go after the rotations they don’t know.  The
worst news would be for the coach to email/text
you with question after question. Even worse would
be if he just abandons the 5-1 after a few weeks
and goes back to what they were doing. :( No more
business for you at that school, or at any school
that the host coach has friends at.  OK, let’s start.  


Part I: Base Defense. Let’s hope you have 12 girls
at the clinic, maybe teach 2 mini-teams at one
time, 6 on each court. If you don’t have 12, then
maybe the host can put in a manager, or some
graduates or his wife, etc.  

After the host coach tell you what base defense he
prefers (number of blockers and the back row
defense), review double block, single block, free
ball, etc. Does the coach want to ever have two or
three blockers in the middle?  

Reminder: You’re there working for the host coach.
So if he has a strong opinion, then follow it. If
he’s unsure, then offer him what you think is
best. But he makes the final choices.

After you are satisfied with that, then have maybe
one mini-team do hitting lines, while the other
mini-team plays defense. I call this drill
"Offense vs. Defense". The drill runs just like
many teams do in their 5-minute pre-match warmup.
It’s initiated by a toss to a setter who’s
standing at the net, the ball is set, then it is
attacked. The defensive mini-team tries to dig,
set and attack. The original hitter shags the
ball, at the coach’s command the tosser tosses
another ball, and another attack occurs. During
the drill, you and host coach can be watching the
defense to see if the girls are doing what was
just reviewed..  

If this drill goes very well, if the defensive
mini-team is doing great, if you’ve switched the
mini-teams and you’ve switched the back row and
front row players, and it’s still going great?
Well, then WOW!!! OK, you may go on to Part II
below. But I imagine the girls will be making many
mistakes with their base defense. Honestly, if
these girls and their coach were so good at this
game, then why were you asked to come teach them?
Do not leave Part I of this clinic until you fix
the defense, fix it again, re-fix it. After a
certain number of minutes, or a certain # of
correctly done defenses, have the two mini-teams
switch and do the drill again.  

The tosser: I don’t recommend either of you toss.
You can teach a monkey to toss a ball. So find a
parent, a manager or let the players do the
tossing. You were hired to teach a new offense, so
do that. A monkey can’t teach a new offense. You can!  

I foresee the girls needing another drill. I
recommend the Offense vs. Defense drill with
different twists. For example, make it a
competition, make it a goal drill, make it a
pressure drill, etc. You can announce, "The
hitting team hits until the defense can dig, set
and attack back x times.” When I run this drill,
it’s challenging to know what to do with all the
hitting errors. So, I now prefer this!  "The
hitting team will hit for 5 minutes. How many
kills can they get. But, anytime the defense
isn't right, I will stop my watch, we will fix
the defense together, and then I’ll restart my
watch. After 5 minutes, you guys will switch
sides, and the other team will get 5 minutes to
hit. The winner is the team who can get the most
kills in their 5 minutes." So each hitting error
will receive a “CRAP!” from the hitter, rather
than an “Oh well.”  

Before leaving this drill, make sure you have
switched the back row and the front row players. I
like to do that half way through the drill, so
that learning continues. Which team wins these
drills isn’t as important as what the kids are
learning. In fact, conditioning to the loser is
even less important. But, you can add in something
minor for a little extra motivation.  

Why work on defense so long? Remember you’re
teaching a 5-1, so either the kids have never been
at base with a back row setter, or never with a
front row setter. Plus, if you jump right into
serve receptions that they don’t know, then you
say, “Now base,” then you’ll have to
simultaneously teach base defense also. Too much
to learn for kids. You’ll see them starting to get
frustrated, starting to look at their coach and
teammates in despair, etc. Let’s teach from the
ground up, chunk by chuck, then each new layer can
stand firmly on previous layers that have already
been taught.  


Part II: Serve Receive.  Once again, you probably
only have to teach 3 of the serve receive
formation, and review the other three. I recommend
you start by reviewing the three that are known,
to ensure that they’re being done correctly. If
the girls are unsure about them, then do a little
“Serving At Receivers” drill to get the receiving
team back on track.

The drill I like for this is a cooperative drill.
For example, “We will do this drill until we all
reach 100 points. All of us. All 12 of us are in
this together. One point is rewarded for a serve
in the court. Two points for a pass on target. One
for close to target. One for an attack on the 3rd
hit. One for covering correctly. One for getting
to base. Bonus points for x, y, and z.” The bonus
points are for whatever the coach wants to see. Or
if covering is a team bug-a-boo, then make
covering worth 3 points. “When we get to 100
points, then the receiving team rotates one spot.
When we do this 3 times, the serving team becomes
the receivers, and the receiving team takes over
serving.”  

Most girls like cooperative drills, and these
drills are especially useful if the team is
learning something new. Having competitions when
the team is half-lost seems like you’re beating
someone who is defenseless. I don’t put
competitions in my practices until I feel like my
team is completely competent with the skills that
we’re testing.

I recommend you do three rotations, then switch
courts, then do the same three with the team that
was serving.
 

Idea: You may want to do this part with the
starters together. Since this is an in-season
clinic, we have to assume that the girls will have
a match within 2 or 3 more practices. Yeah, we can
do base, double, single, free, etc. with any 6
members of the team. But serve receive, routes,
cover, base,etc.? Let’s put the starters together
in this drill.  


Idea: You may not want to switch the servers and
receivers, but make enough subs during the drill
so that everyone gets a few rotations on the
receiving team. If your team is small enough,
maybe make the subs that would be likely to occur
in a game situation, thus ensuring complete
participates on the receiving side.  

 
Finally: If this takes 3 or 4 of your hours or
all 6 hours, then so be it. Don’t fall into the
“fun” trap of short-term smiles and giggling.
It’ll be fun when they can beat their next
opponent with a brand new offense!! That’s
long-term fun!  

Remember, after you leave the girls and the coach
must be confident that all they have to do is
remind each other! Then you’ve done your job well,
and may just get asked back!  



-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