Episode #67: Becky Schmidt

🎧  “I See My Job as a Calling” 

In this episode of the Significant Coaching Podcast, host Matt Rogers sits down with Becky Schmidt, the longtime head volleyball coach at Hope College and one of the most respected leaders in Division III athletics.

Coach Schmidt opens up about her deep-rooted belief that coaching is more than a job — it’s a calling. With over 500 wins at Hope, a national championship, and a consistent presence in the NCAA Tournament, she shares what really drives her: helping young women grow into confident, connected, and competitive people.

🔸 Why "When you win, recruit. When you lose, recruit" is her steady recruiting philosophy
 🔸 How friendships, not just wins, define the college athlete experience
 🔸 Why enthusiasm trumps control — and why she’s proud not to be a micromanager
🔸 The powerful impact of simply not getting in their way

If you're a coach, parent, or athlete who believes sports should be transformational, not just transactional, this episode is for you.

🎓 Learn more, read the blog, and get Significant Recruiting at coachmattrogers.com

Significant Recruiting Resources — Take the guesswork out of college recruiting with Significant Recruiting: The Playbook for Prospective College Athletes, sport-specific Recruit’s Journals, and the Significant Recruiting Launchpad. Practical tools to help families research schools, stay organized, and build a smarter recruiting strategy. Learn more at CoachMattRogers.com.

Transcript

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Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of The Significant Coaching Podcast, the show where we dive deep into the minds of extraordinary coaches and uncover what makes their programs and leadership truly significant. I'm your host, Matt Rogers. Today's guest. As someone whose legacy stretches far beyond wins and losses, I'm thrilled to welcome Becky Schmidt, head volleyball coach at Hope College in Michigan, A national champion, a relentless builder of culture and a leader who sees coaching not as a job. But as a calling in this conversation, coach Schmidt shares wisdom shaped by over two decades of competitive success and holistic athlete development. We talk about recruiting through wins and losses, the beauty of unexpected friendships and how the best coaches know when to step aside and just not get in their athlete's way. She's enthusiastic, she's purpose driven, and she's not a micromanager. And after listening, you'll understand exactly why her players love playing for her. Now, before we dive in, just a quick reminder, everything you need about college recruiting, college athletics. You can look@coachmattrogers.com. You can grab a copy of my book, significant Recruiting, read my weekly blog posts. Book a recruiting strategy session, or you can invite me to speak at your school organization. Make sure to subscribe, follow, like, rate, and leave a comment. It helps more families and coaches discover these important conversations. Hey, let's get into it. Here's my conversation with Coach Becky Schmidt. Coach Schmit, thank you so much for being on. It's just an honor to talk to you. You've had such a great career, and it's been so fun following you and the women in your program and all the great things you've done. But in retrospect, now that you're six, seven months away, how are you feeling about your season? I was, just reflecting on this, on the drive in this morning and, wanted to reach out to my team through our group chat and just say, remind them how truly proud I am, not just of what they're accomplishing on the court, but of who they are as people, and, I get the opportunity to work with amazing student athletes that, really care about the world and making it a better place. And volleyball's just a small, piece of that journey. But we're certainly, working hard to make sure that the volleyball, piece is strong. And there's a lot of things that are learned through that process that I think are gonna be meaningful for them. love the way that our kids represent our program. We think we play with a lot of joy. one of the phrases we use a lot is inspire hope. And that's something that we wanna be able to do in other people with the way that we play and represent ourselves. I'm very proud of them. your team is so fun to watch. I love watching a play and I tell kids all the time, I work with recruits and I'll take a volleyball player, and they go, I think I wanna play D two or D one. I go have you watched Hope College Play? Have you watched Juta? Have you watched the Wisconsin Schools? And they go, no, where can I watch them? I go, They're online You can watch all their games. just watch a game. Tell me what you think. Watch a set and let me know what you think. And they're always amazed at how athletic your group is and how fast they play and how powerful they play and how they cheer for each other. So it's just, it's a great testament to what D three volleyball is, what you guys do. So it's impressive. I think that D three volleyball has never been better. And it is, there's a lot of really good teams who are playing very high level volleyball, doing complicated things because they've got the student athletes that are able to do them, absolutely. volleyball as a sport is improving in this country. There's more parody in division one, at least across the power for, than there ever has been. and I'm really excited about. Ways that Division III can really stand and create a story of its own Like I'm a proud alum of Hope and of D three volleyball, I've had plenty of chances to coach in division one. at the end of the day, the experience of what it means to be a D three player is the thing that really aligns with what I want for my student athletes. And this is where I am, best served. and love it. You must have been reading my mind. 