Episode #8 - Andrew Schacht

Who looks after the people responsible for developing our athletes?

For decades, conversations around high performance have centred on athletes. Their preparation. Their performance. Their wellbeing.

But what about the coaches?

In this episode of The Samurai Shift, Peter Jones sits down with two-time Olympian and high-performance coach Andrew "Schotty" Schacht to explore the evolving role of coaching in Australian beach volleyball and why coach wellbeing has become a critical focus for the Australian Institute of Sport.

Drawing on more than thirty years in the sport—as an athlete, national coach and now a leader in coach development—Andrew reflects on the changing identity of high-performance coaching, the increasing complexity of the role, and the pressures created by funding, performance expectations and evolving athlete needs.

The conversation also explores the unique culture of Australian beach volleyball, the relationship between grassroots communities and national programs, and how good intentions can sometimes create unintended divisions within a sporting ecosystem.

Rather than looking for blame, this episode asks a bigger question:

What if the future of high performance isn't about demanding more from coaches—but supporting them to become more fully human?

In this episode:

•  The evolution of Australian beach volleyball over the past three decades. 
•  Why coaching is no longer just about teaching skills. 
•  How coach wellbeing became a national priority. 
•  The hidden pressures of high-performance coaching. 
•  Building athletes by developing people—not just performers. 
•  Why authentic relationships remain one of sport's greatest competitive advantages.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

High performance is often judged by the athletes and producers. But what about the people who coach them? Today I'm joined by two-time Olympian and high performance coach Andrew Schott, who is now pioneering an Australian Institute of Sports program focused on coach wellbeing. Shotty shares why supporting coaches may be one of the biggest opportunities to strengthen high performance sport. Here's my conversation with Andrew Schott. Okay, we are at episode number eight of the samurai shift, and we're still looking at the fracture part of the Australian Beach Volleyball ecosystem. And I am stoked to be able to introduce Andrew Shotty Schott, who I first looked across the net or through the net back in the indoor days, probably early 90s, when I was playing for Victoria, you were playing for South Australia, long, long time ago. So we go back a long way, Shoddy, and it's great to have you on board. So welcome.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

Thanks, mate. Yes, that's it. That is a long ago memory. Weren't they great days though? They were great days, the Grand Prix. It was uh good fun. It was indeed. No, no, very exciting times, very formative for me back in the day. Um very formative.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Yeah. And now, Shoddy, you're a three-time Olympian.

SPEAKER_03 1:16

I wish, twice, sorry twice.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Twice twice. Wow, and and world champion podium. You've you've spent a lot of time in the high performance space, both as an athlete and and in and the coaching space, and you're now working with the with Sassy and the IES to support coaching well-being. You've had a life of high performance sport. When you sit back and reflect on that and look across that those 30 odd years or so, what are the things that stand out to you that has changed?

SPEAKER_03 1:50

How long we got? How long you got, mate? You got episode 9, 10, 11. Um, oh, I mean, in in our sport, volleyball, beach volleyball, like it's so much has changed, you know. And you and you mentioned back then this the starting days of the old Grand Prix series. Like I said, it was really formative for me. I was just really lucky to jump to land in a sassy team that was high level with ex national team players, you know, and all the teams were strong, and it was real state versus state stuff and really competitive and was brutal, really, which I loved. It was great, it was such a great thing to be a part of um early on. And you think about that back then training and then beach volleyball evolving into a national, you know, uh I can say not program, series of national series and all those sort of things happening. Wasn't even Olympic sport, Olympics on the horizon, things were happening, you know, a lot of things happened in the early 90s in volleyball, you know. And then, you know, with Sydney getting the Games, um, it really informed and shaped a lot of decisions around the sport. Um, probably could say the sport wasn't particularly ready for all of the decisions they had to make. Um, you know, oh we've got a national indoor men's program, which I was part of for a year in Sydney, and then that got shipped to Canberra, which made sense. And then we created the women's program, and the beach follower was happening in the background, and then we obviously had a really good result and good performances in Atlanta off the back of oh my god, whatever, like how we're doing this. Literally, I no, I won't say making it up because that is completely disrespecting the people that went and the medal that was won, but literally iterating all those things, you know, off the national tour, jump on a plane, go and play. Are you good enough to now where you know we fund things in national programs and it's very dedicated, we get kids in a lot younger. You know, you would have been a bit older stepping into the space of around the national tour and having a dip overseas. By the time I got away, I was probably mid what 96. I played with the year with Andy Burden on the national tour. Yeah, sorry, uh World Tour, World Series was called back then, you know. But I was 23 by that stage, wasn't it? Wasn't it was pretty young back then, that was considered pretty young. And but you know, now we've asking kids to be great at 18, 19, 20. And you kind of and the world is going that way too. So the support is stronger, the the intensity is higher, but the expectation is also higher as well. You know, back in the day it was like, oh well, off you go, go and play, and we'll see how we go a little bit. Um, so yeah, the whole system has changed. Um, we've been informed, you know, by national systems as our sport, you know, beach volleyball coming from that, you know, AVP, uh, you know, beach lifestyle stuff that grew, you know, here comes high performance, and here comes here comes a thing over the top of it to say the way you do it isn't correct. Okay, so how are we gonna do it? All right, here's this how you do high performance. Okay, does it fit? Does it fit everyone? No. So there was a lot of like ebbing and flowing with people stepping into what does it mean to be in a create a full-time national training center. Oh, bugger that, I don't want to be part of that. So that even that took time for people to kind of get the head around, and it wasn't just them as the solo fliers, like we're trying to create a system that supports this because you look around and go, Oh, the systems are like that, you know, like that's how the world does it. And you know, I will say that you know, we we did some things on my playing days and some things pretty well early doors. We like we we used the system to kind of get ahead of the game and things like performance analysis and strength and conditioning. So that was the Aussie way to do it. But the broader beach volleyball conundrum of like, what are we as a sport? Are we lifestyle? Are we professional? Are we something in between? What does the journey look like? I still think we wrestle with that today. I still think it's still sitting there, like to go, who are we as a sport and where do we sit? Because we kind of sit a bit everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

And it's a really interesting phase because as I said earlier, we've ever known each other for 30 years and you go back to those Grand Prix days, which was early 90s, and here we are, you know, mid-mid 20s, you know, 2020s. It's 30 years, and I I reflect on the life of a 30-year-old individual where you you know you come through these early days of learning how to walk and going to school, and you go to uni, you think you know it all, but you kind of don't, and then you get to that 30-year-old phase of your life, and you kind of got an idea of what's going on, what you really want to do, and it's interesting because I think as a sport, we're kind of at that phase of kind of going, right? Well, we've had that lived experience as an ups and downs, and having to manage with all the stresses and do what we can to make it as good as we can. And here we are at 30, give or take. Um, and uh, yeah, it's really exciting. Mate, I'm I was reading your LinkedIn profile as I tend to. I'm not stalking, but I'm just it's called research. Oh my god, I haven't lived there forever.

SPEAKER_03 6:37

What was on there?

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Well, the it was a really interesting thing that you put on there. You said ask great questions and listen with intent. I like that.

SPEAKER_03 6:45

Gotta get better at it.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Well, well, what was it about that that I think you know, as I've got older um and all the things I've been through, good, bad, and indifferent.

