Episode 7 - The Coaches Car Ride Home

We are so excited to be back after a week off! This episode dives into the importance of a strong warm up, what it takes to make a standout athlete and the importance of praise. 

Be sure to follow us along and comment below any topics you'd like to hear!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome back to the Coach's Car Ride Home. This is episode seven. I'm Coach Lauren, your host.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Hi, Coach Paul here. We're not together today. We're separated.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

We're so excited you're here. We are separated. I'm home after our three-day weekend in Minnesota, and Coach Paul is in the studio. So not in the same place, in the same state, but not in the same building today. But we are excited to bring some content to you. So sorry we missed you last week. It was our spring break here. We got kind of busy. You know, Coach Paul was on vacation. I was working at the hospital, and all of our girls were out on vacation skiing. So we took the week off, but we are excited to be back and to talk about all the fun things that happened this past weekend and some things we noticed.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Yeah, we just got back late last night from the Northern Lights qualifier in Minneapolis. Um good tournament, a lot of fun. Big, good teams, good play. We played in uh USA. We have a 14s team, so we played 14s USA. Competition was really good. Um, and great city. I forgot how much fun Minneapolis was. It was probably 10 or 12 or 15 years ago last time we were there. And uh yeah, recommend that tournament.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Yeah, last time we were there, I think it was uh my nationals. I don't know if it was the first time we went to Nationals, but I do remember it. Uh the mall.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

I think it was our first trip to Nationals when your uh team was seventeens.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Yeah, so it was fun to go back, it was fun to reminisce in the city and the cool skywalk and walking to the convention center and just hanging out with the girls and playing volleyball. So that was really awesome. Um, it was a three-day tournament. Um, we played three games on the first day, four on the second day, and then one on our final day. Um overall, great weekend. I think our team, and we've told them this, we underperformed this weekend. Um, I set very high expectations for them this weekend to hopefully get that bid to go to nationals. Um, and our first day, we struggled. We lost two really close games. Yeah, one of them in three, and I just I think we could have performed better.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Happened a few times this season where, you know, on that day one of a qualifier like this, you have to go two and one or better to stay in contention to make the gold bracket and and to be in contention for a bid. And you know, we know this going in. We won our first game, so we were in good shape. All we had to do was win one more to stay in the mix and two more to be in even better shape. And then the second game we went to three and we lost it by, I think, two points in the third set. Um, again, after we had a lead, and then we kind of blew it. And we've done that a few times this season, and you know, we're trying to figure out why and why we can't seem to finish big games, and we'll talk about that a little bit. And uh we also had an at that second game, the first set was really interesting. It went 3331. Back and forth.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

I think that's the highest score we have had.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

That could be the highest score we've ever had, and uh it seemed like we had the lead seven out of the eight times or something and just couldn't close it out, and then we finally did, but then we lost the next two sets and wound up losing that match. And then the third game was also really close, also went to three, also went to two or three points in the third set, and we lost that one as well. So we wound up in the D2 bracket where the best you can do is bronze, and day two we had a decent day. We played four games, we were in a five-team pool, which was pretty exhausting for the kids to play four games over five hours, I think it was, or six hours. And uh we went three and one, lost our last game in another close game. Um, did we go three in that one too? I think we might have.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

I think we might have.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Yeah, I think we did. And uh somehow managed to pull out first place due to a three-way tie and us having the highest set percentage of the tiebreaker, um, and wound up in the bronze division. So, all in all, pretty good considering the struggle we had the first day and that part of the second day. And uh, you know, finishing in bronze in a national qualifier is not terrible. It's better than better better to be in the middle than to be at the bottom. But you know, our hopes and goals of winning a bid didn't didn't happen this time. And uh it was a good opportunity because there were four bids in USA for 36 teams. So all you had to do was make the semifinal, I think, and you were gonna get a bid. And uh we were close, but didn't do it, so we're gonna look forward to the next one.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Yeah, yeah. And you know, I feel like this is another great learning opportunity for our girls and our team, and even maybe our parents and us as coaches as well. You know, we we do I lost some sleep over Friday night. I I I was analyzing all night, you know, what could we have done differently? How could we have encouraged the girls? Like what can we teach them? Um, and I think something we really came up with was just again the confidence of them, of the girls, um, which I think day two, again, they built their confidence back up. So in that set 33, 31, at the end of the game, when it was back and forth and back and forth, our girls had the most confidence I've seen since we won our tournament, you know, a couple months ago. The confidence was there, it was the the fight and the drive and all of that stuff. And it's you know, now we're just trying to figure out how we can hold that and bring that out every single game.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Because yeah, we don't we don't see it consistently. It's consistently, I mean it goes up and down. Sometimes we have it and we're full force, and sometimes we just ride the wave down. And it seems like sometimes we have, and we've had this with previous teams too, where you have one error or two errors and they become contagious, and then the whole team's making errors, and before you know it, you've gone on the losing three, four, five, six-point run, and that's really hard to recover from.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Yeah, I mean, it's incredible. We we wanted a a team, you know, we kept a team under 10 this weekend, and that means we made less than 10 errors, which might seem like a lot, but for our team, that's actually very good. And and um, but then on you know, just 24 hours later, we were back in the same gym, pretty much on the same court, and we probably made 20 errors.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

