From the Hudl blog

By Lindsay Peterson

Team cul­ture takes the com­bined effort of coach­es and play­ers. In this blog, vol­ley­ball coach Lindsay Peterson explains how coach­es can start build­ing the right traditions.

I’ll nev­er for­get my first col­le­giate vol­ley­ball game. It was the first time I’d been through the actu­al warm-up with the team. We did all the nor­mal things; warm up our arms, pep­per, work on team defense, etc. 

Then right before our time was done, the seniors pulled us into the hud­dle and told us there was a chant we always did before every match. A cheer that start­ed off just a whis­per and end­ed as a scream by the end. A cheer that in few words described just how good we thought we were. 

This chant was a rit­u­al — it nev­er changed. Game after game, we spoke those words. It was exhil­a­rat­ing, it made my blood pump, my heart race, and let me know that we were all in this together.

I look back at the moment and real­ize the com­plex­i­ty of that sim­ple cheer. It was tied to every game in the years I was in that pro­gram, includ­ing a Division II nation­al title, count­less wins and bro­ken records. It’s impor­tant to have these pos­i­tive tra­di­tions in your pro­gram, whether it’s cheers, chants, dirty sock rit­u­als or the thou­sands of oth­er things your team could do to get excit­ed about games. I’m a firm believ­er in pos­i­tive tra­di­tions + pos­i­tive lead­er­ship = pos­i­tive team culture.

There are two sides to my team’s cul­ture: how the coach and staff build tra­di­tions to facil­i­tate pos­i­tive cul­ture, and how team lead­ers help estab­lish that cul­ture. In this first blog, I’ll focus on the coach­es’ side. 

Pre-Season

I had a coach tell me once to always work play­ers extreme­ly hard in your first prac­tice of the year, then at the end of that prac­tice ask them what they want to be known for. I tried it and the results were great. 

Kids are eager to tell you what they think. Now for us, win­ning and los­ing isn’t who we are. The things we stand for and how hard we’re will­ing to work, that’s who we are. Having my play­ers estab­lish ​“who we are,” and what we want to be known for, is imper­a­tive for us to begin our season. 

Most of my teams agree on some­thing close to the same thing every year: tena­cious, relent­less, com­pet­i­tive, a nev­er-give-up atti­tude, hard-work­ing, hard to defend, sup­port­ive, etc. Every year will be dif­fer­ent because each year’s team is dif­fer­ent. Even your lead­er­ship might change. But you can sus­tain team cul­ture in your gym by estab­lish­ing who you are. 

During the Season

As the sea­son begins and then pro­gress­es, make sure you’re estab­lish­ing con­sis­ten­cies. For instance, before every home match, my team comes in ear­ly and sets up the nets. Then they spend the next 30 min­utes serv­ing and passing. 

It’s also a tra­di­tion for the team to gath­er at my house twice a year for ​“prac­tice.” We play games, eat snacks and watch moti­va­tion­al movies. Other tra­di­tions could be team din­ners, team-build­ing days, themed prac­tices, pro­gram game days. There’s a pletho­ra of inex­pen­sive, or even free, activ­i­ties for your play­ers to par­tic­i­pate in that are ben­e­fi­cial for your team culture. 

Make these activ­i­ties sus­tain­able and worth­while, and plan them in advance so it’s easy to stick to them.

Post-Season 

The end of the year is almost as impor­tant as the begin­ning. To make sure the cul­ture you’ve been build­ing all year will car­ry on, use your ban­quet to remind your play­ers of all the things they accom­plished through­out the year. You could even use awards to empha­size what’s most impor­tant for a pos­i­tive culture. 

At Millard North, we give out the Mustang Award to the play­er who has put in the work and nev­er gave up dur­ing hard­ships. The best part of this award is that it usu­al­ly winds up being a kid who doesn’t always get the ​“clout.” 

For exam­ple, one year it was a mid­dle who start­ed in the first 25 match­es of the year. She replaced an injured Division I hit­ter, worked incred­i­bly hard, and we went unde­feat­ed dur­ing the time she start­ed. When it was time for the injured play­er to come back, she didn’t give up. She con­tin­ued to give it her all, became a leader on the prac­tice side, and pushed us to be the best we could be. She gave her­self com­plete­ly and didn’t com­plain one time! That’s why this award is so impor­tant to me and to my pro­gram culture. 

Positive team cul­ture is a direct reflec­tion of the lead­er­ship pro­vid­ed by your coach­ing staff. Find ways to pro­mote cul­ture on your court and in your pro­gram. The long-last­ing ben­e­fits will be worth all your time and effort.

 

By: Tiegen Kirkwold

From the Hudl Blog

We know what it takes to craft the per­fect high­light reel for your banquet.