'cause that was my next question. You've been leading hope for two decades and you were a standout player there. What does it mean to you to lead that program? I think anybody that's a coach knows that, there's a lot, to this job that, makes it feel way more like a calling than an occupation. when you feel called, not just to the opportunity that you have to impact young students' lives, but to the place like you're called to the mission of an institution and you're called to the work that you and your colleagues get to do in large part because, other people at that institution did the same thing for you when you were, growing up in those four very transformative years. it just makes so much sense, I'm lucky and thankful, that I get the opportunity to make a fine living, doing something that I love at a place that I love so much. this is very much a dream gig. I'm asking you questions that you really have already but I'm gonna keep asking 'em 'cause it's, for me, it's really profound. You've won 500 matches, you've taken home a national title. I'm assuming you've got 25 plus years still in you. You're probably gonna break every record there is. What are you most proud of? I think that the things that I'm most proud of, are the women that our student athletes are becoming, and, the ways that they go out and lead lives of meaning. we've got alums who are doctors. We've got alums who are, working in Washington, dc We've got alums that have gotten their PhDs, that are, doing really impressive work. We've got a lot of alums who are teachers, and we've got a lot of alums who are social workers and physical therapists, holding these jobs, but what is distinctive about 'em, I think, is that they are leading lives of meaning. A lot of them find ways to give back and to coach, no matter whether or not they're a teacher in a school district or not. A lot of them have families that are incredible and are doing an amazing job as parents. I'm just so proud of the type of women that they are, versus, any win or, accomplishment that is gonna be valued, by. The outside world in that way. Yeah. And again, it's not that we don't want those things, right? we're pursuing them because the pursuit is what brings, the things that end up helping us figure out what is really meaningful in life, after all. Yeah. Yeah. And you're good at it too. I have a, I have two young kids. My daughter's a club volleyball player. I think she's gonna end up being a golfer in college. I have a 12-year-old son who I stopped coaching at the college level the year he was born. So he never was in the gym with me. So he never really got that athletics bug, but he's smart as a whip. He's my computer whiz. And really great at math. We're making him choose a sport every year. And it's hard for him 'cause he doesn't see himself as an athlete. So he chose track this year and his first track meet. We saw the glimpse in his eye. Boy, that was fun. That was fun doing a relay with my teammates. You have written on sports psychology, you've written on the role of competition. You talk about what your girls are becoming and your women are becoming in the world. How important do you see it as families take that initiative to really encourage their kids to be a part of a team as at, as young as age, as capable as possible? Is that important to you? Yeah, I think exposing your children to a lot of different types of opportunities to learn and to grow, People who could be important people in their lives, their like friends. you never know where your best friend is gonna come from unless you're exposed to people that you have the chance to develop a further relationship with. And the same could be said for a local rec league coach. I was just having a conversation with our retired baseball coach, who, said that every year in the little league draft, they would draft the kid that sometimes struggled, like he was sometimes the last one picked he was always on Coach Fritz's team. and Coach Fritz still sees this guy in Target the kid will say Hey coach, so excited to see him. love putting opportunities in front of children to be able to be exposed to powerful lessons and people and, I think sometimes kids need to be encouraged in that, and it's not to say that they have to continue to do these types of things. I'm very careful about not pushing, sports as the thing for our son, to get involved in. But wanna make sure that he's doing 'em or not doing them for the right reasons. And I try to be really careful about not going to practices. go to games, but I'm not gonna sit there and watch practice because practice is yours. This is your thing, not thank you. I needed that for my daughter. She always wants me to watch. Yeah. This is yours. Go do it. I'll cheer for you every day. So I love that you said that, coach. And it's hard because they ask, and yeah. They want you there and you wanna support 'em. But sometimes you can support 'em best by not being there. And giving them that space to, to grow as well as the fact that the last thing that any coach needs is me. Up in the stands, evaluating every second of a practice because that is what I'm doing. Exactly. You can't help yourself. You can't help it. I can't imagine being a youth coach coaching volleyball and Becky Schmidt sitting in the gym and, I would be looking up at you all the time going, Becky, is that all right? So I totally appreciate that. I tell her this after games, I go, you played great. I'm happy to give you some thoughts tomorrow, but we're not gonna do, we're not gonna do that today. Yep. I love that approach. Can we talk about assistant coaches? Sure. You have had a few over the years. And I would imagine you didn't have a full-time assistant early on. Correct? Nope. How is it for you choosing an assistant and going through that process, and what is your mindset when you're adding somebody that you need to be a master teacher, a recruiter, a representative of your program, a representative of you? What is your mindset when you're hiring and looking for that new person? And I would imagine now you're getting the point where you got some girls that want to come back. Some of your players wanna come back and coach, but for me, that was always hard. I think I had one year where I could pay more than like $2,000 for an assistant. