Email Campaign Archive

Thoughts on Pre-Match Preparation

-By Tom Houser

A Few Questions for Coach Houser:

I'm interested in your pre-game warm-up routine.
Can you share your thoughts as if you're a coach
for a high school team? I have a few questions for
you. Your input will be most valuable.
 

1. How do you physically prepare your players for a game?

a) We practice smartly. We don't have a 3-hour
practice that ends at 9pm the night before a
match, my girls don't work past 10pm the night
before a match, and we don't do 30 minutes of
conditioning the day before an important match. 

b) We "take care of our side of the net" first and
foremost. But almost all coaches believe in this.
Hey, if you can't pass, set and hit, it doesn't
matter how well you have the other team scouted. 

c) If my opponent is as good or better than my
team, we do spend some time preparing for them.
But often, my players don't even know that they're
preparing! Offensively, we will warm up with
certain dumps, certain tips, and maybe MB slams.
As practice progresses we may hit line shots,
maybe serve short, maybe serve to certain other
locations, etc. We will do this for several days,
so that when the match rolls around, the players
are just performing these skills naturally! Or I
may have to remind them. It's pretty cool.

Defensively, we may practice passing the floater
or the spinner or the short. We may practice
digging the big hit, blocking the big hit, or
blocking the line shot. 

d) We arrive for an away game early. I've been
known to have my team there before the host team
has the net set up. We want to get there, get our
legs back on land, get over any car-sickness, etc.
We want to look around the gym, get beautiful
haha, find a "camp site" in the bleachers and make
ourselves comfortable. 

e) At the beginning of the 2nd JV game, the
varsity team begins warming up, then they'll
stretch. If I'm assisting the JV coach, I allow
my team captains to take care of the warm-ups.
But, unless the varsity girls are freakishly
responsible (about once every 5 years), I usually
sneak out and spy on their warm ups. I then try to
join them during their stretching to speak to them
about the match. 

2. How do you mentally prepare your team for a game?

Much of the mental preparation is taken care of at
practice. My players learn the tendencies of the
opponent by what we accomplish in practice. If
we're competing for the conference or region or
state championship, then there will probably be a
video session, where we watch an edited tape of
our opponent. The girls will take notes on the
video and/or receive a scouting report on the
opponent.  Before matches, I let my girls be
girls. If our record is 14-2 and we're playing a
team that's 2-14, then I allow and accept that my
girls will be loose. I still expect great effort
vs. that poor opponent and I expect us to beat
that opponent quickly; but, if the opponent is
weak, I understand that the girls just don't show
a sense of urgency. 

Don't misunderstand: My players learn quickly that
if they aren't playing hard enough, I will get
their attention! I may raise my voice, I may make
some subs, I may make a lot of subs. We will beat
the weak opponent quickly and with great effort!
But I don't expect my team to be all fired up 30
minutes before they play a poor opponent. They're
teenage girls. 

On the other hand, I've learned that if we're
playing a big match, I don't have to motivate my
girls at all! They always get serious at the
appropriate time. They have too much pride and
teamness not to be ready! Furthermore, I don't try
to give a big motivational speech to a team that
doesn't need it. First, the speech is wasted --
the team is already about to burst open in
anticipation. Second, the girls may become so
pumped up that our first 10 spikes and serves will
land 6 feet out. 

No, my job is to ensure my team is motivated to
the proper degree, not to give them x amount of
motivation each night. Therefore, sometimes I have
to try to increase their motivation, sometimes I
have to try to decrease it, and sometimes I just
stand back and watch. It's a lot of fun, and
essential to the team playing well! 

Just this past weekend, we were playing in
Washington DC. As my team worked two matches, they
watched a really strong team on our net beat the
snot out of two other teams. We were scheduled to
play that strong team in the final match of the
day. We played pretty well vs. our first opponent,
then annihilated our 2nd opponent. When we got to
the "good" team, the girls were ready to play from
the start. And they played their best match of the
tournament. That's just the way it usually is with
girls. They will rise to the occasion! (Did I say
whether we won or lost? No I didn't. But we did
play the best match of tournament! I knew we
would.) 

3. What is the one essential element you never
leave out when preparing your team for the
upcoming game?

Giving our absolute best effort. Whether our
opponent is 10-0 and 0-10, we have a job to do.
The adults who bought the players' shoes expect a
great effort. And we plan to give it. The
grandparents expect to leave the gym proud of
their girls. We may not win, but we hope to never
disappoint the people who've paid to see the
game. If a player can't give a great effort on a
certain night, I'll put someone in the game who
can. 