The state tour­na­ment is over. Jerseys are turned in. The next sports sea­son is gear­ing up, but there’s still time to reflect on the one that just fin­ished. Most teams will host an end-of-sea­son ban­quet to gath­er with team­mates, fam­i­lies and coach­es to cel­e­brate accomplishments. 

It’s on you to fig­ure out food, venue, dec­o­ra­tions and team awards. But we’re here to help with the end-of-sea­son high­light reel.

What to Include

Find the best moments.

Start in matches that had a big impact on the suc­cess of your sea­son. That five-set thriller where your team squeaked by with a 16 – 14 win in the last set? We bet there’s a 10-foot kill or two you could find. 

Show some variety.

The aces are fun to watch but every­body needs some love. After all, there’s no ​“I” in team. We want to see a great dig, or the lock­down defense from your post player.

Include every­one.

Your ban­quet reel is also a chance to thank your stu­dent-ath­letes for par­tic­i­pat­ing, espe­cial­ly seniors who may have just played their last match of orga­nized volleyball. 

Don’t show cheap shots.

It might seem obvious, but don’t high­light a kill that left the oth­er girl with a bro­ken nose. Doing that makes your ath­letes think it’s okay to put those moments in their reels — and that’s not what recruiters want to see.

Add a sick track.

Every great high­light needs a great beat. We have all kinds of hits in our music library to give your high­light some much-need­ed swag. 

Use spot shadows.

Make it easy for the audi­ence to know exact­ly what they should be look­ing at. Put a spot shad­ow on the key player a few sec­onds into the buildup play so all eyes are on them.

Break it up.

Use title slides to guide the video and intro­duce what’s com­ing next. Focusing on offense for the next minute or two? Put a title slide that says ​“Top Offensive Plays” with the names of ath­letes featured.

The How-To

Now that you know the recipe for a killer high­light reel, let’s talk about how to make one. The process is easy as 1, 2, 3.

Step one: Tag the clips in your library. Cre­ate the clip, trim or extend it, and send it to your team’s highlights. 

Step two: Head over to your team high­lights page by click­ing the Highlights tab.

Step three (where the mag­ic hap­pens): Click Create Highlight to get start­ed in the high­light edi­tor. Give your reel a name, choose a theme and cus­tomize it with video, music, slides and pho­tos. This is also the step where you’ll add spot shad­ows title slides. Check out this tuto­r­i­al to see the process step-by-step.

Share Your Reel

You spent time craft­ing the per­fect high­light to cel­e­brate your sea­son, so why not share it out? It just might land an ath­lete a big oppor­tu­ni­ty, plus it’s a great way to pro­mote your program.

We make it easy to share your reel on Facebook, Twitter or by direct URL. Or take it up a notch by embed­ding the high­light reel on your school’s ath­let­ics website. 

Take some time to look back on your team’s sea­son and remem­ber the ride — whether it end­ed in an ear­ly loss in the play­offs or a state cham­pi­onship. We can’t wait to see what you create. 

 

By: Lindsay Peterson

From the Hudl Blog

As a high school coach, it’s way too easy to only focus on your team. But when you con­nect every lev­el of your pro­gram, each ath­lete knows they’re part of some­thing bigger.

One of my biggest strug­gles dur­ing the vol­ley­ball sea­son is find­ing the time to get to know all the play­ers in my program. 

And it doesn’t sound so ridicu­lous once you under­stand our coach­ing staff only includes one coach who teach­es at the school. Everyone else, includ­ing me, teach­es at oth­er schools. Also between our dif­fer­ent sched­ules and the pres­sure of win­ning, you can eas­i­ly get so busy you for­get to even look up.

 

On any giv­en year, I have 48 kids in my pro­gram spread over our four teams, fresh­men, reserve, junior var­si­ty and var­si­ty. We’ve always put a focus on con­nect­ing as a var­si­ty team, with team bond­ing days at the begin­ning of every sea­son. It wasn’t until my third year of coach­ing, when I final­ly felt on top of things enough to be able to see out­side what my team was doing, that I took a look at the oth­er teams. 

Guilt hit me hard — I couldn’t tell you all of the play­ers names. I couldn’t tell you what posi­tion some of them played, and hon­est­ly, I didn’t know much more than a jer­sey num­ber for most. I felt like I had done my pro­gram a dis­ser­vice and missed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get to know the kids who would be the future of my pro­gram. I decid­ed right then I was going to make a change.

I sat down with my assis­tant and we decid­ed if we want­ed to build some­thing great, we were going to make an effort to get to know all the kids. We also start­ed brain­storm­ing how we could help the kids get to know each anoth­er across dif­fer­ent teams. You’d think every­one would know every­one because they all went to school togeth­er, right? Not true! Millard North High School (Neb.) has more than 2,500 kids across all the grade lev­els. We need­ed to make it eas­i­er for them to interact.