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. And then what were they gonna have to do in order to supplement their income? for probably, 15 years, we had a couple $3,000, put, positions, coaches And then about five years ago, we were able to do a little bit a stipend coach with some housing and meals and that kind of thing, like a little bit more of a, what we call a coaching intern, right? Where it's like a really good it intro job after you graduate to see if coaching is the future that you wanna pursue. the promise that I kinda make to them is I'm gonna set you up for the next best opportunity, right? Whether or not that's head coaching, whether or not that is, being an assistant coach at another level or something like that. What I wanna do is make sure that this experience sets you up for the next step that you wanna go in. some have gone into head coaching or some have gone back into a club situation and some have just decided coaching was not what they wanted to do, that's the idea behind that position. I think when we look for a new person in that role. I tend to go through my own personal networks first. Because I also think like I'm fairly unique. Like I'm not like your typical type of coach in some of the things that I value. And, the things that are, important to us team vibe is a little bit different than a lot of other places. And so what I want, our assistants to have a good understanding of is like the type of situation that they'd be walking into. And the people that know that best are the people that know me best, and so I tend to go through those, folks rather than public posting collecting resumes and like that kinda stuff My network the first group that I am, confident going to because they know what we're all about. They know what I'm all about and the kinda thing that would be a good fit for folks. I think One of the things that I put in, my intro letter is you can't be too cool for school. You can't come into this program thinking that you're all, not willing to get embarrassed a little bit. not like in a demeaning way, we're gonna have fun, and we're going to do some kind of wacky things, and we're gonna try some things and they're gonna fail miserably, and we're gonna try weird, wacky things again. It's not gonna stop us from what we're doing. thankfully I've had some assistant coaches that have really embraced that and have come along, in that journey. I think one of the great things too, like Carrie La Hockey was the National Assistant Coach of the year last year. She's been my assistant coach for seven years, but last year there was a full-time position within our department be a faculty member and, lead our PE program, physical Education and health, education program. She ended up getting that job, so now she's around full-time. I've got this coaching intern. I feel very supported, and our student athletes feel supported because they've got people that they can come to. I hope every president in the country's listening to this, how important it is to support your staff and your athletes with not just a great head coach, but with an assistant that can do all those little things and build relationships and what that leads to. Not much more than just wins, but what that leads to long term for your health and the health of the women in your program. Great advice. I'm gonna stay with this for just a sec 'cause this is, I think this is really valuable for a lot of head coaches to hear from you about how you attack this. So you've gone through your system, you found a couple people through the people you know that said, Hey, I recommend this person. What are some of those initial questions you ask those applicants to find out if they can coach with you? I'm sure, really quickly the red flags of this isn't gonna work. What are some of those things you ask or how you ask them? I think, I don't think I've got like a set list, of questions. I think that I am a pretty curious person, so I like to ask a lot of follow ups, Like, when somebody will say something, I'm like, wow, tell me a little bit more about that. I think that there's value in getting those folks outside of a typical interview environment. one of the things that we did with one of our assistant coaches when she was interviewing was we took her to a golf simulator place. it was a good way show some love to my volunteer assistants Let's go go golfing. you see react to failure. You see how they, embrace trying to do something a little bit different. It's hard. Yeah. I think that it's really important to put people in front of your student athletes. Yep. And to see if there's a good vibe. And I'm not asking for anything more than that. I'm like, what's the vibe? Like she's not gonna be able to say anything in the, hour that you guys are having lunch together that is going to tell you whether or not she's got the volleyball knowledge to be able to do this. Or if she puts together good scouting reports, but we can teach people how to do all of that kinda stuff, right? The volleyball knowledge thing is a nice thing to have, but really what I care about there is are you a student of the game? are you curious about it? Are you wanting to learn more? Are you asking really interesting questions? so you might say something what kinds of questions do you think a scouting report should answer? When you're trying to figure out whether or not a player is the right fit for you, what kinds of questions would you need answers to, and trying to figure out how, curious they are about some of those things. And then all of that to say sometimes people aren't gonna have great things to say. and you are like, okay, you're still the best fit for what we're doing. expect you to grow through this experience. I love that the Socratic method is a huge part of your approach to coaching, leading, growing your family. I find that, I talk to so many great coaches and hall of Famers like you, that it always comes back to that. I'm not gonna