SPEAKER_03 7:00

Um, when I came out of uh playing and it was very specific, you know, we went the last, you know, I was my you know, my own. I think I was reasonably successful with what I had, you know, a couple of Olympics, all the things that we did mention at the start. I'm very lucky, a lot of good people around me, so you know, it wasn't all on me. Um, I think I was like, I know everything about everything. And I come into coaching and I literally stopped in Beijing and made the call, right? I'm gonna stop playing. We got what we got in ninth. Um, a bit disappointed, thought we could have gone further, but you always do. Um, needed a job uh and then fell into the coaching program, which was the old scholarship program, remember the AS, which is really fortunate. Um, last iteration of that. Um then started working in the national program in January 09. Wow, you know, and I wasn't young, I was mid-30s, but I've just been literally from the moments we talked about of those early Grand Prix days, and lucky enough I had a family to support me to go chase my dreams, right? I'm very fortunate there. All I want to do is volleyball, so I'm gonna still do it. So I jumped into that space and I just was like, I'm I know how to do it. And now I'm just going like, the more I know, the less I know. The the more I get, I have a more of a bigger vision. I'm like, actually, you know, there's some simplicity but complexity at the same time, and I've just got to understand people better. I've got to ask them and understand where they're at. Because if you want people to come on a journey, you can't just tell them. You can't just go like, well, I did it this way, you should do it this way. You've got to go, who are you? Where are you at? Where's the person? Like, we I use a thing about like, you know, I I think I used to see people in 2D and now I try to see them in 3D. Nice. But you try to see more of them, and you know that this generation, these younger kids, and I'm crab walking slowly away from coaching now, which is fine because I feel very old and they are getting very young, uh, a different generation, is that they want to be part of that journey, that they want to have that holistic sort of stuff. Where we came through was like, do or do not. Yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, so this is where we do it, and you just went and did it. And that is not the modern athlete, and it's not the modern way, and it's much, I think, much better now to go around this, and I think you'll get people engaged a bit more. It requires coaches to also be vulnerable themselves and give a bit more of themselves rather than putting this like hierarchical, you know, or uh nope, nope, no. It's like we have to be human ourselves. And I'm telling people, I think my job is to help humanize coaches because no one else will. We will look at us like this and we're like, no, no, we are humans too, right? And that that's what I that's my journey through the whole thing and go, like, no, no, I need to be my authentic self, yeah, I need to be me, I don't need to copy stuff, but it's really difficult because coaches feel a certain way and you know, feel that we need to do things. So um, I'm not sure if I answered your question, mate, but I kind of like kind of floating around that area of coaching and how to do it better, but how to be a better person doing it too.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

And I think what you touched on there about stepping from being an athlete into a coach and not knowing being totally vulnerable and having to really open open up and ask questions and try to find out ways of doing that. Took me years. Well, yeah, that's life, isn't it? Do you do you think have you seen a case? I think you touched on it just then, but can you dig a bit deeper into back to the Australian beach volleyball high performance system? Where where are we now in asking better questions?

SPEAKER_03 10:24

Oh, I think I look back and go, um, I I think we're doing a better job of support um now with young people, um athlete well-being and engagement, all sports have that person. So they're meeting kids and parents and families to on not on the side, but very connected to like how do I do my high performance journey and do my life journey as well. Um, so so the system is maturing to look at the person more wholly and solely. Um, I think like with the athletes, um we have to create really strong good athletes. We have we have to help them to be problem solvers and we have they have to make decisions and they have to have some autonomy. And I just think we're getting much better at being facilitators rather than dictators or tellers of that old coaching model. So it's a journey, and not all and you know, and the younger coaches coming through are probably going to be better than that than some of the older ones because we are just um we just came through systems, yeah. We were told to do it a certain way, and now the system's shifting, and it's okay to be okay, and it's actually okay to not be okay, if I if that makes sense. Like it's okay to not be okay, it's okay, and it's okay to reach out for help in some of these spaces. And coach can't just be the arbiter of everything and be this amazing person in a glass prism. It doesn't work.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

You you mentioned the sift and the system shifting. Yeah. What what do you think are the main levers that are leading towards that shift?

SPEAKER_03 11:59

Oh, I think I think I think generationally, culturally, people want more engagement, they want more out of things. Um I think what sport in general, I just want to say our sport. I think um we saw people come in and do things and then leave and not come back. Oh, I mean, and again, I talking to more and more people in sport, like there's a real thing of like athletes leaving sport and hating it. Yeah, you know, hate it, you know, and that's terrible. That's on that's on everyone. That's on everyone to create an environment where you might not get what you want out of it, and most people don't. Unless let's be honest. Yeah, you know, if you're chasing the Olympic gold medal, fair chance you ain't getting it. Yeah, I know you can speak to one in a few weeks, that'll be interesting, but you know, like um it's it's so what are you doing? Like, other other than that, how you how are you helping the athlete to get more out of it, how you're helping on the journey, how are you teaching them skills that'll be useful, you know, in the outside world. Like all these holistic learnings are really important. And I believe if you get it that right now, you make a better, you'll make a more competitive, better athlete on the court, too, a problem solver, a decision maker. Yeah, you know, we just have to be ready to I see we as coaches let go a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Yeah, I also add to that. Let go and let them go. Yeah, I remember um well the analogy is when a tree falls in the forest, it ain't done. And you look back at when we were playing beach in the early, and we were probably, you know, I was just second generation by a couple of years, and you came onto the beach a year or two after that. But you think when when we were at our peak and playing then the young fellows coming through had to get past us, and then the longer and longer you have the older fellows sticking around and playing, then the greater depth there is for the younger fellows to have to you know earn their stripes and cut their teeth, and and battle it out for people who might not be doing international anymore, but they still know the game. So there's real value in retention, and as you say, that that you know, churn and burn, people leaving the sport and hating it was yeah a big, big influence.

SPEAKER_03 14:08

Yeah, no, it is. It's it's it's sad, you know, and it's like um, and we don't have enough people in our sport to lose them like that. Um, and I'm not pointing the finger at anyone, to be honest, or even the people that want it just it's a big thing that you get involved in. Um, and you're asking people to, you know, we were asking people like coaches to go recruit, which I did a lot of, get you in, create an environment, help you to chase the dream. It's co-created, so hopefully you get out of it what you want. Hey, if you do well, we do well, we're all good, and then at the end you see later, yeah, and we're on with the next one, you know. Um that also creates you know issues in for coaches going like, you know, okay, this person comes and goes, is where's the relationship going? You know, because you create this really deep and and and um long, can be long, but relationships, because if you don't, you know, create that, you know, safely, obviously, you know, that relationship, it's really hard to get people to turn up every day and look at them in the eye and go, like, we're gonna go really hard today. Guess what? It's probably won't be good enough. That's generally what high performance is. Now, of course, that's you don't posit it like that, but it's literally like you leave and go, like, oh shit, I've got to get better. And and this generation now, um, you know, that's really, I find really hard for them to deal with. Like that whole like delay gratification. I've got one and a 21-year-old, I get that, you know, like that whole like, you know, they're on, it's click, click, like, like, like it, it's it's constant where we go, this journey is long, right? We're gonna have to do this to get this in six, 12 months, longer. And so actually going, well, how do we how do we do that in high performance to make them stay in it so they feel agency autonomy to keep going? And then how do we support them out the other side?

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Um is there much area there or work or the capability, bandwidth to be able to talk with an athlete who's on that journey of being high performance and turning up every day to look at and try to shape what happens when they're done. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 16:12

Yeah, yeah. Look, it it's everyone's different too, right? So all the athletes are different. So you could you can't even put like a veil of like, look at all the good stuff we're doing for you now. Because some are like, I don't care about that, I just want to do that, and you've got to meet them where they stand as well. But in general, it's about supporting them, like I said, AWE stuff on the side. It's like it's talking about what they want to do. It's it's it's trying to create the vision to go. I know you might be the FOMO, right? This generation, the fear of missing out, there's something going on over here. So, you know, you're gonna give up this to maybe get this, which is really high level. So I'm using my hands, which won't transpire very well, to really get that high stuff, yeah. But learning about yourself on the way, but learning every day, rocking up and doing something hard in a really supportive environment, I think is the the key to high performance. So we want to support you really well to do really hard things and ask you to do hard things and say it's probably not good enough in a nice way, and you're gonna come back tomorrow and do it again, all right? And I've spoken to people I've coached, and because we're all about feedback, no feedback, feedback when they love it, right? So you give D debrief and you plan, you give feedback to athletes, and then they go to the real world, and it's a do or do not. The feedback is you didn't get the job. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

Well, where's my feedback? It's like, no, bad luck, that's it.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

And they're like, Oh, wow, wow, it's very different, you know. So, you know, you're trying to create that nice space for them. It's evolving space. Have we nailed it over the years? Absolutely not. Have we got some things right? Yes, it's always iterating, you're always trying to do your best.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

So when you first became a coach, what did you think the job was?

SPEAKER_03 17:55

Oh, just teaching the skills, go play, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:58

And so, what do you think it's evolved into now? How like how has that definition changed over time?

