Email Campaign Archive

How Players Can Adjust in a Negative Coaching Situation

-By Dave Cross

A Question for Dave:

I am looking for some advice for my daughter, who
is 13 years old. She attended your summer camp at
Oberlin College last year and had the best
volleyball experience of her life.   She is on a
club team here in Florida, playing on a 14 year
old team that has some outstanding players. She
had the option to play in her age group or to play
up a year and she chose to play up. She is really
struggling at this point in a very young season.
She has lost all confidence. She is a very good
front line player who is having trouble with
everything right now: blocking, hitting,
positioning herself, serve return. Her serves have
gone straight downhill since club season started.
Part of the problem is the coach who has changed
her approach and the way she hits. The coach
emphasizes the negatives, singles players out for
harsh criticism in front of the rest of the team
and rarely gives positive re-inforcement. The
other side of that is that we as parents need to
be giving the positive re-inforcement and we are
trying to do that. I am not saying that the
problem is all with the coach. We as parents and
her as the player accept a lot of the
responsibility for where we are right now. Do you
have any suggestions for dealing with the coach?

Dave's Reply:

The advice I'm going to give you for your
daughter is not going to be easy for her to do-but
she is capable of doing it:

1. She needs to go speak with the coach and tell
her how his comments are effecting her. This is a
much better approach than you or your wife doing
this. 

She needs to start her talk with "With all due
respect", and add comments like, "I know you are
a good coach", and "I am learning from you and I
want to learn more" (Whether she feels these are
true or not-she needs to say them to do her best
to keep the coach from being defensive.)

Then she needs to explain how she feels and how
it effects her when he says these things. She
needs to tell him that if he can please adjust how
he is working with her that she feels she will
play much better.

This needs to be a one-one talk after a practice.

Ok, you may be saying, "She'll never do this".
Fine, then she needs to realize she is not doing
everything in HER control to try and get things
changed. If she says "I can't", she needs to
understand that's not it, it's that "SHE
WON'T".

I've always felt that teaching young people to
deal with their problems initially themselves is a
very important "life lesson". Of course, they
always want mom and dad to take care of these
things for them-that's simply much easier for
them. But, when does the time come when they learn
to do things for themselves? If the parents ALWAYS
step in, then we are looking at college or their
first job-that's a little late to learn this very
important skill, isn't it?

Remind her of this idea she learned at camp last
summer: The definition of insanity is "Doing the
same things over and over and expecting different
results." If she will not speak with the coach
and explain her side, then she can not expect
things to change. Realistically, this coach may
have no idea that he is effecting her this way. If
she won't explain it to him, how does she expect
him to figure it out and adjust?

2. Now, whether she will take this positive step
or not, she needs to do the following:

-She has been taught our "clearing method". She
has also been taught how to "visualize". And,
she has been taught how to use "positive self
talk" and "affirmations". 

She needs to use these tools to help herself
through this situation. When she makes a mistake,
or starts to get upset at something, she needs to
clear it out and watch herself make the play
perfectly in her mind. She also needs to keep her
"self-talk" positive. She needs to come up with
an affirmation to use to keep herself in a
positive state of mind and then she needs to use
it repeatedly.

Is this easy? Well, it is in terms of whether she
knows how to do it or not. The hard part is having
the self-discipline to not "give-in" to her
emotions and sticking to the "plan". But again,
if she is not willing to do something different
than what she has been doing, she can't expect
the results to change.

She should also be doing a pre-match
visualization session. At a club tournament this
may be a little tough-because you have to find a
quiet place- but if she wants to do it she can
find a place- maybe in your car?

3. Now, the final thing she has to understand is
that this is her volleyball career-and she needs
to "protect herself". She will never play for
this coach again after this season, so she needs
to do what is necessary to make this situation the
best she can for herself-if she doesn't, she is
letting the coach control how much she improves,
and how much fun she has.

Being disciplined enough to do what I have
suggested may take this "chip on my shoulder"
attitude. But the bottom line is: It's her time
to play, learn and enjoy volleyball, and no one
can take that away from her if she doesn't LET THEM.

She has the mental training tools to do this. She
can do it, and she never has to be disrespectful
or rebellious toward her coach-she just needs to
use what she learned at our camp to stay in
control of her reactions to his actions. That's
what this is all about, isn't it? If you can get
her to look at it in this way, and give my
suggestions an honest shot, I think things will
start improving for her right away.

But, she also has to realize that if she won't
give these ideas a try, she can't expect anything
to change. She can talk to the coach and see if
he'll adjust, but if he doesn't, then it's up
to her to take control and adjust HER reactions to
his coaching style.

I hope this helps-if you have any questions,
please let me know.

Good luck!

-Dave Cross
National Director
Yes I Can Volleyball