give the answer, but I'm gonna lead you a little bit and see where you want to take the answer. And I wanna find out, can you adapt? are you somebody that we can trust and you're gonna love what we're doing as much as we do. So it's a great approach. I really I'm gonna steal that from you. Talk a little bit about scouting reports since you brought it up. How intense is that? I'm talking to division one assistants on basketball and volleyball, and I'm just, my head's exploding and the time that they're putting in, preparing for the next match, I put a lot of time in, I watch a lot of film, but what they're doing at that division one level and the time they have and the salaries and the staff they have is just amazing to me. What are you able to do and are you trying to accomplish going into a game and preparing your team for it? Yeah, that's a really good question and something that like, I still don't think that we've dialed in, at the right level. One of the things that I do believe, is that the more that my players are thinking during big games, the less likely they are to respond instinct and to use their, God-given skills to the best of their ability. I say to myself all the time is make sure you don't get in their way, right? Yeah. so people will say, at the end of the season, what are you trying to do right now? And I'm like, I'm just trying to stay outta their way. I think one of the ways that we get in their way sometimes is by giving them so much information that they, are overloaded with thoughts versus just playing on instinct. volleyball is a game of reactions, right? it's not, you don't get a whole lot of time to really say okay, I'm gonna set this up, and take the time here, one of the things that we want our players to do is be able to make really fast decisions and giving them a lot of different options doesn't tend to do that. So we try to help them understand a little bit about, the team that they're gonna face, like the style that the match is gonna be, and so that they're not going into something the comfort of the game is taken away from them because the opponent is all of a sudden doing something that we're not ready for. So if a team is gonna play really fast, like it has a really fast offense, my team needs to know that, and we're gonna certainly train it in practice, so that they are prepared for the feeling of what that looks like. But, I don't need them thinking about it a whole lot. So we'll do a lot of things in practice that we'll have scouting report written all over it, but we'll not be on what our kids are getting in a piece of paper or something like that. So you want them to be the best version of themselves, and if they're the best version of themselves, you're gonna be hard to beat no matter who's on the other side of the net. I'll give somebody my playbook. They still have to learn it at our speed, the way we're teaching it, and be able to play at whatever that physicality is or whatever that pace is. So I love that. It really comes down to finding that balance between instinct and preparation. volleyball isn't that complicated of a game. there's probably five or six offensive plays that give teams trouble. so during the course of our entire season, we are gonna work on defending all of those. and we're gonna understand where we're vulnerable and we're gonna overtrain some of those weaknesses, and so then we get into a game and we're gonna say, Hey it's gonna be a fast offense, or it's gonna be a middle driven offense, so we're gonna have to do more committing here. That means like pins, you guys are diving in trying to close seams and that kind of thing, know what the adjustments are. It's like team dependent a little bit, but like by and large, we're doing our thing and yeah. And responding as the match continues. I would imagine 90% of it's just goes back to just being, we're gonna be really good at our defense of the net. We're gonna be really great at serve, receive, we're gonna be really good at getting the ball to our setter where they can do something with it. Yeah. Because all those things are working, it doesn't matter what's on the other side of the net. Yeah. I wanna dig a little bit more into that, and I wanna talk about, you brought up closing, and I think that's such a huge part of coaching, is teaching your kids how to close out a match. I'm interested because I would always tell my boys and my men and my women, I want you to watch the other team during warmups as well. I think you can learn a lot in warmups. You can watch film until the cows come home. But being able to see that team live for the first time and see how they hit and how they set and how they communicate and how they read the ball. Do you do any of that ahead of time? Do you talk about any of that? We really don't. I think that there's some value to that, and there's certainly opportunities and there's certainly times where I see the team watching the opponent. And, we haven't instructed them on what to be paying attention to in those moments. It's not something that I tend to do. Just not a part of my routine. Although maybe it should be, I'd love to learn more, about What you learned from that. It's just been so interesting when you move away from coaching and again, I hope you never have to be in my shoes. I watch my daughter's game so much and I know how they're gonna warm up and I find myself watching the other team warm up and going, what do we have that can play with that? Yeah. What's that setter doing? Because I talk to my daughter, she's a Ds, I talk to her all the time. I go, you gotta watch that setter's eyes, you guys don't have, you don't have any film at the club level and high school level. You gotta watch that setter's eyes, she'll watch a setter's eyes to go, dad, holy cow. She's looking, she's peeking before she digs it, and I go, yeah what a great tool to have in your pocket knowing that, and you're paying attention to that as you're watching the hitter and you're watching the ball. We definitely will talk about some tendencies, like some physical tendencies that we see. We usually do that during film. And we'll try to do it like the day before. certainly a lot of setters give away where they're gonna set with their posture. And so there are things that we can see space. Yeah. one of the things I would like to do at some point is I would just like to watch film with a team and a coach like you. 