SPEAKER_03 18:04

Um you are trying to give them a range of experiences and skills, mental, emotional, um, almost leading, how to how how to understand themselves, self-awareness, all those things in our sport, teamwork. Like, hey, how do you, you know, how do you do a relationship? Right? Like relationship building, huge in life, obviously. Creating, you know, positive relationships around high performance isn't easy. So you you're working in those spaces as well. Where when I when I came in, I was just like, well, you know, and my job when I came in wasn't I wasn't leading a you know a senior team, I was just working in some development with some and just teaching the skills.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

So so going going from that to your thoughts around it now, there's a there's a pretty broad spectrum. What point along that line did you go? This is a bit more than just teaching skills.

SPEAKER_03 19:03

Um, I I think you know, I got some support early doors with some uh in this coaching scholarship that I did. Um, I was part of in the AOS coaching scholarship, but there wasn't a lot in that either. I think it was just like a bit of trial and error, and I think I was involved in teams around some people where I was like, oh, I just I think we're not being authentic enough. I don't think we're bringing athletes on the journey enough. I think we're creating too much divide. And I think for me, it was about authenticity. So I think I I was putting on like this cloak of like what I thought I wanted I needed to be, when actually people just wanted me to be me. And people sniff it out in two seconds. They'll sniff out when you're when you're when you you're not being the person. That's one of I think one of our great traits is people. We can actually work out most of the time when people aren't being that off, you know, like it's a bit off. But when you get yourself, this is me, take it a you know, we want the athletes to be them, yeah. We want them to be themselves. So along the way, oh mate, I think it's an evolution. It's I'm still evolving, you know. I'm still getting, I still find myself occasionally dropping back into like uh, you know, top down. I'm like, take a breath, mate. Like, you know, they're young kids, like they're learning, and and you are, you know, you you're also dealing with you know their all their backgrounds as well, you know, what they've come from, you know, the familial backgrounds, the relationships that have been created around them. Yeah, it's like being a teacher, right? You're gonna get kids to a class and try and teach them things, you know. And I I will say that, you know, uh one of the one of the things I'm really um proud of and happy of the last couple of years, I've taken some athletes up to the APY lands.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Yeah, I saw that.

SPEAKER_03 20:40

Yeah, yeah, up in the northwest of Australia. When we went the other month, um, took an athlete and a couple of Sassy staff members to try and grow the project a bit bigger and get some kids down to do some stuff at Sassy and see what we can do. Um you know, that was for me like that was amazing because we saw young Australians up living in a different way, um, trying to survive in some cases, dealing with a lot of challenge, but getting them out in the volleyball court, seeing the most skillful little kids I've ever seen in my life running around playing, picking things up, they're so skillful, you know, but also sitting in the classroom with them and seeing the challenges of putting this system on top of them without some of the other supports. And I was like, holy hell, you know, this is really informing about how we do high performance. Like, what are we what are we doing here? Like, how do we, if we're telling people all the time what to do, are we creating a framework where they feel they can go and explore, but there's guardrails and a safety net for them, you know? Like that's the stuff that's kind of out there, and you're like, wow, look at these kids, you know, look at these little kids do some stuff. And you know, I part of it, 10th order, was taking some athletes who, and I will say, you know, because of the sport that we are, you know, we're pretty middle class, mate. Like, you know, the most most of the kids that come through, if they don't have that. That family support, we call it the bank of mum and dad, really, to get you from one side to the other, they're probably not going to be around long enough to get through. So, and you know, and and and some of these young athletes, and it's no fault of their own, they're they're they're they're in some level of privilege.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

So you go out and say, Hey, look at this. Yeah. You know, and you go, Hey, you know, we're just gonna give back. It's not about you, you're not even gonna, you know, we are there for four days, you're not doing anything for you, you're just gonna exist to give back to these kids, and we're gonna run eight hours of training sessions for them. We're training, we're gonna have fun with them, from three-year-olds to 16-year-olds who're trying to keep in school, and they come and everyone comes back changed.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

That was my next question. Like, what do you notice on the on the return journey? Because you know you're gonna influence those kids, they're gonna have a great old time, leave a couple of volleyballs, leave a net, and yeah, and see what happens. But what are you noticing in the athletes when they come back from that?

SPEAKER_03 22:51

I think a greater appreciation, I hope. I I think you know, immediately, and of course everything wears off over time, but you know, they're like, Wow, maybe I don't have it like maybe my bad day isn't a bad day, you know. Maybe, maybe my challenge isn't that much, yeah. I didn't win today, didn't you know, you'll be okay. You're you know, and not to talk too much about, but you know, you're not dealing with safety, yeah. You're not dealing with other broader issues of just existing. You you're just dealing with, did I hit the ball well today? Yeah, you'll be okay. You know, you'll be okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

I remember uh uh in China with Nat and Tams and and a good mate of mine uh had just lost his son, and I wasn't at the funeral, and um I'm in China and I stepped away for a little bit at the time of the funeral, and I just looked back at the tournament, um, it put it in perspective as far as we're hitting a ball over the net to try to get to a big tournament that's in a year or two, yeah, and uh you know, someone's just lost their son. And the the the humanizing things, exactly what you're saying, uh, just really put things into perspective.

SPEAKER_03 24:00

Yeah, it does. Look, we're not, you know, it's not life and death. We're not we're not finding we're not trying to find the cure for cancer as as coaches in national programs. We're not, you know, it feels like it some days. I think this is my the interest for me. It the role is that how do I help coaches to go navigate that? Because it is intense, it is high performance, but find a bit of balance there to go like, you know what, if it doesn't work out, you are it's not all on you. Like there are things that happen that are gonna make things happen. And you know, so this is what I find with coaches, they get so consumed by the results, understandably, get a job, all that sort of stuff, that they start making decisions that aren't in the best interests of everyone because they feel the pressure from the structures coming above to go, well, you've got to do this, you've got to do this, this has got to happen. It's it's it's tough enough as it is, and we all know we know the outcomes we're after without having the other stuff coming over the top.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

So so with those pressures coming in over the top and the evolution of the high performance space you've been in, what are some of the the major cracks that you've seen in that junior high performance into senior high performance? Um it's a good question.

SPEAKER_03 25:15

Like it's always like a lot of people. No, no, no, no, no, I'm just no, I understand what you're saying, and uh, you know, how how we do it, you know, why why did it work out for kids or not? Um, you know, I think I just think we just we like I'll go back to the start, and it's probably a little bit too overarching, but I can get into the details as we go. Still trying to trying to put the high performance lens on a sport and and culture around the country that saw it a bit of a different way, right? So beach volleyball is something for me, it is something for you, it is something for everyone, and we're all gonna engage with it maybe slightly differently with some kids that we would bring in. So so we're following. So let's say we talk about you know, from 05, which is probably interesting part because it was it changed for us too. It's from 05, actually, I was still an athlete. So from 05 till 2012, 2013, we were an AIS program, yeah, right? So we're funded. So what happened with the indoor women's program was made defunt, redundant, and the sport did well and said, you know what? Can we have that if you you know you don't want to do that, can we use that money for a beach for the beach volleyball program in Adelaide? And they're like, Yep, good. So we actually saved the funding from disappearing and put it into beach volleyball. Uh and the national program obviously, you know, it's split now with the genders, but it was obviously in Adelaide. So that was a really positive thing. Um, in the fact, because it would just sort of disappeared, like it was gone, you know, um, due to results and whatever. And there's a million stories around why things did or didn't happen for those the indoor um programs in Canberra, which is again another probably the eight-hour podcast, but um, you know, so we were then AOS, more money, yeah, more pressure, a little bit more outside of volleyball Australia, so two different, you know, again using my hands, sorry, mate. Uh two different things coexisting. Manage I I I as a coach worked for the AOS, um, but also volleyball Australia were there doing their thing as well, um, which meant that you could lean in and out of order if you wanted, I suppose. So, like my managers are AOS, you know, like my direct reports. I was putting someone up in management AOS, we were. Um, and so a little bit, so I think that moment probably took the program in a different direction. Now we got a lot, we got money in, we got, you know, we we we could support a bunch of young talented athletes, which turned into the silver medal in Tokyo, the girls. So there were some really positive things. So we could actually support this group of younger women, and there was they're very talented that came through, and I'll you know, Nicole Led was one as well, went to Olympics and Rhea Faye and Taliq for that that group came through, so it was good timing. Um, but the other thing was um we kind of then started following AOS doctrine, which was fine, you know, like sports all these things sort of came in. You've got to you've got to now connect with these things rather than kind of do your own thing, uh-huh, rightly or wrongly, because that that's the funding, right? That's that's just paying us. Um and I found it interesting when we the kids came in. We often recruited from indoor, we talk about this too, you know, indoor and beach volleyball and the ongoing love affairs, or as I used to say, my my dad uh once fought no discipline, but um at times, uh tongue in cheek. But you know, so we were getting kids to say come and try beach volleyball and who hadn't had a lot of experience in it, didn't really understand it. And so you're trying to hot house them and fast track them, and you know, um, and and they you know, there's nothing more confronting than taking a bunch of young 80, 90 year olds, you haven't had a lot of beach following experience. You just stick an AOS tracksuit on them and you fly them around the country or drive them around and go into different cultures. Like, and I will say, you know, I think the most confronting experience was like, and it was really good for them in some ways like, let's go and do the Vic Open. Yeah, God, you know, like here come a bunch of kids in, right? And everyone's like, oh, look at them. You know, here comes the AOS. It's like, no, here come some beach volleyball kids to come and play the event. They probably want to feel a little bit at home, but as soon as the tracksuit was on, which was part of it, it created a huge division between them, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 29:37

