"Becks"... Part I

Volleyball Magazine recently profiled the current USA Men’s National Team Assistant Coach Andrea Becker. For those of you that missed it, Becker has a master’s degree in Sport’s Psychology and is currently a professor at Cal State Fullerton and has been working with National Team head coach John Speraw from his days at U.C. Irvine to his current gigs as the UCLA Men’s Head Coach and the USA National Team. Becker took some time with the Az. Region to give some more insight on coaching athletes, questions to ask in her own words. This is the first of two parts of our interview with Coach Becker. 

QUESTIONS FIRST

I always knew I would coach. My research was more geared toward the psychology of coaching and what makes a great coach and how you should design your practices and what kinds of relationships a coach should have with their players, what kind of environment should you create, what kind of culture should you create?

Just being indoctrinated into the volleyball culture and really, just studying the game from an external perspective is kind of what I do. Whenever they’re implementing a new system or talking to a player about a technique I’m really studying it from an unbiased position and really what I do is just ask a lot of questions. Why do you do it this way? Why is it beneficial? How can we make it better? Sometimes the answer is that’s just the way we’ve always done it. Maybe the way we’ve always done it isn’t the best way.

So maybe we can explore options and use researches to figure out what is the best way, and go with that.

I went to school for 11 straight years. Those 11 years were truly dedicating my studies to the psychology of the sport and understanding what makes a great performer, what makes a great coach to how do we learn best, how do we accelerate the learning process? How do we develop physical skills, mental skills, how do we change athlete’s mechanics?

A GROWTH MINDSET

I can get information from somewhere where you’d least expect it; a young child and their performance for example. I guess I’m always studying the psychology of performance no matter what I’m doing. It’s always in the back of my mind. I’m always thinking about it, I’m always thinking about interesting concepts and how they relate to volleyball, how does it relate to social dynamics, how does it relate to coaching better? But you can draw from all different fields. There are a lot of important areas. It could be a writer that’s writing fiction but they have a very good blend of ideas and thoughts and those thoughts might be relevant too. I think you always have to keep an open mind and you have to do what works best for you.

 COMMUNICATION

How do you talk to people? A lot of how you talk to people has to do with the features of the language rather than the words themselves: The inclination in your voice, the tone, the speed, the level to which you display confidence in them or do you not? It’s less about what you say and more about how you say it. It’s how you deliver that message.

In addition to that is the body language that goes along with it. We can raise so much more information with the body language and the feature of the words than what we actually say and that’s so important. I think I guess what I do is draw the coaches attention to those things. Little subtleties like that can make a big difference. And oftentimes when players don’t know what their coach is thinking, and their reading into their body language or their reading into something athletes often times think the worst possible thing. They automatically think oh man, coach doesn’t’ think I can do it or oh gosh, his head is down he must be upset with us, that kind of thing when it’s not necessarily the case.

COACHING STYLES

There’s no one coaching style that everybody should implement in order to be successful. You have to work within your own personality and your own comfort zone and you can be genuine and authentic with who you are so that you won’t be a different coach than you are a person but you can be the same person whether you are on or off the court so the players know who they are going to get and you can be consistent in who you are and how you do things. I think that’s really important. But there’s no one style where you’d say you have to be like this

 THE BIG THREE

The first thing I would say to club coaches is first of all the most important thing in coaching, #1, is be consistent in who you are, in what you do and how you do things. So when you come into the gym every day, you are the same person, over and over and over again. If you are an emotional person and you aren’t consistent with who you are, then your team will not be consistent. You have to be consistent in what you implement. So if you’re running a system and you believe in that system, you have to be consistent in that.

Consistency comes when the coach has a very strong sense of who they are and a very strong sense of what they believe in. Their actions and behaviors are based on philosophical beliefs which our stable rather than situations and circumstances that might come up during the course of a season that are unstable. So if you’re basing your decision making and behaviors on unstable circumstances, you‘re going to come off as very inconsistent. One time you’re making a decision in one direction, another time you’re making a decision in another direction.   But if you’re basing your decisions off of a core belief system that you believe about coaching and about playing volleyball then you’re decision should be consistent based on that philosophical system. That’s so important.