'cause everybody does it different. Some coaches, it's five minutes of film. They show five minutes of Clipse and they're done. Some coaches will watch an entire set, it's really interesting how everybody, Goes, yeah, this is all we need or we need more of this. So I love that. We started incorporating that into our team camp, the first few rounds, the teams are like playing, doing wash drills with other teams and we'll record one court and have everybody move through that court. And then once that's done, we start having them go up into a classroom with one of our coaches and our coach will do like a film instructional session. Not just we'll just go through the film and say okay, let's just watch, movement that's happening when the ball is not on your side of the net. Are you where you should be? Let's watch now. When the ball is going to somebody else, are you moving in a pattern that is what your coach wants you to be doing? How are you preparing for the next good contact? We'll try to talk to them about letting go of the embarrassing stuff that happens, right? Because they're just all watching themselves and you want them to watch the match. What's really happening here so that your volleyball IQ goes up, not your, personal IQ goes up. So those are some of the things that we do, because we just don't think that a lot of teams are super intentional about the way that they're doing it. those high school coaches must thank you as they walk out the door every time. That's a gift for them as much as it is for the girls, I would imagine. Yeah, I think that, like our team camp we try to do some fairly unique things, we'll have them do a team building session with one of our captains, where they evaluate their team culture figure out some action steps on how to make it better. And then every team rotates through a court with me or another one of my assistants. And so they get a practice with me and yeah, there's a lot of fun things that we do. Coach. The value of that type of camp is worth every penny times two because they're not getting that information anywhere else. And the thing that, like when I talk to coaches about our camp, they're like, we just need to play. And I'm like, that's not what you need, I've never been one of those coaches and never will be. the more kids play, the more the mistakes and the bad habits increase. And if you don't take a break every once in a while for the competition and evaluate where we're at, evaluate our relationships, evaluate how we're playing together. Just digging yourself a hole. And that's the thing, these kids are playing a ton. I know too much. They're all involved in club. They're like our high school like schedule, they're playing like 50 some matches because they're playing tournaments and all these, they'll go to a tournament and they'll play seven, seven matches in a day like course. And it's wild, what's left after two or three matches, what's left in the tank and in their brains, they play two outta three sets or just two sets, and then move on. And if they split, but the point is that they're playing all these games, like during the course of their regular season. Yeah. That at some point, like the student athletes are just like. S the impetus to really bring it during play. Yeah. Isn't there? Unless you've teed it up the right way, and I think that's what we're trying to do. Like we're trying to, use film, use team, culture some of the ways that we train and like you talked about, like closing out games, and in competition, like we're trying to, we do a lot of game-like training and one of the things that we hope is that like about an hour of our practices every day, resemble pretty close to a game of volleyball. Like it's not just drill, where it's okay, they're definitely working on passing right now. what we're also trying to do in that game-like context is get our student athletes to be ruthlessly focused on one specific thing. And something that's gonna contribute to them being able to play pretty good volleyball. we want them to be able to get dialed in on something and to not just go out there and blindly start playing. I feel like Kids are doing even in competition, a day long tournament, and it's really hard. I don't know how, we don't see our focuses. We're really focused on burning these kids out. We're really focused on removing the joy of the love of the game, if that's all they're doing is playing and playing, and so it's hard for me. I'd love to see clubs start on February 1st or January 15th and end on May 15th and give the kids the whole summer before they have to start high school. kids do not get breaks, none. You talk about Multisport athletes, And the value of being a multi-sport athlete, but being a multi-sport athlete now is different than it was, 20 years ago when, being a multi-sport athlete meant that you play volleyball in the fall, basketball in the winter, and softball or soccer in the spring and there was tremendous value in that. But now it's, you're playing volleyball and travel softball in the fall, playing basketball and travel volleyball in the winter, and then you're playing softball and travel volleyball in the spring. And the kids like, they love it, but like what, at what other expense? the expense of like maybe getting a job and having another opportunity to learn something a little bit different. Yeah. And have other important people in your life, that is is valuable. So like I believe in the value club volleyball and travel and that kind of thing. I am nervous about the ways that we're like promoting being a multi-sport athlete that also just completely overwhelm students. Yeah. And I think risks them finding meaning and purpose in what they're doing. I agree. I wrote about this in my book, how important it was for multi-sport athletes. I've had so many coaches, and I've read so many studies, you're healthier, you're less injury prone, you're a better teammate, you're more coachable, you're more adaptable. So we want all those things. we don't wanna lose those things for any of our kids. So I appreciate that more than, but I think that all of those studies are outdated now, right? Yeah. 