So yeah, on day three, we lost our first set 25 to 6, I think.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

259, 25 to 6. Yeah, it was also under 10. So it's just incredible how how it can snowball so quickly.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

And then we came back and won the second set or lost the second set 25-23. So it wasn't a matter of the teams being different from each other, it was a matter of we just made a whole bunch of errors, couldn't get out of the funk, everything went wrong that could go wrong, and that happens.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Yeah, yeah. I like to tell the girls, you know, that team didn't beat you, you beat yourself. And I think I've probably mentioned that on this podcast before is you know, skill-wise, we were either evenly matched or just a little bit better, or maybe just a little bit under these teams, but you know, they just outperformed us, and that's why they won. And and that that is what's gonna happen in volleyball. I mean, you see it in any sport. We're watching March Madness right now. It's like the underdogs, there will be upsets because you can have the same skill set or maybe just a little bit less skill, but outperform another team. And I think that's a really huge thing that you know any athlete should remember is as long as you're trying your hardest, like that's that is what is gonna get you.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

They're all really good quality athletes, and especially in that USA division and even in the open division, where they're all pretty evenly matched, and a lot of times it comes down to that performance and you know who gives it all and goes for it as much as they can, sometimes they pull it out ahead of someone who's having a bad day or an off day.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Yep, yep, exactly. Well, let's go back to the errors um and how they're contagious, right? I think this weekend we kind of had a really good eye-opening moment for our girls and telling them, you know, if every single one of you on this team makes one error, that's 10. If everyone makes one and a half error, two errors, that's now 20.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

And that's when a match when you make 15 or 20 errors, it's just not possible.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Right. And so it's really important to keep that in mind, you know, and an error can be a serve receiver, it could be an a serve in the net, it could be a hit out of bounds, it could be, you know, a block error where you're in the net. Like any there's so many errors that can make up a game, and if you're the team making more errors, you will lose. Um, so I think that is something, you know, as a player and maybe a coach, you can you can think about more is okay, how can I keep my girls to be making less errors? Like, um, and not so much the skill-wise, but mentally too. Um, okay, if I did make one error, what am I gonna do to limit to make sure I'm not contributing more to that negative?