So if you look at it from both lenses, there was a lens of like, you know, from and I'm just using the Vic Open because it was such an intense event to go play a hundred games, kids are like, I'm gonna die, and I don't know how to referee. It was good for them, right? But it was a bit like, oh my god, everyone's looking at me like I'm a weirdo, and I've just started playing Beach Follible and I don't know what's going on, right? Because I've just got you know, I'm I'm the other, yeah, you know, and then yeah, so we're going like, oh, this, and you go, and and and and people looking at this, so there's all this stuff going on, and so there's yeah, so so that was an interesting point of view, yeah, because I'm sure everyone would have on in the time, um, and I'll and we can get into it and we will, it's different now, like it's it's evolved much better than that, right? So, this was this was a point in time where things shifted for us, and we were trying to navigate young kids into a beach volleyball system. And if you also remember, that was a time the national tour had kind of fallen over. We're talking around 2010, yeah, 2011, the national tour had kind of fallen over. Yeah, state state uh opens are very important because we you know we didn't really, you know, the what the national tour was a little bit lick, you know. So we we we took kids around to state opens. It was a great place to play, yeah, you know, but the tribalism was intense, you know.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

And I remember you because we we chatted about this a while ago in Cool and Gatta last year about that tracksuit thing, because one of the observations I had, even when I was in South Australia, was it was different coming from a community vibe and you know the evolution of sport where there weren't tracksuits, yeah, then seeing kids in tracksuits. And I one of my observations when I was in SA was like the kids in tracksuits aren't talking to the kids who aren't in tracksuits. And then when when that group that came over to the VIC Open, it was very like they came over as a thing and no one was talking to them. But you mentioned when we were chatting that those kids were feeling everyone's looking at me funny, so everyone, I love this sport, I love this sport. But now in their minds, there's this bad guy who the fucking what is this thing? I thought everyone would like me because I'm at beach volleyball. It's like what an amazing dynamic just to look at a simple thing as a tracksuit as now I represent, absolutely, and how polarizing that can be.

SPEAKER_03 31:49

Absolutely, you know, and you go other sports, like this is not of just a beach volleyball volleyball thing. If you ask any other sport, you chuck a kid, and I would use AOS because it just came with a different moniker than just like a national VA, like it's like I said, it's different now. If you just and they're all like, Yep, everyone who everyone in in general inverted commerce always hates, you know, strong word, the program in their sport that they're not part of until they're in it. Right. It's that's just the way it is, you know, because you're just trying to fit into a system that is funding you, so you just you just got to go and do what you do. And and you're trying to go, you're trying to make the the position that if I bring in um a kid at 18, that in two years they'll be doing this, in two years they'll be on the tour, and you know, though it's about trying to win an Olympic gold medal, you know, and making them onto the n to the international tour. And this is all part of the development. So you so you are instead of doing it organically or making the you're going like, right, I have to fit the system, we have to do this, yeah, right, we're gonna use this, this, this, this, and this. This is how you this is how you do it. So you're you're telling your sports getting told how to do it right by other people coming in with well-meaning, but coming in with a completely different sport background, let alone the whole like cultural piece of like where's the sports sit as far as lifestyle, high performance, yeah. So many competing things coming in, right at the point of here's some kids here trying to play some kids over here. We should all be happy about this, shouldn't we?

SPEAKER_00 33:22

Is there a bridge? Because that there's a nest, there's a need for both, right? And you'd want the kids who are wearing tracksuits and going off to represent, you'd want them to feel connected to the community.

SPEAKER_03 33:32

Look, I think, like I said, I think this was you know 15 years ago, yeah. And things have evolved, and my my sense is it's it's a lot different now. My my sense is that that's my sense only. Um, that the kids are a little bit more connected in. It may be just a social media thing, too, right? So it may be just the the the background that everyone's sort of connected with everyone and everyone's sort of there. So I don't feel it the same as it was, it's probably still a little bit there.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Maybe it's a simple, as it might be a simple I'm just going back to the days and the Adelaide, the SA Open and the National Tour. You know, we'd all go 10 polling, 10 pin bowling down that, you know, that ancient rally. It might be a thing of when when there's a tournament and kids come together that you take the tractions off and you go and do something and pick up.

SPEAKER_03 34:15

Yeah, and I suppose that is sort of sort of being done around like national camps, and then they're much more open than they were. So you're inviting a lot, a broader range of kids in because you want to, and obviously it leads to something at the end, but you want to, and we we try. I mean, that was probably one of the moments for me was like, all right, so we need to start running more camps and getting a broader range of kids in and just giving the experience of what it actually is to be a little bit high performance, but then you sort of these kids start to get to know each other, right? So they go to um events. If you remember back in the day when we played indoor against each other, you wouldn't look at each other between the game, it's hilarious. Yeah, I didn't like you know, no, you were okay. No, it was that was that was it, it was on, right? Um, but you know, the kids get to know each other a bit more, so you know, there's a little bit more spread of core in the journey. Um I I think the other interesting thing too, like around the high performance part, and I'm kind of segueing him because this is in the back of my mind, is that you know in our sport, um, and I listened to it was really cool, uh Damien Damien Schumann's fair to do with him. Um you got a fair few, you got a fair few shout outs in the yeah, yeah, yeah. No, uh it's 50 bucks a shout. Um he uh you know he alluded to the fact about his journey, right? Um, and our sport really is interesting in the fact that if we we look at what we're just talking about around structures and national programs and how do I fit, if Peter Jones and Andrew Shott, whoever Peter and Andrew are, whoever those people are, it's probably Chico and Shoddy, if we want to go and play internationally, we can do it. Yeah, we there's no actual um system that really stops you doing it. So if if we have the money, money of course is a big one, uh-huh, we can actually go and enter it, enter an event, and the national federation must, due to equity, stamp our as long as we've done our paperwork, we stamp and away we go. Now, we might have no points and have to sit there and hopefully someone pulls out the qualifier, or we get some points on national tour, but there is nothing stopping anyone doing that, and this is really rare, and I don't think we appreciate it enough, and I don't think as a sport we think about it enough because I think we get caught up a little bit in the minutiae of like in a program, out of a program. It's just like if you have the wherewithal, and again, it's easier said than done with the financial and the support, you can go and play for Australia. Now, I probably have a bit of an issue with that. It's like, well, God, everyone's playing for Australia, then maybe there needs to be a level of like you know, selection. But but the bigger picture is it's a sport of opportunity, yeah. Like the opportunity is actually really out there and high. I think we get caught up sometimes in the lack of it. Yeah, and I think I think we always need to think about these sort of things the way it's set up. Because obviously, if an indoor team, national team, you know, we're up for selection. The team does its thing, we're selected into the team. Beach volleyball, we can get X amount of teams into, you know, there's like a hundred tournaments a year overseas. If you're good enough, you go and play. If you've got enough points, you just go and play, you know. I I just I wanted to make that point because and it's a little bit to the side of what we're talking about, but I think it's really it's a really I th the part of me goes, mm, but then also like, you know what? If you want to go and do it, yeah, don't worry about coming where I am, go and do it. Like Damo did. Yeah. And then eventually you sort of come back, we open the space up and come in and then you know, get supported financially with coaching, and it's really great. So there are many different ways to skin this cat, I guess is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Yeah, it's been a great evolution, hey. So let's delve back into the coaching journey and and the um this which kind of leads into the space that you're in now. Because one of the things that you've you mentioned along the way, not today, but as I've chatted to you over the time, is the stresses of high performance coaching. Because we talk about athlete well-being, and now you're uh you're working with a program with the IAS and talking about coach performance well-being and step stepping into that space. So, what were the things that you noticed along the way of the pressures of coaching high performance that that for a long time seemed to be not even considered because it was all about the athletes. So, what what did you notice that made this next phase of your life? But what did you see that made yeah?

