Volleyball Coaching Life-We Got You

Have you ever listened to your team try to help each other out? Many of us ask, beg, cajole our teams to help their teammates in times of stress and struggle. It is difficult to teach beginning players to be selfless, to be a great teammate, to subsume their own egos for the good of the team bond. It is particularly difficult with the age of the players. Most of us coach at an age where the players are self-centered because they are at that point in their maturation process where they are self-centered, and we are trying to steer against the tide of their nature. Couple that with the societal trends that seemingly encourage selfishness, and possibly the parental influence which also encourages looking out for themselves rather than the team. It is a difficult and frustrating experience, but it is also highly rewarding when self-centered façade cracks and a genuine team emerges.

The terms that we teach them to use make a difference. The phrases that the players use with each other are more important than ever. Given the sensitivities of the psyche and mindset at those ages, everything can be misconstrued, but more importantly the usage of language can reveal the subconscious mindset.

One phrase that is often used is : you got this. Pretty innocuous and it expresses confidence in the person. Usually, this phrase gets used  when something has gone awry: shanked passes, blown swings at the ball, errors of all kinds. Ideally this comes at a dead ball and the teammates gather to pull themselves out of a negative point. The intent is fine, it may even be appreciated after a negative result. It is what is left unsaid that demonstrates the mindset, whether this is conscious or not. The implication is that this is your issue to fix, that I, nor any of the rest of the team members, have anything to do with this error. You own it.  This may not be what is intended but it could be construed that way — consciously or unconsciously. The person at the receiving end can interpret it as: I need to fix this by myself, which is not the ideal situation in a team sport. While it is true that the individual needs to upgrade their game to eliminate that kind of error, the reality is that the whole team and the team game suffered from that error. Which can be extrapolated to mean that a player who caused the team to suffer is singled out for blame, not a good sentiment if we are playing as a team.  Individual errors are things that need to be fixed in practice but not worked on individually while in the heat of the game.  The loss of a point is a result for the collective, the team. The problem word is you. It directly points at the person.

A better response might be: I got you. It means I am being a good teammate; I got your back. I am here to work with you to accomplish our team goals. It is a powerful thought. It tells the person that she is not alone, that there is power in being in tandem rather than being alone, that the dynamism of two individuals together is greater than two individuals alone

If we extrapolated the previous idea, we get the best response: we got you. This unequivacally that we are a team. Our fortunes in this game, this match, this tournament, this season is dependent on us. We have each other’s back. We decide how this will transpire.

This idea is not original, it is a familiar sentiment; all coaches preach this mindset, but even as the coaches talk this talk, how often do the coaches walk this walk? How many coaches dig into the granularities of team communications and the mindset behind the actions of communicating? How many coaches try to change the subconscious mindsets of their players?

This sentiment might seem cliched in our older and more cynical mind, but those youngsters that we are coaching and teaching see what we do —acting and reacting — will absorb the lessons as we teach them to live the lessons.  If we coaches don’t walk the walk, they may intrinsically interpret that talking the talk is all it takes, that commitment to an idea is not a necessary part of the overall execution of the team.

There are many ways that coaches use to demonstrate the concept of the team. In the end it is the difference between being involved and being committed. I like to use my favorite example, of breakfast food: the chicken is involved through the eggs but the pig is committed through the bacon or sausage. Just as if the coach just talks the talk, they are involved, but if they lived their lessons about the team, they are committed. 

This is a small thing in the grander scale of a volleyball season, a tiny snippet, a grain of sand amongst the big rocks; but as Bruce Springsteen sings: from small things big things one day come.  Changing the way the team express themselves while in support of their teammates is a small conscious change, but it could later burgeon into THE team. All it takes is a small butterfly flapping its wings.