You’re basically creating a culture that is oriented about the team rather than the coach. It’s not about the coach; it’s about young people and helping young people realize their goals and their dreams and you can enhance their self esteem and their self worth and their confidence. It can be a pretty amazing experience.

One last thing is truly, you have to love them. You have to love the kids. If it’s fake you can’t create a genuine and authentic culture. You have to feel that for them.

So I guess if you go back to the big three I would say really know who you are and be consistent with who you are and what you’re doing and how you do things. Have a strong philosophy and the third thing is when we use the word positive it gets over used maybe incorrectly. The word positive doesn’t mean you give them pats on the back or tell them they’re the best thing to hit the court it the last 10 years. Positive doesn’t’ mean any of those things, positive means you’re instructing them, you’re teaching them, you’re spending time with them, you’re treating them fairly, you’re showing that you care about them, you’re getting to know who they are as people and players, you’re motivating them.

WINNING OVER PROCESS

 Coaches often times, they start to choose an out and especially at the younger levels that is truly about developing young people. They have very good intentions for developing young people and to build character and to make it fun. And you go and watch them coach and they respond so negatively to outcomes; whether we won or we lost or whether we got the kill or we didn’t get the kill, whether they served out of bounds, they respond to those outcomes. So their original desire to build character and develop young people is thrown out the window when winning and other outcomes and factors come into play.

That’s really disheartening at those levels because  the focus on those outcomes actually undermines the coaches desire to get what they want in the long run because the players start performing out of fear rather than performing to give effort and have fun. So over a period of time it actually creates more mistakes than helps them. 

Part II of this interview to follow next week. If you have any comments or questions, please contact Az. Region Outreach. 

Calm Down...........

Dear Coach,

Calm down.

We watched you this weekend at the Fiesta Classic over the MLK holiday weekend; the panic, the unrest in your eyes, red from no sleep and worry.

Coach, it’s volleyball. Calm down.

Sure, you didn’t win the tournament this weekend. In fact, you didn’t win much at all. You are questioning everything you have done for the last two months and wondering why your athletes don’t listen, don’t care, don’t try.

Coach, they do listen when you give them something concise and relevant to listen to. They do care when you give them a reason to care. They do try when you make their effort a point of pride for them.

It’s January 20^th.  Regionals aren’t until May 3^rd. Calm down Coach.

They are looking to you for answers, for leadership. Panic and anger and disappointment isn’t leadership. Blaming parents and officials and teen drama won’t help your team, it will only divide them.

Coach, ask this question. What can I do in practice tonight that will help make my team better and help my team succeed on the court for my next tournament?

The game is serve and serve receive. That’s a great place to start. Does that mean the team should serve for 2 hours? Probably not but ask yourself this:

• When you practice serving, is there athletes on the other side of the net working on serve receive?
• Are your drills starting with serves or are you tossing a ball in?
• Does your team need opportunities practicing hitting out of the back row?
• Do you give them those reps in practice or are you stealing contacts from them?  

Reps = opportunities for coaching feedback = learning skills better and faster.

Coach, do you have a coaching philosophy that helps guide you through tough tournaments and the inevitable highs and lows but guaranteed tough times that are ahead when you are dealing with teenage athletes?

Are your practices fun? Do your practices flow or are they choppy because you are stopping drills constantly to address one error or talk to one player while the rest of the team is standing around? Are they laden with drills and little to no play? Would YOU like your practices if you were a player?

Coach, how much value do you place on the work and effort your players put in? Some players will put in more than others. Are you calling out those that are working hardest, even if they aren’t your best players? What do you, as a coach, value from your players? Is this what you praise and give positive feedback for during practices and matches?

Coach, it’s January 20^th. Calm down. You have lots of time to right a ship you perceive to be broken but maybe they just had a bad weekend. Maybe they were just intimidated as it was their first big tournament. Maybe it was their first tournament of the season.

Maybe you do need to tweak your practices a bit, making them more efficient and giving your players more touches and more feedback.

It’s not the Titanic as much as you might have thought it was this weekend. It’s volleyball, a game. It’s not life or death but it IS admirable you care so much about doing a good job and how much you care about your athletes. Thank you Coach.

But please, calm down. 