We start­ed off easy, walk­ing around to oth­er courts and greet­ing the play­ers, help­ing out in a drill, or just mak­ing an effort to ask the kids how their day was. Then we start­ed doing more. 

We made a vol­ley­ball pro­gram shirt and gave one to every play­er. We asked them to wear it on the same day — Wednesdays quick­ly became pro­gram shirt days. And we added pro­gram game days. A few times a year, we all come togeth­er and play games. Whether it’s 3-on-3 or 2-on-2 vol­ley­ball, or we mix it up with base­ball or triv­ia, we make sure to find fun ways to get play­ers from dif­fer­ent teams together. 

As we con­tin­ued to get bet­ter at it, we start­ed run­ning skills courts with sep­a­rate group­ings. For exam­ple, on a set day of the week, all the set­ters in the pro­gram go to one court to have some posi­tion-spe­cif­ic train­ing, while the rest of their team works on anoth­er drill of some sort.

It might seem min­i­mal or sil­ly to focus on, but this has helped our pro­gram tremen­dous­ly! Now the girls real­ly look for­ward to our game days with every team. This gives the old­er girls an oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­play their lead­er­ship skills, and it gives the younger girls role mod­els to look up to. 

Getting togeth­er as a pro­gram helps every play­er feel val­ued. They know they’re part of a greater good. It’s also helped our coach­ing staff. We know our girls bet­ter and we’re bet­ter pre­pared to build report with all the play­ers, even ones on oth­er teams. 

This article was provided by  Training-Conditioning

Having players keep a journal can help a coach connect with their players.

At Bettendorf (Iowa) High School, Head Girls’ Volleyball Coach Diane Lichtenberg has been a steady rock for 32 years. Last year, she became the ninth active high school volleyball coach in the state to reach 700 wins and was inducted into the National High School Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Her squad captured state titles in 2012 and 2013, and had runner up finishes in 2006, 2014, and 2015. And her program hasn’t had a losing record since 1990. How does she get the most out of players each and every year?

Lichtenberg says it starts with setting lofty goals, an approach she learned as a player at Iowa State University being coached by Mary Wise (now legendary coach at the University of Florida). “I was a very competitive person, and I really liked the hard work and physical exertion that she expected,” says Lichtenberg. “Mary instilled in me the importance of a strong work ethic and high expectations, and I carried those into my coaching.”

But Lichtenberg also understands that you can only ask a lot from players if you show your commitment to them. One way she does this is through journaling—writing back and forth with her players—which has become a mainstay of the Bettendorf program.

At the beginning of the season, Lichtenberg buys each player a composition notebook. She asks the athletes to write down their thoughts, questions, and goals, and she responds to what they have conveyed. It allows her to connect with her players in a thoughtful way, while giving them the opportunity to stop and consider their progress and needs.

“It helps them reflect on what did and what did not go well in a game,” says Lichtenberg. “At the same time, it gives me a chance to respond to whatever they wrote, so they know I hear them. I might say, ‘You did a great job with that! But let’s work on this.’ I will then incorporate the things they are struggling with into our practice plans.”

To get their wheels turning, Lichtenberg provides a slip of paper with prompts. For example, before games, she asks players to write down their goals, and they revisit these afterward to reflect on how they played and whether or not they achieved each objective.

“Sometimes we will do it as a rating chart,” says Lichtenberg. “They may even have to rate themselves on certain categories within the mental side of the game.”

Typically, Lichtenberg has athletes journal once or twice a week. Notebooks might be due on a Monday after a weekend tournament and she does her best to return them by Friday, so athletes can read them and be ready for the next competition. “It does take some time to work through 15 or 16 journals, but I feel it is worth it,” Lichtenberg says.

Not all the journaling focuses on volleyball. “Sometimes I ask them a couple of personal questions,” Lichtenberg says. “I might ask about their grades, if they had a good weekend, or if they plan to attend homecoming when it’s coming up.

“And I always finish up by asking if they have any questions or concerns,” she continues. “If they do, I will give a longer response. Or I might have a face-to-face conversation with the player about the issue rather than trying to write it down.”

Lichtenberg has been incorporating the journals into her season plans for more than 12 years, continually tweaking the process. Two seasons ago, she split the task of responding with her assistant coach, to save time. But she found that she prefers to do them all herself, as it helps her get to know every player.

This past season, Lichtenberg experimented with having the players write their thoughts in Google Docs, and both she and her assistant coach were able to read and respond to every player. However, Lichtenberg found she prefers the hard copies and plans to return to them—especially since she is going to be dealing with quite a few new players next year.