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Right. It comes from experience, volleyball knowledge, coaching, practice. I mean, there are times when you don't get a great set and you're 12 feet off the net. You can't just swing away like you're hitting 10-foot line because you're gonna hit it straight into the net. So you have to be smart enough to go, where am I gonna put this ball? Am I gonna roll it to deep one? Am I gonna roll it to the donut hole? Am I what am I gonna do to keep it in bounds? Not wailing out of bounds on the other side, so that you have a chance to continue with that point since you struggle to get a good set. So we always talk about making it as difficult as possible for the other team. So if you're in a point where you're struggling or you have a bad set or you're scrambling, you want to make something difficult for the other team so you can reset and then come back and try and get still win that point.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Yeah, definitely. Um, well, let's talk about our warm-up too. Um, we ran into a situation on Sunday morning. I I think our girls just weren't warmed up and ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Well, we played late into the night the night before. We didn't finish till 10 or so, and then we were um playing at 9 a.m. the next morning, and that happens pretty frequently. And so they're tired. We they probably didn't get by the time they got food and shower and whatever, they probably didn't get to bed till midnight. They had to be up at 6 30 in the morning so they could get breakfast and dressed and walk back over there and be there in time. So they're tired, and you can see it. They're all sitting around on the floor in a circle, and you know, we have to remind them put your shoes on, get taped, do what you do pre-game warm-up, do what you need to do. And they look like a bunch of zombies sitting on the floor, not really knowing what to do. So that's a struggle is getting game ready when you're exhausted because you've played seven games already this weekend, you didn't get much sleep, and now you got to go out and perform on day three. So it was tough. We had to get them up, we tried to make them run. They didn't really do that very well. They stretched a little bit, they really weren't prepared to go in for that first set. That's the set we lost 25-6 or 25-9 or whatever it was. And, you know, we also ran into a situation where we got on the court, our first game of the day, and the ref immediately blew the whistle, called captains, gave us basically one minute of ball handling and no aerobic warm-up prior to the to the set. And we asked for more time and she denied it. Um, you know, the rule book says, or the the uh the rules for national qualifiers say you get five minutes in your first game of the day to warm up before the actual four-minute warm warm-up, and she didn't give that to us. There was not much we could do. So we got one minute of warm-up, we ran through our four minutes, and we were playing, and we were still asleep.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Yeah, yeah, and I mean, hey, that happens sometimes, right? Like it's not always gonna go your way, it's they're not always gonna go exactly by the rule book. She really she she probably was told you need to keep this court on time, people have to fly home. Like it's Sunday, right? And and that that is going to happen. And I think that's why, as an athlete, you really need to value your own warm-up time. Whether that's you show up maybe 20 minutes earlier than your entire team, and you're out in the lobby and you're just doing some high knees, or you're taking a stretch band and spending some extra time warming up your muscles.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

I saw I saw a girl from another team setting the ball against the wall for 20 minutes while you know we were just putting our shoes on. So she was getting she was getting ready, doing her pregame routine.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Yeah, yeah. And you know, I think as you get older too, the older girls they really know how to keep them keep themselves warm and and stay warmed up. But I think, you know, if you're a younger player and you're listening to this, like take accountability for that. Get your team together. Don't wait for coach to say, okay, you know, it's 1510, like start warming up now. Like, you just do that on your own because your coach is gonna notice that, and you might see yourself in a captain role if you're starting to do something like that.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Well, and that's another thing we're gonna talk about today is the things that coaches look for in players, and that's really one of them is leadership, is somebody that'll take charge, that'll get the other kids going, that'll take charge of themselves and be a good example for their teammates.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Right. Yeah, exactly. Um, so I I think warmups is is really important, and also warm-ups when you do go on for your four minutes, right? There were some times this weekend, and and we reminded them again, we have four teams, so they're they're not perfect volleyball players, and we're here to remind them and help them coach through these small things that make a very big impact. Um, and your four minutes of warm up is one of those. That is your warm-up to get you ready to start firing on all cylinders from point one. So if you're you're out in warmups and you're hitting the ball maybe 50% and you're just roll shotting and hitting in the net and hitting out of bounds, that's gonna transcribe into what you're gonna do in the game.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

And sometimes it's easy to just go through the motions because you've done this so many times throughout the season. And it just becomes a routine. Oh, we go out there, we hit some balls, you know, whatever. But the best athletes will focus on here's what I need to do to get ready. And it might be different for each person, and it might be start slow and then work your way up, or it might be you know, pound the ball as hard as you can just to get your arm loose, or it might be move your feet and get you know activity or get your heart rate up, but that's the time to get ready because right, or it might be it could also be you know, from your last game, what did coach tell me I need to work on, or what was coach where did I struggle in?

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Maybe it was hitting line instead of angle, maybe it was hitting over here instead of like that's your time to get your body and your mindset going um for that. And I think too, you know, not a lot of people do blocking warmups, but that's something you can also do on the side is just doing your lateral blocking movement. Um, there's tons and tons of things you can do to stay warm and get warm because as we all know, that time on the court is really short, it's very short before a game, and it's really hard to get to get 100% from point one.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