Outside the Box, Passion and Teamwork in Odd Places....

Coaches look for examples of what makes their teams and players great in all sorts of places. We come across examples of these characteristics in places we may not expect but with open eyes and open minds we can use these examples to help us, our athletes and even our parents better understand those characteristics.

Take this video entitled Pro Infirmis.  It’s outside the box in it’s thinking to be sure. But it’s also an example of empathy and compassion. It’s an example of how athletes and sport isn't a cookie cutter industry. Of the top 50 golfers in the world, how many have the same swing? We are all built differently, have different dimensions and have physical strengths and weaknesses. This kind of outside the box thinking is a great lesson for coaches, athletes AND parents.

Rich and Tracy live in Colorado and one night a week, they gather around the kitchen table, civil war history books and scripts in hand, and they record a weekly podcast about their favorite subject: the Civil War. They spend vacations taking pictures and studying the landscape of battles. They are on podcast 57, with each one going between 15-30 minutes tackling subjects such as artillery of the war, the ammunition and of course battles and famous generals and personalities of the war. They spent 38 podcasts before they got TO the war talking at great length about what led to the Civil War! They have recommended book readings at the end of every podcast, a blog  that offers up pictures and videos and articles and a face book page. It will be a wild guess to think how many total podcasts Rich and Tracy will do before they get to the end of the conflict.

Why talk about this; Passion. The passion Rich and Tracy show for this subject is epic. It’s not the most polished podcast you’ll ever hear and the jokes are often times awful in both content and delivery but it’s hard not to like this podcast with two people, who are so obviously passionate about this subject.

How often are we as coaches, looking to impart that passion we have for the game on our players? Or perhaps you are the coach that has lost some passion for the game or for coaching. Can you get it back? Maybe sitting around your dining room table once a week with a tape recorder will do the trick!

Ever heard of the International Consortium for HealthOutcome Measurement (ICHOM)? Chances are probably not, but it’s maybe one of the greatest examples of team work we have seen in the medical profession in some time. 

Co founder of ICHOM, Stefan Larsson spoke at length about the idea and implementation of ICHOM in this Ted talk. 

From their own website, “ICHOM organizes global teams of physician leaders, outcomes researchers and patient advocates to define Standard Sets of outcomes per medical condition, and then drives adoption to enable health care providers globally to compare, learn, and improve.”

Egos are put aside and a common goal is put front and center. In just its first year, ICHOM has tackled hip replacements, local back pain, localized prostate cancer, cataracts and coronary artery disease and has put together recommendations for each. Team work has trumped ego and profit and every coach in the world of sports longs for this kind of team first mentality.

Sure, these are outliers, but there are these kinds of examples all over our world. Pull them out, let us know about what you’ve come across so we can share with other coaches. E mail us at outreach@azregionvolleyball.org.

2013 High Fives.....

As we wrap up 2013, the top 10 lists and best of and worst of lists flood TV channels, websites, face book pages, tweets, magazines and newspapers. Our sport has our athletes of the year, teams of the year, etc. But how about we just give a high five to some deserving stories of 2013.

So put your hands up and let’s give a high five to:

• Both ASU and the U of A for making the 2013 NCAA tournament, the first time in the same year since 2000.
• U of A coach David Rubio collected his 400^th win early in the season.
• To Grand Canyon University’s Kris Naber who collected her 300^th career coaching win in a season that saw the Lady Lopes move up from NCAA Division II to Division I.
• The Concord, Mi. High School volleyball team who rallied around an OPPONENT who had lost everything in a house fire earlier in the week.
• B.Y.U. Opposite hitter and one of the best in the country, Ben Patch, who put his faith before his volleyball career showing us the importance of priorities in life, saying, “"It has always been an important factor to me, and I personally feel that a national championship is great, but there are also rewards that come from serving a mission."
• The improbable run of the Missouri Tigers who went 35-0 this season including wins over ranked teams along the way.
• The other improbable run of American University who won back to back shockers in the NCAA tournament with straight set wins over Georgia and Duke.
• The Coaches and Athletes who represented the Az. Region in our first ever Beach High Performance Program.
• Arizona’s Sarah Sponcil earning a bid in the 2014 Youth Olympics with her win in the NORCECA qualifier.
• Courtney Baker who is coming back from losing a leg in a car accident to play for her school, Asbury University in Ky.
• Zoe Gibbs who lost her leg below the knee to a jet ski accident who also was back on the court competing for McKeel Academy in Lakeland, Fla. These young ladies remind us of just how many heroes there are in the world that we miss every day.
• The University of Colorado’s Nikki Lindow’s life altering weekend where the Colorado floods ruined her family but not her spirit and commitment to her team
• John Kessel who’s long overdue election into the AVCA Hall of Fame is a blip on the radar of the many in the Az. Region and the world that he has mentored and taught to be better coaches and people
• The Arizona Region who celebrates our 25^th Anniversary this season.