'cause it's not the same, like the, it's different. What we understand as being a multisport athlete now is not the same as what it was even 10 years ago. Like the data, that is based on a very different model of multisport athletes no longer applies. And the other thing, I don't think this is talked about enough outside of, between us parents is, if you're playing three club sports or two club sports, right off the top you're spending eight to $10,000 a year for club volleyball. You add another club sport to that and what the high schools are asking us to pay. We're writing a check tomorrow for $500 for my daughter to be on the high school golf team. My father would've had a heart attack if he had to write a check for me to play a high school sport, $500. So those are things I'm the old man on my front lawn yelling to slow down and yelling at the cars, going too fast. But I'm glad you see a little bit of that and, you're a proponent for some of that too. Maybe we need to go to battle with the club world and set some precedence. You brought up the nineties. You and I grew up in the nineties. We played in the nineties. We started coaching in the nineties. At least I did. I'm assuming you did too. Yep. What's changed in the game and how have you changed? Our game has changed incredibly. Like rally scoring and the Libra has changed the game completely. And yeah, the game has changed a lot. Also like I would be remiss if I didn't talk about now what pro volleyball in the United States means for tons of girls growing up and having people to look up to, and more and more volleyball to be able to watch, let alone just on, live streamed, opportunities. I went through a high school career of playing volleyball with having the opportunity to watch one game a year. On tv and it was like on E-S-P-N-U that I had to go to a friend's house. 'cause our cable package didn't have it. That was probably the division one National championship. And it was the National Championship. Then you started getting the final four then, like even 10 years ago. It was the Elite eight, and the Elite eight would go from like noon until 11:00 PM and like I would sit in front of the TV and just watch volleyball all day and tell everybody. Don't bother me today. This is volleyball day. And now you can see all of these games and the first rounds of the NCAA tournament, you got three screens on, all different games going on and, and now with pro volleyball so I love the fact how has the game changed? We can learn from it. we can engage the game as fans and as learners. And I think that is, really important. How have I changed? I don't know. I think one of the ways that I've changed is, I care way more about recovery now than I did, back when I was a, like a young coach. I had grown up like wanting to become a coach. I had started reading a bunch of books. I remember reading the book, Success is a Choice by Rick Pitino. And one of the things that was in that book was a chapter on deserve victory. You are going to work so hard that you are gonna feel like you deserve to win more than other people. so I took that, and I was like, okay, like my team needs to work incredibly hard to feel like they deserve to win. And so I would run them ragged. I would destroy 'em, and now I've tried to be a lot smarter in the way that I teach and I train. I think that we've earned more compliance because of that. our players are working out more in the off season, demonstrating more of that type of commitment. Than, I certainly remember as a student athlete doing myself. I played a lot of sports but I did not barely ever do our summer conditioning program. I'll just be honest. I was in shape, but I wasn't physically tuned up the way that our summer conditioning program was designed to make me, I think that we're getting more compliance around that because I think we're treating our student athletes, not Hey, you better do this, or Preseasons gonna be really tough. preseasons gonna be tough 'cause we got a lot we wanna accomplish, We've moved to a model where I'm them more time off. I care so much about sleep now than I did early on in my career. To the point where our strength conditioning coach will say I can work with your team two days a week in the off season. We do three workouts a week in the off season, my team does. I can work with you two times a week, but one of them's gonna be at 6:00 AM they can just do it on their own, because I make a promise to them in the recruiting process that the volleyball stuff they're gonna do is gonna be between the hours of 30 and that means that they've got the rest of the time to be able to. Create the college experience that they want and they can feel like they can say yes to things versus having their schedule be nickel and dimmed out because of their volleyball commitment, and then not feel like they can really say yes to anything else. And like I just, I really care about that kind of balance and the recovery that comes with that. the sleep cycle to me is so valuable. I helped a high school coach a couple years ago and he wanted to run practices on Mondays at 6:00 AM and then he was gonna run the rest of the days from three to five. I was like, what do you expect Tuesdays to look like? What do you expect them to do the rest of the week and try and recover when you've changed their sleep cycle? You're making them get up two hours early and hoping that a bunch of 16 year olds are gonna go to bed two hours earlier. Good luck. So I love that. Let's go back to closing out a game and closing out your