SPEAKER_03 38:42

Uh it's a good one. Good question. Um I think it was like you're so head down, you know, in in the trench, you're so like the next day, what's coming, what's coming up, and everything can be stressful, right? I don't, you know, I think now there's a whole mentor, my actually a mentor as well for the AOS, so I mentor a sailing coach this year at the moment, right? So there's a there's a mentor, there's an elder system that is is being enhanced around the country to help coaches, younger coaches or newer coaches, you know, go into this space and think about it. Um I think the pressure to perform, if it's not supported from higher up, as in it's not it's clear we want what you support, but we've got your back and that sort of stuff. I don't think that always feels that way. So you feel like I just better keep winning, right? We better keep this team winning. And I'll I'll use an example of so 2012. So I'd worked with the development um young kids, just talking about the Vic Open journey there. Um, and then I ended up um with assisting Frog, who obviously known for a long time and worked with and all that sort of stuff and been coached under uh with Kappa McHugh, Chris McHugh, Isaac Kappa. So post-Olympics, um, first non-qualification for men. So it was a bit where everyone's on a downer, very close to the content of cups. So I was a bit like, oh God, you know, this is a bit rough.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 40:11

Um, you know, and I will say the indoor men qualified and did did well. So there's this vibe around men's immediately around men's beach holiday where it was like, uh, it's not going so well. That literally, I was like, hang on a minute, like we've done all right. The last we've been at every Olympics, you know, like okay, we we failed, you know. We lost 15-10 in the third set of a golden set of the quote at the no, it was I mean that close. Um, but we felt the pressure. Like we we felt like, and it was okay, we dealt with it. We're like, we these guys, these guys need to get together and start winning, right? So we went, there was an Asian champs in November. We got them together, trained them, they won, they didn't lose a game. Oh, this team's got some performance. They went through the whole summer of 2012 into 2013, didn't lose a game. They won every event on the national tour. Then they won the next two Asian tour events. They they didn't lose for five months or four months or something like that. They won like, I don't know, 35 games in a row. Now eventually they went to a high level and the the the vibe ran out, and they still had a decent season, but it was like we felt the pressure to make sure they won because we were there was something out there going, wow, you better, these guys, we need to perform. Is that your job? Ultimately, we just boil that down. Is that funding? Yeah, it's funding, whether it's perceived or not. You just you just just knew that um we needed to make a statement, right? That was our part of our the program. Now the problem with that is that you go really hard at it. So we were coaching this team hard on the national tour. I look back on that and going like, oh god, why did we do that for? Like, you know what I mean? Like, we were coaching against the other players on the national tour as national coaches. That is I regret that. I I regret that we got ourselves into that spot, I regret that we were allowed to get into that spot. And I would tell anyone who was managing the time that was a mistake. Because what that did was set us up to be the other, right? And uh totally, and all those guys want to do is be part of it. Yeah, they they had high performance, and we did too, and then we're like, okay, so we're doing this, and then we're trying to, you know, at least trying to connect with the community and the other young players coming through, and you're just creating this divide because it was all about winning and performance, which is fine, and we got it, so it was great, and it kept things on, but and this is a long bow, we didn't qualify in 2016. Don't know, don't know, you know, would you have so there's injuries and stuff that happens, you know. So it's a long few years, but I just I look back on that as far as being either feeling or wanting to jump into a corner, and it brings out your competitive beast and you're going hard, and it was like right on one team, so not really across teams. So we were just that's what we were doing, you know. And and yeah, I just don't think I just think on the national tour, I just don't it's gonna sound weird. I don't think the national team coaches should really coach that much. I think they should be there supporting different things. I think the players should go and play because they want to play. I I understand we use it for development. I I think I think we I don't think it has enough in it to develop things properly. I don't think there's enough stuff behind it to make it really strong. Probably I think I'll be listening to everyone pushing their button at the end of your podcast, national tour, national tour, wink, wink, wink, wink. It's funny, isn't it? You know, so you know, I just yeah, I have a million views on that, but yeah, I just go back to that where you know I look back and go, I look back and go, were we right or wrong? We were just existing in that time and doing what we thought was right. And because of external pressures that not many other people. Of course. It wasn't like we're gonna go F you to the world, it's just like we feel in in our job we're being paid to do this, so we're gonna go and do it and we're gonna push it. We have to. We Have to do this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

Well, good on you for being able to reflect on that and to see. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:04

And look again, I've got is it wrong or right? I don't know. But at the but at the time it was just like it was so intense. But I I think it had ramifications down the track. I I don't think it was healthy for everyone involved. It was too intense, too full of.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

Yeah, of course it was. But this is 14-15 years ago now. And again, if you think about the age of a 30-year-old, that's going to be a 15-year-old kid, and there aren't too many 15-year-old kids that make don't make mistakes, right? Well, and so we're always making mistakes as coaches. We're always making mistakes.

SPEAKER_03 44:35

We're not pillars of virtue. We we do stupid shit and don't do the right things, and you know, and then go look back on things and that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 44:43

But you know, so that's that's domestically the pressures of of having to serve masters that that people in the community don't really re what are the pressures of high performance coaching internationally because that's a fair toll on family and it does like it's you know, so just there's the toll of performance, and it's harder, clearly, because it's harder competition.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

Um, and you're away a lot. You travel a lot, you know. So if you've got family back, you you you kind of at times you're away, you know, multiple, you know, 12, 14, 16, 20 plus weeks of the year away from your family. Um, and you're you know, and you've got to be right on the ball of what you're doing, and you, you know, that it's a bit of a circus. You travel, you know, somewhere every week, and you're just trying to get it done, and the athletes are riding the wave, and you know, your ability to self-regulate and be, you know, uh the person you need to be is always affected by everything. You know, uh, you know, you might have been thinking, I've got a good day coming up, could be training day going to competition, and you get the message in the morning, someone's crooked or they've woken up with a bung knee, and then it's just like and then you're on, and it's on, and you're trying to then you know, what do we do here? You're trying to like you know, do everything to to to get back to where you want to be to go and perform, and probably without someone to go and talk to.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

Like, I I'm loving the Ted Lasso series, and it's it really does for the I mean I need to watch it, I keep meaning to find it out.

SPEAKER_03 46:09

I've I've seen some little clips around where I've seen some of the clips on social media, it makes perfect sense.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Yeah, it it's a it's a a great show for the character development, it's freaking hilarious. Um, but the the insights into that journey, as far as you know, on the external, it all looks good, but um, I won't ruin it for you, but you know, they're just about to go out and run a winning streak, and Ted just finds out that something's happened to his son and he's you know he's married. So, but when you're coaching, you've got the amend you're holding space mentally, emotionally, physically for these athletes who are pushing boundaries and the pressures of external funding, and and you're there on your own, or maybe with another coach. That's a tough gig.