 We’ve missed some great accomplishments of both individual players and teams, but take this list for what it’s worth; an exemplary cross section of what makes our sport great.

Best wishes for a safe and Happy New Year from the Az. Region.

EpiBlogue.....

With so many people and teams written about over the summer, the Region decided to check back with some of our blogging subjects to see how things turned out for them.

In our Blog entitled “Jess” written about an outside hitter in the small community in south east, Washington, Jess’s season went very well. Her team finished the season as District and League Champions with a 17-0 record and went to the State tournament. Jess’s coach Steph said without a hint of hyperbole, that “She is a joy to coach! She was our strongest outside hitter and usually led the team in kills and digs.” Jess made First Team All League and was in the paper after every game. Coach Steph said, “A quiet but strong leader, she makes the girls around her better in so many ways, but the biggest one is she is good all the way through. She prays with and for her team before every game, grateful for the game and opportunity to play. Love streams from this kid; love of volleyball and her family and her team. As a coach I am grateful to have the chance to know her and coach her. As a mother, I am glad my daughter calls her friend. “

In our blog entitle “Biesh,” Jessie was transitioning to coaching after her collegiate career had ended. She was the C-Team coach for her high school and she proclaims, in her positive style, that it was a great first year. “I learned a lot about coaching that age group and I enjoyed every bit of it! And of course I loved assisting with varsity. It was crazy how much the girls improved and how they ended their season so well.” Biesh said.

But it didn’t start out all rainbows and ponies. “The worst part was probably the first week of coaching the C team. There wasn't any chemistry on the team and half of the girls had no idea what they were doing which made the best part the end of the C team season and seeing how close our team chemistry was and how much each girl had improved.” She also helped the Varsity’s Washing State tournament. “It was a lot of fun and the girls did great.”

Jessie’s future plans are in motion already. “I'm actually moving to Vancouver the beginning of January. My boyfriend of over 3 years is a football player at Portland State and so I'll be about 15 minutes from him. I will be applying into an education program to teach K through 8 after I finish all the prerequisites. I'm honestly so sad that I can't coach next year but my boyfriend and I would love to move back here after we're both done with school and I will definitely want to look into coaching here again. Obviously many things can change, but those are my plans as of now!”

In our blog “Nettie” we followed a young coach trying to change the culture of the same high school that she attended. “This years team was such a great group of girls,” coach Nettie Hawkins proclaimed. “They were very dedicated and focused on personal and team goals and that even though we did only win 3 games they were pleased with the way things went and know what needs to be done In order to get further next year.”

Trying to find that combination that will keep her Port Townsend girls inching closer to a winning culture, Nettie said, “I can't say there were major things that were changed, but the dynamic of the team was changed as my star setter went on exchange in Spain for a year. So with that everyone was getting used the new system and getting used to new hands, they did quite well adjusting. Next year I have eight returning players as well as my setter will be back, so there are big things to come.”

From the blog entitled “Coaching Pirates,” Coach Tera Paulson talked about her struggles with a young team from a tiny town and also trying to turn the corner on a losing culture. Coach Paulson saw her team finish 19-9, a District Championship but fell in the first round of the Regional tournament. “Our girls came absolutely fired up to play in the District championship match. We had a few ups and downs throughout the match, but fought back like we had all season and won the match 3-0. The girls picked up their passing and stayed aggressive at the net and it paid off. It was our schools first District Championship in 18 years!”