“Last year, there were eight girls who were my primary players, and seven of them are graduating,” says Lichtenberg. “I feel like going back to the original format will be important with next year’s girls.”

Lichtenberg’s focus on communication continues with the players’ parents, as she works hard to keep them informed and feeling appreciated. “I send out weekly emails that provide a rundown of our plans for the week, including games, practice changes, travel plans, or any other information they may need,” she says. “I also remind them if we are having a team dinner, and I usually thank the parent that hosted the week before.”

Call-outs continue through the season, up to the very end, when she asks players to write a letter to their parents thanking them for their support. She then composes a letter of her own to parents, and gives them out at the team’s award night.

“I don’t think we let people know often enough how much we appreciate them,” says Lichtenberg. “Our parents have gone out of their way to help their children. Getting a thank-you makes them feel good and I think it’s an important gesture.”

It also circles back to her coaching philosophy. “There are so many life lessons that we can teach through volleyball to develop the whole person, not just their volleyball skills,” says Lichtenberg. “Part of that is being a good person, learning responsibility, and trying to think of others.”

 

This post was provided by Coaches Network

Today’s coaches are expected to succeed in many different areas—supporting academic achievement, teaching life lessons, developing character, raising money, and of course, winning on the court or field. Excelling in even some of these areas is reason to feel proud, but hitting the mark on all of them is remarkable.

Sue Moon, Head Girls’ Volleyball Coach at North Henderson High School in Hendersonville, N.C., has built a program that does just that. Moon has posted more than 500 career wins and has a winning percentage of .837. Highly active in community service, her team has been recognized for its work in raising money for cancer research. At the same time, her players have maintained one of the highest team GPAs in the state across all sports and classifications.

In this piece, she shares advice on tapping into community resources, adjusting to changes in today’s youth, and gathering a support network.

You do a large number of activities with your team that go beyond volleyball, like having regular speakers and special programs, and your team is very successful with fundraising. How do you get the community on board and willing to contribute in so many ways?

I learned a long time ago that people want to be involved in good things that are happening in their community. You just need to ask them! And the worst that’s going to happen is that they will tell you no.

My advice is to find people with common goals and needs in the community and partner with them. For example, we have a great relationship with a fitness studio in our community called E-fitness. They help us train our kids, and they give us a reduced rate. If an athlete can’t afford it, they take care of that child.

They also help us in our service projects. We do a fundraiser called All Knight Long with them. For a 12-hour period, every hour a new group comes into their studio to do a workout, and it’s like a road race. People pay $20 and they get a t-shirt and they get to work out, and all of that money goes to our cancer fundraising event. Before the event, our girls get groups of people to fill in each time slot. We do the last time slot as a team, and then we go eat at Waffle House together, which could happen at 4 or 6 in the morning.

E-fitness does that for us, and they don’t charge us anything—not for the use of the facility, not for instructing the sessions—just because we have such a great partnership with them. I’ve found that if you ask people for help, and if you tell them what you’re doing and what the purpose is, parents and members of your community will donate their time.

Your state has recognized you with the Tony Webb Coach of the Year Award, given to coaches who make a special impact on the lives of student-athletes. How is connecting with today’s athletes different from connecting with athletes in the past? 

The biggest change I’ve seen is what kids have to deal with outside of the game. We have problems in society—the issues of drugs, bullying, violence, and crime—and they have to put these things aside. It’s really tough, and that’s why our relationships with them are so important.

I start off by emphasizing commitment. One of things I’ve seen with kids today is that they have trouble showing up every day to practice. There are so many distractions that they say, “Well, I have to go here or there, and I can’t be at practice.” So we talk about how important commitment to the program is.

They also know that they are students first, and if they are having trouble, they need to go talk to the teacher and work it out. If their grades drop, I will hold them out of practice.

I also expect them to leaders in other areas. Our girls are leaders in student council and all of the clubs. I want to see them being out there in the pep rallies and helping clean the school and doing those jobs that nobody else wants to do. It might be old school, but that’s the way I was raised and that’s the way I was coached as a player, and that’s what we put into our program.

What do you do when you need support yourself?

As a coach, I have to have mentors. Even as long as I’ve been coaching, I have to have a network of coaches I can go to when something changes or there is a problem and say, “How do you handle this?” I think all coaches need mentors no matter what, and that’s one of the best things that I’ve done for myself.

I also think you need a network of other individuals that help you. Your coaching allies can help you with the athletic part, but you also need a core group of teachers at your school who will support you in your activities, and you need parents and people in the community. You’ve got to know who you can call on for help. If I need help with a sound system, I know who I can call. When I’m doing a cancer fundraising event, I know who will support me and help me with that. I call it my crew. Know who your crew is and who will help you.