It's also a good time that four-minute warm up is a good time to get reconnected with your setter because they're setting you multiple, multiple times. So if you want it higher or you want it more outside, or you want it more inside, that's the time to get that figured out, not during the game.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Yep, yep, definitely. So warm-ups are huge. Um, you know, if you have any questions, you know, they're pretty standard warmups. You see the other coach, you see coaches, you know, there's about three minutes of hitting lines and then one minute of serving. Um, that's typically how each club does it. Some clubs do the opposite, they do one minute of serving first and then three minutes of hitting. Um, so you'll see, you'll see different variations of it. But um, if anyone has a cool different warm-up that they like to share with us, please, please let us know because we're, you know, we're always willing to try a bunch of stuff. Um so yeah, I think, you know, something that I really something that I really loved this weekend was just seeing and being reminded of the volleyball community. I think, you know, we all go with our team and our club, and that's that's who we are, and we're here to play that team, and that's our opponent, and you know, those are our enemies, and this and that, right? But we were reminded this weekend that it's not it's not always like that. We had this one mom on our day two. Um, we played, we had four games that day. So we had four different opponents, and they had to ref our last game, and there was a mom from that team refing us who started cheering for us and had her son cheering for us, and then the girls started cheering for us, and it was just so cool to see a team that was cheering for a team.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Earlier in the day, and then they came back to support us, which was kind of fun.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Yeah, we played them, I think we beat them, and then they came back and they were like, Yeah, we love watching you, and you guys are really good, and we want to cheer for you. It's like that's so cool, and like how cool to teach your athletes that that's like a really awesome thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Yeah, and they taught some of our parents some some of their cheers and kind of worked it into our, you know, our scheme, and it was fun to see us do it. It really brought the vibe of the gym up just because this one mom was super friendly and super happy and and good, you know, making the best of the situation that they had a ref the last game of the night and be there until 10 or 10 30. You know, it could have been pretty pouty, like, oh, I don't have to do this, but she was having fun. She was having fun, we were all having fun.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Right, right, yeah, we were all having fun.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

And then we then we finished that game. We walked back to the hotel, we lost, so we weren't in a great, you know, the greatest of moods. We got back to the hotel, and there's another team from Texas staying in our hotel. There's all in the lobby, they got all kinds of pizzas and salads and pasta, and we're all standing around trying to figure out what we're gonna do to feed our kids now at 10:30 at night. And one of the moms comes over and says, We have plenty of pizza, we have plenty of pasta. Come help yourselves, join us. Yeah, and that's just amazing. I mean, that's the whole community spirit. So a whole bunch of our players went in, dove right in, got pizza, sat with them, made new friends, hung out, talked, and that's you know, that's really cool to see.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Yeah, it's it's awesome. Like, and you know, everyone's we're all there for the same reason, right? We're all there for these girls to play volleyball to get better, to make friends, and to do fun things. It does, it does remind me of, you know, I think when I went and tried out for the HP team, which is our high performance team, which we could probably do a whole episode on. Um, I went and I met all these girls that I had been playing against the entire season. And so it was like we kind of already knew each other, but not very well. But then we spent, you know, a couple of days in a hotel and whatever together, and then we were friends. And so the next season, when we would play each other, we would give each other hugs and like all this stuff. It's the same thing with camp, right? If you make friends at camp and then you see each other on the court, it's it's really cool. I think as coaches, too, you know, we are really building the characters of these girls. And one something that did happen this this weekend is that we had a really tight ball to the net, our middle went up, um, collided with the other middle, like underneath the net, there, you know, she the other middle landed on our middle on her feet and kind of twisted her ankle, and it stopped the game. And thank goodness she was okay. She got up, she actually continued to play, which was really awesome to see. Um, but our middle, I said, Hey, just like make sure, you know, at the end of the game, I said, make sure you say sorry. Like, just say, like, are you okay? Say sorry. That's important, you know. And what did she do? She ran under the net immediately, went over to her, gave her a big hug, and said, I'm so sorry. And she's just so sweet, and it was just such a nice moment to see, you know, because it is we are competitors, but at the end of the day, like we are also all volleyball players. So it's always a nice reminder to see the awesome community that volleyball really does bring together.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Yeah. Okay, so our coach's clipboard for this week is going to be what makes a standout player in a coach's eyes. Um, what what is it and what characteristics are we looking for? It's not really skill set, but more of mentality and effort to make to make a standout player. And what what are we looking for and how we reward that? Like when you are giving us your all um, what is it that we do to reward you?