Paulson talked about the culture difference from years past. “The girls, for the most part, had confidence in their ability and never gave up. We had a lot of slow starts to matches this year but the team never let that get them down. In the past, the team would have folded and lost quickly, this year the girls fought hard and played point by point. There were numerous matches we would get down by 8-10 to start, only to come back and win the set.” That fighting spirit might be credited to a group to young to understand pressure. “We didn't graduate a single senior so hopefully the future holds more success stories!” Paulson said. “The future holds whatever this group wants it to hold. These girls have the potential to be North Dakota State contenders but we cannot be satisfied with where we are at. Every team in our district, in our region and in the state will spend the next year getting better. We must also spend time in the gym improving our skill and working hard to be able to compete at the highest level in ND. I have no doubts that this team can accomplish great things....and I think I am finally getting them to believe that as well.”

Finally, in our blog entitled “The Competitive Cauldron…Jersey Style” we talked to Coach Colleen Henry about the character cauldron she created from scratch. She said her results were mixed. “We did it 2 more times after the original.” She noted. “I think it helped some people come out of their shell and to admit weaknesses. I did notice quiet girls speaking up more and some more supportive actions. However, I don't think anyone made drastic changes. Kids on the bottom stayed on the bottom, and the ones on top stayed on the top. Only movement was a place or two in the middle. I also noticed warped perspectives. For example, two kids are friends, and they rank their friend higher than most of the team in a category. Or someone they don't get along with is ranked low in a category whereas most scored the person as higher. I think that I would not make mandatory scores, for example 1, 1.5, 2, etc. and have them put a decimal if needed, because I think there was a perception that we were better in some categories than we actually were. I thought our team was weak on communication this year. I would say 75% of team was very quiet on the floor. However, one of those quiet girls would score a 3 and think she was doing ok, when in reality she should have been a 1.3. The girls said they found it hard to give 0s. A lot of the team was so similar that they found it hard to differentiate between the middle numbers so I think going forward having more variety in score would help. I would say it helped in small ways, but with adjustments, and if I did it more frequently, or it counted towards play time, I would see more use and improvement.”

The Region would like to thank these coaches and players for letting us tell you their stories. It’s greatly appreciated.

Being the Echo....

In the past week, we have seen a few examples of Coaching Ethics being toyed with in an effort to gain a competitive edge.

The NBA’s Brookyn Nets coach Jason Kidd told one of his players, “hit me” while holding a drink and when the player bumped into Kidd, he spilled it onto the court. The delay in cleaning it up gave the coach a chance to talk to his team about a last shot in the game where he was down two with no time outs and 8.3 seconds on the clock.

In the perfect-world scenario, the Nets missed the last shot and lost the game but Kidd, who denied any wrong doing right after the game, was fined $50,000 by the NBA and two days later admitted he did it. “It’s about trying to win…” Kidd said.

In the Thanksgiving night football game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin stepped into the path of Raven’s kickoff returner Jacoby Jones, perhaps slowing him down enough to be caught from behind. Tomlin was seen smiling on the sidelines after the play but did admit he was wrong for being on the field and said he would take the consequences. The NFL is currently reviewing the play.

In the perfect-world scenario, the Steelers lost the game anyway.

Coaching young athletes, who will see these instances of coaches being ethically bereft, might call them “competitors” who will do anything to win. The question is where do you draw the line?

• Baseball players that use steroids and PED’s?
• Cyclists who oxygenate their blood and use enhancements?
• Gymnasts who lie about their age to gain an advantage with the flexibility that comes with youth?

The one thing that all of these situations have in common is that they are against the rules. Rules put in place to keep playing fields even for all. And when one person breaks the rule, another thinks they might have to in order to stay competitive. But a clear choice is made. Kidd knew his antics were against the rules and if Tomlin’s position on the field was purposeful, he did too. So do the baseball players and cyclists and gymnasts. They are knowingly breaking the rules for an advantage.

This isn’t new to sports and, let’s be honest, will never stop. As long as someone can gain an advantage over another, rules will be bent to the point of breaking, and yes, they will be broken.

But coaching young athletes, we need to keep things in perspective. First, kids are way smarter than we think and they see things we don’t think they see and they pick up signals constantly.