SPEAKER_03 46:52

It's it's it is, I mean, it's super rewarding as well. Like, you know, don't you know? I think there are worse things to do in the world, but um, I don't know, I haven't done anything else. So we'll find out, won't we? Um, but you know, you deal with guilt a lot, you know, sacrificing stuff. You ask people in your life to give up a lot for your journey as a coach to then focus so much on these young people trying to do things, it it can really can weigh you down. Um, and even getting performance sometimes it still wears you down because it feels like it's just you know, coach coaches are we're always looking for problems. We're always like you gotta fix them a lot. You gotta fix them, right? Sometimes we create them. Um so I just think there's all that sort of part that guilt stuff plays a bit into it, and you know, time away from home. And look, to be honest, it part of my what in my coaching journey took a real turn around the the Tokyo preparation Olympic stuff with coaching uh Damien and Chris is the fact that you know COVID hit, right? As we remember, which seems like a lifetime ago now, but oh my goodness me, that I was like, you know, I was head coaching the program, then turned into senior coach, the program split, like um girls went north back to back to Brisbane, a lot of stuff happened, and then we're just dealing with COVID, like can't train, like trying to create all these things. And then we sort of get into 21, the Olympics get delayed, guys have to go through a process, um, continental cup, and the sport's like, right, so it's gonna look like I think it was 13 weeks away with three quarantines. And so you have to commit to being away, you know, and you know, back then you can't leave, you can't lock, you can just like you can't leave because something happens, you get locked, you're stuck in. Um, I'm not here to talk about the politics of COVID and any of that stuff. I'm just saying this is what we were dealing with. And we did have an opportunity to to say, look, I'm not up for that. And I thought to myself, we had a young, now surprised, second child who I'd spent a lot of time with COVID, she's now seven. Uh I was like, and and our young lad was he, 14, 15, pretty formative for him, too, you know, school. And I was just like, I don't think I can do this. I don't think I can leave my partner to look after for third 12, 13 weeks with all the things gonna happen with two young kids, or the teenager and and like a toddler. Wow, you know, like how how you know, so I basically said, I can't do it. So the end point of that journey was, and other people jumped in with the guys, and there was a tough conversation with them to say, hey guys, sorry, because you know, they were like, Well, we'd done this the last few years together, and yeah, you know, I just had to be okay with it. And and I was, and then it all worked out, you know, and I co-did some remote stuff and helped them out. So I was very proud of the whole thing, and we'd been got back to the Olympics, and but I think for me that was like that was the first time I'd made that call really to go like I'm not gonna do this, and I didn't I knew at the time I said this is gonna change my direction because I'd been head coach, you know, senior coach, like all this sort of stuff. And I was like, okay, you're thinking differently now. So that was my first segue into going something into going into a bit of a different mode and end up working with Sassy more development, and that was fine. Stayed at home more. Um kids will do that, huh? It does right, and then I'm talking to people in the system, and I just thought it was the right thing to do. I didn't actually even speak on the home front. I said, I'm not even gonna put it on my family to say, will you let me go? I'm just not doing it. Um, and then the feedback I've got with people in the system was like, You did what? You gave up that especially being a male. Like women do it all the time. Yeah, like they do it all the time. Like, it's just like, oh yeah, well, you can't go because you're having a baby, and like so everyone's like, that was you're like the first person at that level, like senior head coach of the national team, to say, I'm gonna put my family first over this. And I was like, wow, we've got some maturing to do, don't we? As a system. So part of that, I guess, is to go, how do you create a national team set up or a program where coaches work together across things, they share the load, they can they can be there for each other. So when life hits, because we're humans, we can actually be supported to go and do, and look, we we'd already gone that path, so it was, you know. And I was I actually probably could have gone to Olympics. I was like, I'm not doing that, I didn't want part of this. You know, I this is not for me to jump into someone, this is fine, go do your thing, right? I I I was I was completely now I'd been to two Olympics as an athlete. I do wonder if I hadn't, would it have been different? But I also go, it was not worth it. Yeah, it was not worth where I thought what the ramifications on the personal side could have been, yeah, by by jumping into that space. And I never I don't regret it. It's actually shaped, I think, the next part of my life moving forward and where I'm going now about this well-being and stuff with coaching. Um, because I was apparently brave enough to do it, apparently brave enough, but there was no choice.

SPEAKER_00 52:09

I just did it, and I'm happy that I did. Oh wow, that's that's an inspirational story, and it's it's an interesting one too. You you mentioned how you know women don't have that, you know, uh the I know what you're trying to say.

SPEAKER_03 52:24

There's not the space there to do it. There's not the the culture isn't open for them to do it.

SPEAKER_00 52:28

And it's interesting now looking in the world of coaching in lots of sports, not to speech volleyball, the the the male dominant um aspect of that. And uh the next week, a little bit of a spoiler alert for for the next next week, next episode, we'll be talking to uh about that, about the the women's sporting pathway. But that has now led you into the world of a pilot program with the AIS as far as like looking at coach well-being. We spoke a while ago about athlete well-being on the earlier pods, and now this it seems like you're the first to step in and make that, you know, I'm gonna value my family over my sport. And now you're in the space now of leading a pilot program called the Coach Performance Wellbeing. What can you tell us about that?

SPEAKER_03 53:14

Yeah, we're like kind of sat down sassy at the end of last year and said, you know, coaching, cool, but I'm I I want, you know, I think there's some things I want to do, and what can we do? And they were like, Yeah, well, let's have a crack at this. So we literally, with the director, got the envelope, did it on the back, because there's no one's doing it, right? So it's just like performance well-being for coaches. What does that mean? People like, what? That's coach development. So it's actually unpacking what it is. So it's like, how do you connect with coaches as humans? How do we humanize them? How do we help them humanize themselves? Because coaches don't like to do that. They're like, I have to be the all purveyor of all knowledge, I'm the expert, right? Let go of that sort of some of the stuff. And so, yeah, I've been doing it for six months. I've been working across some different institutes, different people, amazing spectrum of coaches already helping them understand well-being, not telling them what it should be. Don't tell a coach what they need to do. My God, they'll kick you out in two seconds. But I think I described it the other day to someone, one of the coaches, who's very into coaching, you know, youngish, mid-30s, like just wants to go and do it. I'm like, well, I'm not going to stop you doing it. So maybe I'm the helmet on your head when you want to bust through the wall to just keep your bit safe, right? Which he kind of kind of he kind of appreciated. But um, it's a huge space. Everyone I'm speaking to is like about time, you know. We know that AW and E for athletes has been really, you know, it's been maturing Australia. Athlete well-being and engagement, it's changed from over the iteration, but but real well-being for athletes going through high performance, you know, making sure they've got some balance in their life and nothing's been there for coaches. So it's a bit of a world, it's Australian first, if not world first, in the research to go like who's doing this space for coaches. So I suppose from my point of view, with my lived experience and all the stuff I just spoke about, being an athlete, crazily doing coaching after four months of stopping. Mad. Um, learning all that sort of stuff, going through all these things I just spoke about. How do I be a great coach, be a good human, be a good partner? God, I'd feel most days on a bit average at all of them, as we all do, right? And how do I help coaches to meet them where they stand and help them to kind of understand what they can do? You know, what is possible. Um help them to say no, maybe sometimes. I don't know. Um, we'll see where it goes.

SPEAKER_00 55:33

But but what have you learned so far in the six months?

SPEAKER_03 55:35

Oh, that it doesn't matter if it's beach volleyball, if it's swimming, if it's basketball, it's whatever. It's like coaches are dealing with exactly the same stuff as other people, life, like they're dealing with um relationships, with families, with work, with um uh, you know, their career development, everything that everyone else does. However, they have to rock up every day and be intensely available for young people to help them to go and achieve their dreams and actually not say no ever and actually not be off and just be on the whole time. Yeah, pushing boundaries, pushing boundaries. Living on the edge of high performance is really hard. It takes a lot out of you. Um, they want to be supported by structures and management and that sort of stuff. They really want the support. And I say to everyone, management around and say, well, if you want coaches to do great things with people, young athletes, and be fully for them, you need to be for them too. You can't expect to just manage them behind a wall and then expect them to go and flourish as humans with young athletes because you're not you're not helping them out.