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Right. Well, we talked about earlier, we talked about leadership. So that's one of the things that we look for is somebody who's going to be a leader on the court, who's going to go out and help the other players on the court, um lead the team by example, showing up on time, working hard, doing the things that the coaches ask. Um, and then another thing that we look for is hustle. And I think that's a really big one for us. You don't have to be the best player on the team, but if you hustle the most, you're gonna stand out in the coach's eyes. And the one that hustles the most and works the hardest will eventually be the best player on the team. Maybe not the first day on the team, but over time and over years, those that put in the work, those that work, you know, the hardest, those that hustle the most, those that go for every ball, those that dive, those that you know work hard for every minute that they're able to are the ones that stand out in the coach's eyes and also become the best players.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Yeah, definitely. Um, you know, I'm just I'm brainstorming right now. The million thoughts are going through my head of of what is it when I'm on the sideline and I'm I'm picking lineups, right? So this weekend, when we we didn't get our goal to stay in gold, that second day was really important for us to try a few new things to hopefully get us ready for Chicago in two weeks. And so we wanted to try a few different lineups. Now, our liberos love them all. They're all we have three really great passers on our team, and we rotate liberos and we tried that this weekend. We had a double libero situation, we put our DS in the libero jersey, and they, you know, mentally, I was actually very, very impressed with how all three of them handled that. You know, they were supportive of each other, they were happy that they all got to do it. Um, but on the sideline, it was okay, how am I going to decide who who gets to wear it, who gets to keep it, that kind of thing. Um and we're still deciding, it's always a decision, every practice, right? However, you know, I'm gonna give our shout out to our DS here. And she really stood out to me because I could hear her in every huddle. I could hear her in between every single point. I could hear her from the sideline encouraging her other teammates, no matter if they made an error or they made a great play. She was the first one up in their face saying, You've got the next one, I totally believe in you, or hey, like that was an amazing up, like, just totally a team lift. Up player, and guess what? She also played lights out. So not only was she giving us her all, she was giving her team her all. And I think it actually improved her play.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Yeah, she was fully involved in the game. I mean, she was totally immersed in the game for herself and for her teammates, and has that desire to win and wanted to get every ball and score every point. And that can be contagious, and that's what we encourage. So that's one of the things that coaches are looking for in every player. Now it's probably harder for some players who don't have that personality, right? If you're shy or you're more reserved, you have to work really hard to get more involved in the game than those, you know, outgoing type players. But it is important that everybody kind of takes that role and and gets, you know, embraces that that kind of role on the team because it takes a whole team. You can't just have one firecracker on the team. Everybody has to be working hard, you know, together.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Yeah, and guess what? That is also something you have to practice. It's not something that's just gonna come to everybody, but once you do it one time, you're like, oh, that's the feeling that coach is talking about. And then you have to actually practice it. It sounds so silly. It's difficult.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

You gotta get out of your comfort zone.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Yes, yes, you're out of your comfort zone. You're doing something kind of abnormal, and you know, you might be doing something that seems a little silly if we're like yelling and jumping and screaming that you know, every little thing. Um, but the more you practice it, the easier it does come a pinky pinky promise.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Um one of the hardest things we find with these younger girls is getting them to vocalize on the court because they're all kind of shy and then not really sure. And to get that talk and that chatter going on the court is not easy. And you might have one that does it, but some of them don't want to open their mouth at all. And it has to be in practice and it has to be all the time that we're reminding them talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. We have to even tell them what to say until they get it figured out. Oh, I'm supposed to be, you know, calling the seams or talking about where we're passing, or I got this ball and you got that ball, talking to the setter about what they want to hit, setters talking to the hitters about what they're gonna set. All that communication has to happen. And without the practice, it just doesn't happen naturally.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, there's a million things that you have to practice that have not a whole lot to do with skill, and that's one of them. The the other one is uh the mentality. Um we also saw some really, really big growth moments. I don't know if you realized it this weekend or not, but I saw some huge mental growth moments with our girls this weekend. Um, just a lot of mental toughness. You know, this sport is not easy. The sport is not easy in general, but for a female, it's also just not easy, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:37

You shed a few tears this weekend.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Yeah, we had a couple tears, myself included, right? And so it's like to see these girls like go through these moments and then be able to help coach them through and say, hey, I know you're really frustrated with yourself and you're not doing and you feel like you're not doing as well as you possibly can. What are we gonna do to move forward from that? How are we gonna like flip this narrative and get you back to your 100% and you're feeling confident again? And you know, again, it might be the age, um, but I think you'll see this at any skill level. I think you'll see this almost any age level. I mean, 17, 18 years old, like you're not, you don't just magically get away from this. Like it's meant the mental game of volleyball is huge. Um so I think we definitely saw a lot of growth here. Um so just the other half of this is how are we gonna reward those players that we we notice that are standing out, right? We notice that um they're giving us their all and they're they're really trying and they're being that standout player on the court. Um, we did it this weekend with our DS. She played in the front row. Now she's she's a decent hitter, so it's not like we just threw her up there and said, Yeah, good luck.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Um well, we had an outside that was struggling a little bit, you know, making errors, and that one that you're talking about has all the confidence in the world, and we said, Can you do it? And she said, Yes, I can. So we put her in there and let her go swing, and she just did just fine.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