opponent. What are your philosophies on how you teach that? Because you can be a great coach, you can have great practice plans, you can be a master teacher, but if you're not thinking, talking, executing the intensity of the emotion at the end of the game, you're gonna lose your five setters. You're gonna lose those sets that you should win 'cause you aren't prepared for it. What's your philosophy in preparing your team for that? So we try to do a lot of what? We'll just do games to five. instead of setting the score at zero zero and playing to five, we'll set the score at 2020 and play to 25. Just so that they're seeing that kind of thing on the scoreboard. We use the scoreboard a lot during our practices so that they are used to being evaluated by it. over the last couple of years I've learned a lot more about the constraints learning approach to motor learning, ecological coaching, theory, where the environment, coaches the kids, and then you just interact as a guide, we'll say, all right, we've got a game to five, then you pull your setters across and say how are you going to, be efficient here? How are you going to attack these vulnerabilities Because you don't have a lot of points to find your rhythm, so let's be smart. Let's be tactical about it. If you're going to take a risk setting your weakest hitter you better make sure that it's the right situation. You got the right defense to be able to pull that off. we're just trying to ask them questions and help them, process some of those moments so that they learn to ask those questions when they get into those scenarios. In practice. I think that there are times where like our setters will come in, they'll watch a little bit more film or we'll try to like, meet with them before practice on different days and Hey, look at these things. Hey, look at these stats. Like what are these stats telling you about? Who you should be setting at the end of a match? What are these numbers telling you about what situations you wanna be setting people in? Because we've got more data now than we've ever had before to, I take that back. We've been using really, like powerful data tools since 2009. Like we've had a lot of these tools. I see. one of the things is because of like volume metrics, our student athletes have access to these things in ways that really, it was only us as coaches had access before. So they're able to explore and kinda try to figure some things out. somebody will have a very different hitting percentage in system situations than out of system situations and a good pass versus a bad pass situation. hey, setting her is a great option when we're in system because the block is being drawn somewhere else, and that is exposing an opportunity for that kid. But like, when the block is well established in front of her, she struggles. We're gonna work on that, that we're not just gonna say in the middle of the season, oh, I guess she's not good in this situation, so don't give her any new opportunities. It's not how we do it, but we continue to work on it and that kinda thing. I am not a micromanager when it comes to anything on the court. I'm not gonna tell our setter who to set except in some very specific situations, and then she doesn't set 'em anyway. On occasion, I'll be like, Hey, let's look at so and so here. but I also don't want her feeling like she's gotta force it to that person if the situation call for it, I think that one of the reasons that we get really good setters to play for us at Hope is because I give them a lot of autonomy, that I'm not micromanaging them. I'm letting them. Run it And then we're talking about Hey, were those the right decisions to make? And then they'll tell me a little bit more why? And I'll be like, oh yeah, maybe that was the right decision. Love it. And for all you, youth and high school coaches listening to this, coach Becky is a master of the Socratic method. Whether she thinks about it or not, the way you ask questions, the way you make your kids think the way you make them evolve without micromanaging, enforcing it, a mastery It's really impressive. Now, I trick question for you. I asked this of Chris Katnik down in Tampa, and he laughed at me, threw his hands up. I'm gonna ask you, 'cause I've already heard it once, so I wanna see what the answer is. Is it Libro or Libero? Help all of volleyball here. All right, please do. So I was in Italy, the way to pronounce an Italian word, In Italy is I was coaching an, all-star team that went over there. We were playing another team. I said, this is my chance. I'm gonna go to the girl with the other colored jersey on. That's the hill you're gonna die on with it Yeah. Alright, good. Coach. I'm gonna give you a little rapid fire. Just some quick ones. Get your brain thinking here 'cause you've given me great time. I don't wanna waste too much more of your time today. Favorite memory from the 2014 team? Oh, man. Going up to the rooftop of, one of the libraries in Holland, when we were, ranked number one for the first time and got special access to go up there. We went up to the top of this rooftop and we walked over, as close to the edge as people were comfortable and we said you've got two choices when you're ranked number one in the country. You can look down and see how far you have to fall, or you can look out and see what a beautiful creation this is and where this can take you. Fantastic. And like from then on, like I really do think that they started embracing the opportunity that some teams might look at as a threat or as pressure. And we really looked at it as opportunity it gave them something to fall back on to make them say, no, this is not how I wanna respond to this loss. I wanna respond differently. Sounds like a program changing moment as much as a season changing moment. You remember that story. That's great. Is there a coaching book, a podcast, a leadership book? I know you brought up a couple already that you think every young coach should read. Oh, every young coach. one of them is, training Soccer Champions by Anson