SPEAKER_00 56:41

And that's an interesting space because what what this whole samurai shift is about is looking at our sport as a system, as a structure. So as things evolve, and you're you're talking about having, you know, how does the system, the structure support the coach, what's that space been like? And can you see that evolving?

SPEAKER_03 57:01

Yeah, so so so the so the AOS um have um, you know, that they they've they've really thought about this stuff in the last few years about how do we support coaches. This is a there's a whole this is a whole new thing where they're supporting me a bit to do this as well. But like, what do they need? Like mentoring. So I'm a coach mentor for a sailing coach, right? So I I do other things across sports. So it's about getting people who are, I don't know, like I I probably, you know, looking at it with my history going up APY a little bit around, there's a lot of First Nation stuff evolving into the AOS space, you know, like you use you know, I don't want to call myself an elder, but I'm looking in the picture of myself and I feel old, you know, using the elder mentality around to then help lift up the next generation of coaches to use the wisdom that is we've gained over all the journey to go, you've got to experience the things, but you know, I'm here to help you to create just some safety for you just to keep moving forward and understand that you're gonna be up and down, you're gonna be, you know, dealing with all the things, athletes, parents, all the fun stuff. People want intensity. How do we help you? Can we mentor you? Can you have a critical friend? Can we have conversations? You know, can we pass down learnings that aren't formal? That's the First Nations stuff, informal learning, conversations, culture around coaching. Again, I'm sort of talking outside of our sport at the minute. Yeah, but within the sport, I also last couple of years have helped mentor some young coaches as well within the sport who are coming in in their 20s and coming up and trying to do some stuff at some high level and just chat about coaching. And you know, it's it's it's more about them as people, how they're handling it.

SPEAKER_00 58:43

When you see that happening within the sport, you mentioned the AIS, and that's where your funding is. Yeah, are you getting much support from VA from the staff associations?

SPEAKER_03 58:54

So last year I I kind of part of the journey was I said, you know, with VA, I was like, well, you know, I want to do more with the coaches. And I said, Well, yeah, okay, let's start some mentoring stuff with the some of our younger coaches. So that was the first bit. So I was mentoring them. That's sort of evolved into this stuff now. So I'm not look, I still do it. I still, you know, that that's this is relational, this never goes away, right? So this is this is like helping. Yeah, you know, it's helping mentoring people. So, you know, just just having those conversations with them around structures and athletes and how to do it, you know, how to get the best of them, you know, how do they feel confident, you know, what to do when they don't, just like you know, them as people. So you've done a bit there, so we can always do more. Um, you know, we need to be able to support people to stay in the system long enough, which is probably a huge thing, right? So we know to be, you know, in general, to be good at anything, you've got to be around, right? I'm sure the samurais took a while to get good. They've got to be around, right? You've got to go through some things, right? So if we can't, if we've got a, you know, really a coach who's got to maybe come out of playing or they're like mid-late 20s, and like it's a and you go, Wow, that person has some real ability, how do we help them get through to the other side? How do we help them get through the early days of like, oh, this is like fun but tough? And you know, and I will say, like, you know, coaching, you're not gonna, you know, make a fortune out of it. There's a lot of love, you know, there's a lot of that sort of stuff, especially at the early doors of it. How do we get coaches to the other side so they're good enough to be good coaches? And just so many get spit out of the system because they just can't handle it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:26

Well, do you think coach well being is actually a you know, a KPI, a good indicator of the health of the whole sporting system? Absolutely. Absolutely. How would you measure it?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:40

Retention, um uh connection, which is a bit broad. Um yeah, I mean, it's a really good question, mate. Um, it's it's it's a little hyper subjective at the minute. So it's a bit like we're just we're just literally exploring what it is, we're exploring what it is to be a coach and in that level and the well-being part. So I think retention and being in the system long enough, um, being able to leave the system and come back, you know, and especially there's a huge piece of work for for women's coaching, which I'm also part of as well. Like, you know, it's called a thing called the leaky pipeline, which like what where do women coaches exit, you know, like uh relational or your child or hit the hit the glass ceiling because it's full of old blokes like me with all the experience and we don't create space, like all those sort of things are there. So yeah, it's a bit of a broad answer, mate, but it's a really good question that we are asking ourselves all the time, what does success look like in this space? And how does it, but it definitely is a is a fundamental underpinning of what a healthy system would look like. Are we okay as coaches? Are we okay to support young people and our systems and programs? Are we do we feel capable of doing what we want to do? Is there are there things for me in the system that are gonna keep me going? We know coaches will go to the wall for people. We know that, and we just got to support them.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:07

And is the landscape and the environment and the ecosystem around them enough to be able to say, hey, I want to keep doing this until I until I retire.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:17

And you know, and and probably like um, you know, career development, like sitting with someone and go, okay, you want to coach, like what's the look like? What does the next five years look like? Rather than going like, oh, you've got a two plus two contract. So yeah, we'll get to the end of the cycle, maybe, but we'll give you a two-year contract. And if you go, okay, well, we'll plus two it, I think sport's getting better at that, but there's just the contract stuff too. The amount of times coaches, again, not just our sport, get to the back end of Olympic cycle and it gets sacked. It's crazy. And they're asking to give give the you know, squeeze it out to get to back Olympics, and there's no security afterwards. I think sport's getting better. I think it's getting better. I think I think we're getting better at it as well. You've got to keep people around. We want to keep athletes around, yeah. Then we've got to keep coaches around.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:03

So so imagine you're you're sitting on a beach in 10 years' time. What what what's different about the way that our Australian beach volleyball develops our high performance coaches?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:18

Well, well, the really interesting part of the high performance coaching journey now is the coaching on the side of the court is now a thing, right? So that's now a thing. So that's a huge structural change that we are wrestling with at the minute. So that is something that has to be brought into the system. Like, oh, I'm kind of glad. Look, I'm not a massive fan, a bit old school. I'd rather it just be the kids working it out and you help them out, you know. But it is what it is, so there's no point me sitting here as I sit there. You know, I've done a bit of it with some of our over the summer, and we do it, and I'm like, you know, the kid they come into timeout, they're looking at me. I'm like, no, don't look at me. What do you want to talk about? You know, like looking for the answer. So what would it look like? The coaches see beach volleyball coaching as a as a career, as a passion, as something that they know that they can do and they're appreciated by the system. They're appreciated that what they do is like often not seen. Now, look, we're talking visibility changing now with on the side of the court. But all beach volleyball coaches historically have done the work behind the scenes, the athletes go out and play, and then whatever it is, it is right. So they're seen as really value add people that I think the ideally that the level of coaching would spread across, you know, the quality of the coaching and and would have spread across the country and break down some of the pockets, but then we could have eight hours about the Fed federated system model as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:43

So, you know, well something something came to mind when you were talking about um the the Kappa McQueen days, is that potentially the national tours and the coming together and the events that draw a lot of people, potentially there's some events or side events steered off that can be coach networking and and coach sharing and yeah, we do a little bit of that.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:05

That's all I think mate, a lot of the stuff I've said today is all most of it's like it's happening a little bit. There's a bit of different feet, a bit of stuff there. So I think everyone's got the same ideas, it's just like who's running the show to do it? Who's who's gonna make it happen? Right, who's gonna make it happen? So we do have sometimes back in events coach get togethers, you know. We we do do some sort of things, we do some coach development, you know. You know, if it's me going to a level two coaching in New South Wales, you know, doing delivering a day, that sort of stuff, like you know, the national I think the nap the role of the national team coaches will always be in the NSO to get the performance in the Olympic Games. The trickle down effect, I'm a massive socialist, I don't think it always trickles down. I think we also need to be able to have space to get out there and inform the system a little bit better and connect with the system and break down those barriers. Moving forward. Now that's a lot to ask if you're also asking to do high performance. So we need more coaches. I look, even right now, we have, I think, you know, at a level, um, there's probably more jobs going around than there are sort of like qualified coaches, which is a great problem to have. You know, I'm probably talking at like the the higher level and into our national programs, um, which is a nice problem to have, but it's it was coming for years and just haven't done enough work on developing the coaches in our networks to come up, or or we're too afraid to take risks on people, which I think is another problem. You know, if someone has passion, I'll take someone with passion over someone with a resume who doesn't have the passion eight days a week, and it's our job to teach them how to do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