When you tell a player she’ll run laps if she confesses to a net violation in a match, what are you really telling that player? Touch calls in volleyball are the equivalent of Truth or Dare. Some players may feel the need to say yes, I touched that ball, but know the wrath of their coach isn’t worth it.

Take it a step farther: some coaches demand that kind of honesty in practice because this is your team and you shouldn’t deceive your team but once we are in a match, don’t say anything. The rationale from one coach was, “The officials are the professionals and they should catch it.”

Some of our athletes are as young as 9 and 10 and 11 and we are asking them to start their athletic careers, and for a lot of them, their first interactions with the world outside of school, by lying and hiding the truth at the expense of winning.

“Life is an echo. What you send out comes back. What you sow, you reap. What you give, you get. What you see in others exists in you. Remember, life is an echo. It always gets back to you. So give goodness.”

-Anonymous.

We may not want to admit it, but we are role models. How we act, what we say, how we say it are all gauged and recorded by our athletes. Asking them to lie or cheat will create the next generation of coaches that are straddling the line of competitor and cheat.

We are, truly, the echo.

Jen...My Apologies

Dear Jen,

I owe you an apology. Many months ago you were in a coaching clinic I was conducting for the Region.

I made a statement that reeked of smug and sound bite.

“You don’t set with your legs!”

You countered with how young players used their legs and as I had learned to diffuse this claim, I had a player sit down and have her set back to me, not using her legs. I asked how someone who jump sets uses their legs when they set? You were polite although I didn’t think I had won you over and the clinic went on.

Then in July, in a coaching clinic in Rogers, Arkansas, a coach who heard this tag line asked me this: “What about a shot putter? They use their legs and their arms in unison, don’t they?”

Stumped, I reached out to an acquaintance with Arizona ties and a humbling body of work and knowledge in this area; Peter Vint,  the Senior Director of Competitive Analysis and Research & Innovation at the United States Olympic Committee.

Vint is always open to these questions and to his credit, figures out a way to explain the complexities of the human body for even this coach to understand, quite a chore in itself!

His first sentence was direct and made me ashamed I had tossed around that billboard slogan for the past few years without checking with a professional. “The legs, and any body part for that matter, can and do have a direct impact on motion.”

Jen, again, my apologies!

Vint explained it this way, obviously dialed into his captive yet ill informed audience of one. “Let’s say the setter needs to impart 10 units of speed to the ball, at release, to achieve the desired trajectory and final location of the ball in the attacking zone. The 10 units can be derived from many sources and the sources are additive in their contribution.”

“So if the ball has a speed of 10, the hands could contribute all 10 units of speed or any fraction thereof. If the legs are used to elevate the center of mass during the setting action, they will impart velocity. Perhaps they contribute 2 units or 4. If the hips or knees extend at all they will contribute in some way, shape or form to the velocity of the ball.”

Vint, at this point, throws me a bone before he rightfully throws me under the big yellow bus. “Whether this is preferred by coaches or not is perhaps the next questions but it is a different question. If I heard you say, ‘you don’t pass or set with your legs,’ I would understand your intent but would feel you were fundamentally incorrect of your understanding of mechanics.”

My friends, that smell you have picked up on is the smoking gun!

“The legs WILL contribute. How much is a function of the technique used, which by itself may be a function of upper arm strength.” Vint then, as if typing this with Jen standing in front of his desk, adds, “In this way, a u12 girl may need to use her legs to a larger extent than a national team male because she does not possess the upper body strength to deliver all 10 units with her arms.”

We can debate when to teach setters to jump set and/or not use their legs for a unit of the set speed, but that is for another blog.

This is a public apology to Jen and to those who I misinformed with an infomercial mentality. I took their serious question and answered it with a smugness and flippancy of the uneducated. I apologize sincerely.

As a coaching instructor for the Region, you should expect more than cute answers and pat phrases. You should expect scientific answers and when I don’t have them, I should get them for you.

We talk about how many coaches look past the science of our bodies and our sport and continue to follow traditions that are both inefficient and sometimes even counter productive. My glass house is in need of repair these days.

Jen, I am sorry. I will be better at my job going forward.

You and the other coaches of our Region don’t deserve anything less.

Eric Hodgson

Arizona Region of USA Volleyball