Dorrance. Is a great one. I think that championship team building, I'm looking at my bookshelf here, championship team building by Jeff Janssen is on my list. I think the culture code, is a good one as well as the talent code. these are the books that I assigned to my coaching class. Nice. And I tell them like, my goal here is to start to build your coaching library. Podcasts that I'm listening to right now are Coach Your Brains Out. Which is, a couple of volleyball guys. I love, listening to, slapping Glass, yeah. Is a basketball podcast or That's a good one. And which was, those are the ones. I'm gonna dive into those. What's the best advice you received as a young coach? Man, and like I was a sponge. I think most of it like was when you win recruit and when you lose recruit, like it was, like recruiting is the lifeblood of this work. recruiting is tough because it's like the thing where you spend a lot of time on it and you end up yielding like maybe four or five kids, and, you're hearing no 90% of the time, but the kids that you're hearing yes from are pretty special. And that's been my experience. yeah, I think that, great advice recruiting, recruiting is valuable. It never stops. I always have people ask me, what's the season for recruiting volleyball? I go, January 1st to December 31st. Yeah. It never so is this peak recruiting season for you? Yeah. One word that best defines Becky Schmidt as a coach. Enthusiastic. Good idea. I just try to show my love and passion for what I'm doing every day. I put you in a room with 300 volleyball parents. What piece of advice do you give them about recruiting? What do they need to know? If they wanna play at hope, they want to play college volleyball, let's kick 'em in the butt. Becky, what do they need to know? They need to know that there is a place. Where their daughter can play volleyball in college. I don't care how good or bad she is. There is a place in college volleyball for most kids. if they really wanna play in college, there is a place that they can do that. The challenge is like what kind of role do you want volleyball to take in your college experience? And I think that people need to spend a little bit more time considering that. And I think that a lot of people would say oh, my daughter loves volleyball, so that's the most important thing to her. there's a lot of other things that are gonna be happening in college. Yeah. A lot of other things that she's preparing for in her life. Yes. how is she gonna find that type of balance? And is she gonna be playing in a program that is going to, protect that love Of the game? Because that's the thing that I get worried about a little bit. one of the reasons I don't wanna coach in a scholarship, situation is because I don't want anything competing with the love of the game that our student athletes have. And just from like sports psychology, it happens, right? Like whenever you have extrinsic rewards influencing intrinsic motivation. It usually goes down. And that's the big problem with it. It was a problem with scholarships. It's a problem with NIL. not that all NIL is bad, but it causes, competing interests. one of the things that I just love about going down to my gym every day during our season is that I know that the only reason that all of our student athletes are down there working so hard is because they love this game and they love the people they get to play it with. And that's beautiful. I need to honor that. it's my responsibility to go down there and to create an environment and a situation that honors that love, and gives them opportunity to be able to experience it. Coach and I've talked to three division one coaches this week, and all of them were pulling their hair out. all three told me a different story about how they called the kid that they loved, that they saw a play, and the parent got on the phone and said, sorry, coach, you have to talk to our agent. The kid is 18 years old and I have to talk to your agent. I keep hearing that story and we're going to run these great coaches out of our profession and we're gonna replace them with people that don't have the love, don't have the joy, don't want to teach. So thank you for saying that. Thank you for being you and thank you for a great conversation, coach. It was an honor. I had a lot of fun. I'll do a shout out for division three for all of those coaches that are listening to the podcast that are really frustrated with state of it all. There's a place to be able to work with amazing student athletes where it's still pretty pure, right? I mean there's still some of these things that we're dealing with, but, it's a great place to coach. And I've talked to a number of former division one coaches that are like, man, this is the balance that been missing. I love it. Thanks for everything coach. Good luck. Have a great off season and I look forward to talking to you soon. Thanks Matt, appreciate it. That was such a fun and rewarding conversation with Coach Becky Schmidt from D three Powerhouse Hope College. From National Champion to sports psychology, to letting athletes shine by stepping out of their way. Her approach is rooted in belief, purpose, and people. I loved her reminder that you never know where your best friend will come from. It's a testament to how college sports can shape lives in ways that go far beyond competition. And our mantra, when you win recruit. When you lose recruit, it's the kind of consistency and clarity every coach and athlete can learn from. If this episode inspired you or gave you something to think about, share it with a teammate, a fellow coach, or a family, navigating the college recruiting process. And don't forget. You can find all my tools and resources@coachmattrogers.com. That includes my book, significant recruiting, my free blog content, past podcast episodes, and a chance to schedule a personalized recruiting strategy session with me for free. Until next time, keep leading with purpose, keep coaching with significance, and thanks for being a part of the movement.