Yeah, no, she did great, and she she kept that positive, you know, attitude. She did have a moment where she she felt like she was underperforming in the position that we put her in, but she shook it off real quick. Um, and she she kept swinging, and that's what we needed. You know, we needed someone who was gonna go up there and just keep swinging, keep swinging.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Well, yeah, that's one other thing that coaches are looking for is that you're coachable and that you listen to what the coach says. We put her in, we said, we want you to go swing. We don't care the outcome, we want you to swing hard. We're not gonna tip the ball, we're gonna hit hard. And good coachable players will take that in and then execute what the coaches are asking for. Yeah, we don't just say it for saying it, we say it because that's what we believe we need to win the game.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Yeah, and especially executing maybe something that's uncomfortable, right? If coach is asking you, I'm just talking on an outside, I mean, or middle two, like if coach is asking you swing line, swing line, or swing to right back, or do something specific, it might not come comfortable to you at first, but they know you can do it, and so you should really try really hard because in that moment, if you're gonna make an error, I mean, you do this with serving a lot. If you want them to try to short serve and they miss it, we're not upset at it, right? Because we're the ones asking them to do that.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Um, but the confidence comes from you build it in practice. So, in practice, if you've repeated and repeated and repeated that short serve, you should be confident that you can do it in a game. Definitely now. Will you miss once in a while? Sure. Same thing if you practice hitting the ball down the line and in practice over and over again in the game, you should be confident that you can do it, that you can execute. So building confidence over time is important.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Yeah, pretty sure.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

One other thing when we're talking about um helping players um or rewarding players is praise. And we will give as much praise as we possibly can all the time. It's really important to pick out the things that they did right and tell them because they're not always very self-confident. But if you say, hey, in that game, you hit the ball great, you passed the ball great, you were moving real good, you were doing what we asked you to do, and point out specific things that they did well, they'll remember that more than they remember that the error or two that they made. So that's in my book really important. And then after the game, we sit down in the lobby and we talk about you know what happened in the game and what we did well, and not so well, but you made a point of, and you do this a lot, of singling out each individual player and saying, telling them something they did well. And sometimes we'll even have the other players congratulate players on the team for something they did well. We don't talk about negatives, we just say, tell us something that each player did well, and that can help build the group confidence and the individual confidence.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Yeah, I mean, win or lose. Everybody did something at least one thing well. Um, and so it's really important to point that out because so mid-game, it's really important to point out something they do well because it helps build muscle memory, and muscle memory is a huge thing in any sport. Um, so for example, our setters, if they set the perfect ball, we're gonna congratulate them and praise them because we we are asking, hey, that's the ball, that's the ball that we've been asking for, and you just gave it to us. It's amazing, and that will help them build the muscle memory of okay, coach wants me to do that every single time. Um, and then yeah, after the game in our recap, it is really important because a lot of times it's so easy to just focus on the negatives and oh, you know, and this is talking from a loss, is like, oh, this is what we could have done different, and this is how we could have been better, but also this is what we did really well. And maybe one player had the game of their life. I mean, the game that we lost and we won the 33-31 in the first set, but we ended up losing the game overall. I think our one middle probably had one of the best games of her life in that first set, and so it's important to just tell her like, hey, no, that was awesome. Like, I know the outcome wasn't what we wanted, but you still were giving it your all, and you did all these things correct. Um, so yeah, definitely important there.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Um and then moving on to parents, you know, we'll make it quick, but you know, what are some things that parents can do to be great parents?