Look, Mick Nelson's a classic example of that story of how he was just like, Oh, I'm a high performance coach now. I remember I was playing, and we're really good mates now. I was like, Who's this kid? But speak of a man with passion and and look what he's doing now.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:00

Yeah, totally. You know, he's right into the thick of it. So um, you know, I I I'd hope we see coaches on the beaches. I'd hope I hope we're around. I hope you know, coaches are seen as it's it's a it's a good thing to do, it's a value add. Like it's uh um, and I I think it's just gonna head that way, I think, because of just the nature of coaching in Beach Vollew. Now it's getting more professional, it's getting more visibility. Like coaches are getting medals now on the on the world tour. Yeah, saw that, you know, and I'm like, damn it. No, I'm not at all. I'm not at all. No, no, of course not. I think it's great. I I think there's I think that's a little bit I like the idea of it. It's probably the tokenistic at the minute. Yeah, I think it needs to keep evolving. Um, but yeah, this is another one, mate. Said at the start, sport wrestling with itself historically been an which I've liked because it's come through it. Coaching has been around, athletes go and do it. Now we're getting in there. Sport again, wrestling with itself as we change, it's a huge change. I mean, I you you think of the sport that we played back in the early 90s and where it's at now, just the rules, yeah, just the way the courts changed, just the whole like it, it's it's just changed so much, you know. I mean, I still remember in 2000, I was playing, I was like, okay, so the surf can touch the net now after the Olympics, and the court's gone to eight meters.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:15

The court's smaller.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:16

Wow. Like that's drastic. Yeah, that's drastic. That that changed the whole athletic, yeah, um, I guess, profile that started coming through. Yeah, you know, I don't think they've thought that through heaps, but much harder for shorter players and yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:33

It was but it was a decision, so yeah. So Shoddy, it's time to lift your finger, not not the middle one, to lift your finger and push the That was you, mate.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:44

That was you lifting the finger at us back at Sassy back in the day.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:47

Oh, yeah, it was a photo taken of that one. Oh, don't worry, Mr.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:50

Because that's that's floating around somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:51

I remember a quick side story. I remember when I came over to Sassy to join the program and I walked into the office, and the first thing I saw on the side of a uh filing cabinet was a photo of me flipping the bird. I'm like, oh, I feel pretty welcome here. Yeah, hey, yeah, it was state you state that much. I probably deserved it. Not that I was not that I was a raging lunatic most of the time, but every now and then it popped out.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:15

Yeah, but how much were we pushing everyone's buttons as well? Arrogant buggers. Good point.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:20

But anyhow, let's not talk the middle finger, we're gonna talk the index finger, and you get to push a button which is going to improve and enhance Australian beach volleyball. Just one button. What would it be?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:31

I only get one, huh? Uh-huh. Okay. I I I know everyone's button's been a national tour, and I I really agree with that. However, that's been pushed. I would say we need to open our eyes up to what we can do in volleyball. As in, we need to expand our vision of courts on beaches and courts on grass areas and courts everywhere, and and not get caught up in what I just spoke about the rules of the game, the access, you need to do this to do this. This is the only way forward. We should be playing four on four with three on three. We should be playing everywhere. Everywhere. And if you talk about beach volleyball, I guess it's a bigger volleyball picture. We have, I saw it happen. Um, I was around when we started to specialize. We weren't specialists back in the day, if you remember. Yeah. Sun came out, beach volleyball. That's why I learned and and play positions, right? And then through to Sydney, we specialized. Chico's the middle blocker because he's taller, can't do anything else. Shot is this indoor. It just frustrates me how we went down and it didn't really lead to anywhere. So, how do we de-specialise our sport? How do we get it out there? How do we look at different modalities of playing and not get so hung up on the rules? You know, get make access to entry, make some more problems where we've got too many players around the country. I think we think too small, I think, but don't think we think big enough. A federated model. We're all doing our little thing apart. I mean, I look at Glenel, right? You know it well. So there's the clear reserve still behind. I'm like, wow, there are 20 courts there after work on the in the summer and people just playing four on four. It's what a cool game. Yeah. So that's that would be what I would say. Let's not get hung up in the structures. Let's just get out there and get courts out. Let's think bigger, let's give access to people. Because I think there's a I think there's a there's space there for it. We just got to think differently as a sport. And then maybe the flow through is more kids are playing beach volleyball, more people are into it, sponsorship grows, quality of athlete, you know, quality of kidney goes, Oh wow, this is really cool. Maybe all boxes can be ticked if we just think a bit differently like that. That'll be my button.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:46

I love that button. I love that button, the world of possibility. Yeah. Especially in the time when we we have tended to go bigger is better, we need more courts, we need more of this, but then we're running out of beach space because the courts are getting narrower. Oh, where's where where's the squeeze? What do you do? Think outside the box. I love that button.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:06

Outdoor country, go down the footy oval, rent the footy oval over summer, the cricket, whatever, go stick some quartz up. I mean, those all those Elson old, what I don't know, but probably Elson still, the old Elson put up quartz, you can knock them in the ground. We took the courts up to uh we took quartz up to the AP wildlands and left them, knock them in the dirt. Put the I was like, oh god, I forgot about this. And not the kids know how to put a net up. That was hilarious. Watching trying to put a net up. Um, I forgot about this. This is so simple. This is such a simple sport. The simplicity is beautiful. You jump on a plane, you get off the plane, other side of the world. Oh, there's kids playing over there. Yeah, there's a net. We all, and you know it, and I do it too. When you travel somewhere, you see a volleyball net, you're like, that's cool. You see something in the park, you're like, that's wicked. Right. You know, that's so awesome. And I think that's the I think that's for me, that's that can be our sport. We just got to open our eyes up and just step back and go, what can an outdoor country do with lots of space, putting courts everywhere? It's just it's the simplicity of the game that we make complex by my high performance and got to do this and the rules here and the Olympics and all that sort of stuff. That's great. I also wonder sometimes, like, if we didn't have an Olympics, where would the sport be? I don't know if it'd be that bad, actually. I think things could have gone up. You know, I mean, four-person beach volleyball is amazing. It kind of died. There's so many things we could do, mate. There's so many things that could happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:27

I freaking love that. You're gonna get me thinking about it for for well beyond this point.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:32

Oh, mate, okay, go and get the Europe Queens and go to the who's the rugby league all out the back. So hey, six, eight courts on there. Let's run some three on three in shoes. Let's get some indoor players out playing in shoes. Don't get it.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:43

We've got a three on three tournament coming up in a couple of weeks, actually. Um, shout out to people on the Sunshine. I know you probably won't get this plot before then. But uh, yeah, thing outside the box, mate. This has been an absolute treat. I've really enjoyed this last 60 minutes or whatever it is. So uh, not an issue at all. Um, but thank you for your insights. It's been great to connect again and great to have your uh your input into this conversation.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:10

Yeah, no, I appreciate it, mate. Love what you're doing. Um, it's it's lived history, right? You're just getting people to talk about all the things that we all went through without any real judgment. We're just chatting, which is really important. Um, it made me think I'll I've been really lucky. Like, obviously, some things have I've been able to do. I've been so lucky with this sport. This sport found me when I was a young kid. I was like, if I didn't have it, I don't know where I'd be right now. I just was lucky. I'm lucky I fell in love with it, and I'm still here hanging around thinking about putting quartz on an oval and doing whatever. So clearly I'm in for life, even if I'm trying to do some other stuff at the minute. So great to chat.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:46

Once your sport gets in the blood, it's uh it's impossible to get it out, huh? Totally. Totally, totally. Alright, mate. Thanks again, Shoddy. I'll uh look forward to catching up in real for real sometime. Yeah, mate, easy. Next time on the Samurai Shift, we'll continue exploring the fractures, but from a very different perspective. Lauren Soderberg became Australia's first woman to coach beach volleyball at an Olympic Games. Today her work developing coaches around the world has given her a unique perspective on leadership and the future of high performance coaching. And together we'll ask a simple but important question. What perspectives are we missing because too few women are shaping the future of high performance coaching? I hope you join us then.