Back to the DC tournament: We had to play 10
matches over 3 days. When the girls saw that our
opponents on Saturday weren't very strong, not
enough effort was given. That's unacceptable. In
each of the first two matches, I made some subs
and called some quick timeouts in order to get
their attention. But in the 3rd match, the girls
took it upon themselves. They were saying, "We
can't leave here today playing this way." They
were telling each other, "Come on. Let's show
everyone what we can do." Poor opponent! We
destroyed a weak team 25-5, 25-6 with everyone on
my team playing at least 1 full game. 

4. What is your favorite on court pre-game warm-up drill?

I enjoy allowing my team to play some 6's during
our 5 minutes of hitting. We will often play 6's
for about 2 minutes. It's awesome! The girls LOVE
it, the fans watch, there are smiles, sprawls,
encouragement, dumps, and blocks. It's great! 

I've also started doing a drill where I place 2
setters at the net (as we share the court with the
other team). One setter sets back and middle, the
other sets outside. Two coaches stand close to the
net also, tossing balls to the non-setters. The
ball is passed to their respective setters. The
ball will be set, the hitter will do her approach
and catch the ball and hand it to the coach. This
drill is an awesome warm-up drill for everyone and
it reinforces a number of skills. MB's and setters
can practice their slides, MB's can practice
taking the first hit with their hands, OH's can
practice passing a ball and hitting an A (or
practice passing a tip and getting outside ready
for the set), rights can practice dozens of those
delicate little passes, etc. Plus setters get a
great hand warm-up! 

5. What's the best advice you could give to a coach
in preparing their players for a game?

Know your opponent, especially the conference
opponents. Know their weaknesses and don't be
surprised at their strengths. I never want to be
sitting on the bench saying, "Man, this team is a
lot better than what I'd been told! Oh, oh." 

If you know your opponent, you have an advantage
on both defense and offense. And then, only tell
your players what they need to hear (more on this
below). 

If I don't know the level of opponent that we're
going to play (ESPECIALLY when the match is in the
conference), then I don't know how to assist my
team in their mental and physical preparation. To
me, not knowing the quality of that evening's
conference opponent is inexcusable. It indicates
that a coach is lazy and doesn't care enough about
the team. 

In other words, do you tell your players, "Think
of your team first," then you have no answer for
the question, "Coach, how good is Central?" So you
expect sacrifice from your players, but you don't
have the time/energy to sacrifice for them? Can't
happen! Won't happen on my team, or it's time for
me to take a break from coaching.

Before I go on, I want you to know why I don't
stress knowing all the tendencies of the
non-conference opponents that we play during the
regular season. My team and I both need to
practice "scouting on the run". Together my MB's
and I need to be able to discern back row setters
from front row setters. Together my OH's and I
need to learn where to set the block, we need to
try to learn where setters should dump, we need to
discover which of the opponent's servers have
tendencies, etc. Why practice this? Because good
coaches notoriously change their tendencies! So
sometimes my scouting report on a conference
opponent will have some serious mistakes in it.
For example, the opponent is no longer serving
short, their setter is dumping well, their OH's
are hitting line, etc. I expect my scouting
reports to be accurate, but am not surprised when
the opponent has changed; and, I tell my players
that. 

6. Is there one thing you always try and
avoid when preparing your team for a game?

I don't overwhelm my girls with details about the
opponent. I don't tell my players stuff that they
really don't need to know. The phrase is
"Paralysis by Analysis". 

For example, I won't tell them that, "#11 rolls
everything and she never puts a ball down." I
won't tell them that #24 has a lollipop serve or
that their setter sucks at dumping. Why do they
need to know these facts? It's useless. Why?
Because the girls will be successful at defending
those plays even if they didn't even know one
single thing about the opponent. So why clutter
their minds with this?

Furthermore, if my team hears things they don't
need to know, they may forget the really important
details -- like both of the opponent's MB's hit
everything to our right. And my coaching staff
will not be guilty of that. I don't even tell
them that #50 loves to serve short. I wait until
#50 has the ball in her hands and referee is about
the blow the whistle, then I tell my receivers,
"Watch the short serve!" It works great!

My match preparation evolved over my first few
years of coaching. But during the past 15, I have
stuck to what I've described above. I encourage
you to expect great things from your players, yet
encourage them and love them. And you will
hopefully reap the benefits of your hard work --
and your smart coaching! 

-Tom Houser
Head Coach, 2008 and 2007 Roanoke Juniors 15's Open
Director, STAR Volleyball Camps
Author, "I Can't Wait" Drill Collection and Ebooks
www.coachhouser.com