SPEAKER_01 30:08

I feel like I should be asking you this question, but from my standpoint, um, a great parent is is one that's just gonna continue to encourage your kid. I mean, just keep encouraging them. And it doesn't have to be an overbearing, like, oh, you're the best player in the whole universe. Again, it's like, you know, like our one parents, like, tell me three things you think you did well, or give them some praise of, oh my gosh, look at what this, you know, this one block I got on video, or look at this up that I got on video, or did you see that one thing? And you know, just bring out something that they did really well, especially in the losses, right? In the in the wins, oh my gosh, make it the biggest deal in the entire world. Like, especially if it's a tight win or an important win, like just praise, praise, praise. Um, as for parents and coaches, I think you know, coaches aren't also gonna be perfect every single time, right? Like, we will mess up the lineup every once in a while. We will put a kid somewhere that maybe we shouldn't have. Like, we are not perfect, we are human. Um, and I think also just give your coaches praise. I think our parents are amazing in this, and they just, you know, they they thank us and they're happy to be there and they're happy like we're teaching their kids. But overall, you know, your coaches are there for your players and they want the best for your players. Um, so you know, you don't need to be a sideline parent and not involved at all, but you also you know, give the coaches some space as well as a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

It's good to have some interaction too, because they know their their child way better than we do. So if there's a way or something they know that helps their child to relate that to the coaches is is beneficial, you know, if she responds that to this kind of praise this way or this kind of praise that way, or you know, the best way to deal with that child we may not know about can be helpful to us if we know the best way to reach them, I guess, is is more like it. Yeah, and then um another thing that parents really should do is to not dwell on the negative. You know, you just talked about being positive, being positive, but don't dwell in the negative. And I know, I know from personal experience, you know, coming out of a loss or your child had a bad game, it's really hard to bite your tongue and not talk about, oh, you didn't do this well, and oh, you didn't do that well, oh, and the team didn't do that well, no, and the coach made a mistake. Really gotta just bite your tongue and not really even say any of that stuff because it doesn't really help moving forward.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Just like the player that made an error has to forget it and move on, the parent has to forget that game and move on, or forget that bad performance and move on. I mean, we heard a story this weekend about um a relative of a girl on another team who our parents overheard just saying you didn't have a great game and you didn't play well, and that's just so discouraging to somebody. How can it the child can't recover from that if they hear negative, negative, negative? If they hear positive, like, yeah, maybe you missed a couple, but when you did this, it was great, and when you did that, it was great, and those are the you know the things that really help encourage them and keep them on the right, on the right attitude.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Yeah, when we hear those things too, we will inter inter interrupt that, right? Like, especially if it's a team we've played against. We've done this before. It's like if we hear a parent of an of another team kind of just being not so nice to their player or or whatever it is, or you know, asking why you lost and just negative, negative, like we will kind of hunt them down and pull them aside and be like, Hey, you're really grateful. I bought player.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

I can tell you a number of times we've done that, we've seen a coach just berating a player, and we'll get that kid on a side hallway and say, Hey, come here, and say, You're amazing. We thought you were great. Just to boost them back up because it it can be really damaging to them to hear all that negativity without positivity.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Yeah, yeah. One more thing about parents too is that you know, I hope this whole like doesn't hurt anybody's feelings, but your actions will affect your kids playing time or your kid making a team or not, you know, and and it's so silly because it's like we do obviously pick pick the kids based on them and the kids, but also you know, it's almost like we should have a parent try out, and that is like so silly, but you know, we do take in account of how parents are, and you know, if it really does affect your kid in so many ways, and just I mean, if if if if we know a parent is a problem and we're looking forward to spending eight months with that person on the road, and we have a choice between two players that are of equal stature, and one parent we know is a problem, guess who we're taking?

SPEAKER_00 34:45

We're taking the one that's gonna be be better for our team.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

Yeah, definitely the culture, and it goes back to the community that we were talking about, right? Like, like you just said, we spend eight months with these people, and like we want a great culture, we want the family culture, and you know, it is the it's the beauty of being a coach that's able to pick our own team. But um, you know, parents, I just I really hope that that hits home with you. Of it does affect your kid and and the their outcome more than you do you think it does. Um, again, we have great parents, so we don't have this problem, but we've see we see we've seen it before.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

So okay, so there you have it. That's how to be a great player, how to be a great parent, how to contribute to the team, and what coaches are looking for. Um, things you should implement in your daily practice and games and life, really, um, to be all that you can be.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

Yeah, definitely, and the volleyball community and how amazing it is, and and also just remember the importance of warm-up, right? Just always, always, always take that seriously. So we want to say thank you to listening. Um, comment below, follow us. Um, we have some great content coming out. So we are so excited, and as always, have a great week.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Thanks.