I am amazed at the reach of my blog and the people I have met while writing about my passion.  It’s great to be surrounded by and learn about others with the same passion.

I received a call from Lynn Ray Boren, Head Coach of the USA  Deaf Women’s Volleyball Team, to offer a compliment of my blog.  For this small bit of attention, I am grateful.  Of course we started talking about volleyball (via a “relay operator”) and realized how small the world of volleyball is.  When I played at Arizona State University, our arch rival, the Continue Reading

This weekend I enjoyed being a kid again.  I went to the Mall of America near Minneapolis which has an amusement park in the middle of the mall!  A friend’s 8 year old nephew, Alex, and I got to run amuck through the park.  Last year, when he visited the mall, he was not tall enough to ride the “big kid” rides.  This year, he was 3 inches above the required height of 48 inches, a major right of passage.

He was like “a kid in an amusement park” trying to decide which ride to go on first while we purchased tickets.  “The Spongebob Roller Coaster, or the Avatar Skateboard, or the Log Ride!” he’d yell out while dancing around the ticket counter.  As we entered the park, what ride did he choose?  The first ride he saw, the Spongebob Roller Coaster.  It was his first “big kid” rollercoaster he’d ever ridden and I must admit, he chose the scariest of them all first.  This ride literally has a vertical drop and a couple loops.  He admitted he was nervous, but he was so excited, he danced through the entire line.  The picture taken of us while on the ride showed the pure little boy joy in his face.  I’d say it was a priceless picture, but $15 for the picture is ridiculous Continue Reading

Basic Team Systems and Tactics
By: Doug Beal
USA Volleyball CEO and 1984 Gold Medal Winning Coach

Excerpts from the FIVB Manual

In volleyball, we must work very hard to position our bodies correctly before returning the ball.

In volleyball defense, we want to be aggressive to create opportunities to score points.

The coach must train his team to actively “win” the game as opposed to waiting for the opponent to “lose” the game. Continue Reading

TV Schedule of the USA Volleyball Gold Medal team (not all the same players from that team) in World League competition on ESPN. Continue Reading

This is painful to watch.

By: Charles Cardinal
Canadian National Team Head Coach
Excerpts from the FIVB Coaches Manual

From an athlete’s point of view, the reward and motivation comes from the fact that through training and coaching they are able to do today what was impossible yesterday.

Teaching the Mechanics of a Movement (Level 1)
At the start of technical training, no matter the method, an athlete must imitate a model as closely as possible.  This model is usually a coach or a successful athlete who demonstrates the proper execution of a technique.  To reproduce the model exactly, an athlete must have an accurate mental image of the movement. Continue Reading

There are a few volleyball forums in cyberspace, but the hands down favorite is VolleyTalk.  It is an anonymous board with many enthusiastic volleyball coaches, players, parents and fans that offer their advice about anything volleyball.  The only issue is the website name: http://volleytalk.proboards.com/index.cgi The URL is not easy to remember.  When my bookmarks aren’t readily available, I often have to do a google search to find it.  It’s worth the ‘hassle’.  I highly recommend checking it out. Continue Reading

In my recent post Volleyball Camp – How to Choose the Best Camp, I mentioned that at most Division I universities, especially the elite universities, scholarships have already been offered and accepted by high school juniors and seniors.  This article is proof: Continue Reading

The Functions of a Volleyball Coach

By: Yuan Weimin

Yuan had one of the most dominant teams in the history of our sport during the late 1970s and 1980s when the Chinese women won every major event for a span of three years. He put together a team that was one of the smoothest, most error-free, remarkable ball control teams that has ever played the game. It was identified mostly in the personality and performance of Lang Ping, but it was one of those teams where you could have identified any player as an all-world performer.  ~ Volleyball Hall of Fame Continue Reading

What is a Volleyball Coach?

By: Yuri Tchesnokov
Russian Gold Medal Men’s Head Coach and Player
Excerpts from the FIVB Coaches Manual

A volleyball coach is a teacher and an educator, especially for a coach who is working with children and junior teams.

A volleyball coach is a person with a great knowledge of life.  Players need advice and support in many different life situations.  This is why one can say that a coach is a senior comrade and a life assistant. Continue Reading

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Group introducing girls to volleyball and much more

By: Vytas Mazeika

Palo Alto Daily News Staff Writer
Posted: 06/11/2009 07:52:49 PM

Liz Mayta was never the best player on the volleyball court, but it’s hard to deny her influence on the sport. Continue Reading

‘Tis the volleyball camp season, the summer time of year when parents will send their kids off on a two, three, four or five day journey to play volleyball for likely 12 hours a day. Kids believe that if they go to these volleyball camps, they will be able to make the high school varsity team, maybe even a starting position, which will eventually lead them to play for the college of their dream. For parents, some camps are as much as $1,500. What is the reality? What should be expected? What is the best camp for your child? Continue Reading

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There is nothing natural about passing a volleyball.  In fact, the sport of volleyball is very ‘un-natural’.  We do not grow up bouncing a ball off our forearms or cocking our wrists in unison to set a ball.  The closest childhood similarity is batting a balloon in the air.  We grow up throwing, kicking, and shooting balls.  Ever watch a group of football players  get on a volleyball court and try to play?  These talented athletes often look quite uncoordinated playing volleyball.  Volleyball is an extremely technical game, it is the mastery of these un-natural technical movements that makes our sport so unique, so great.

Learning to pass a volleyball takes time.  Through experience we learn the flight, the trajectory of a volleyball.  Serve receive in particular is an art.  It takes thousands upon thousands of repetitions to understand Continue Reading

Searching for volleyball charts or statistics sheets to use for practice or during a match?  Have you tried creating spreadsheets to fit your match needs?  Following are a number of volleyball coach resources that I have collected over the years for your use:

Download:

Pre-game charts
Match charts
Post match statistics
Setting Diagram
Serve Receive Patterns
Workout charts

Click on an image below to download the chart/sheet.  Hope they help…Enjoy!

Volleyball Courts (4)

Volleyball Courts with Notes (4)

Volleyball Setting Diagram

Volleyball Roster

5-1 Serve Receive

5-1 Serve Receive alternate

6-2 Serve Receive

6-2 Serve Receive alternate

Volleyball Line-up Sheet

Volleyball Master Game Plan

Serve Receive Chart

Volleyball Game Chart

Volleyball Game Chart Offense

Volleyball Attack Chart

Volleyball Game Stat Chart

Passing Serving Chart

Volleyball Scoresheet

Beach Volleyball Chart

Volleyball Passing Statistics

Volleyball Serving Statistics

Volleyball Workout Chart

Volleyball Workout Log

Volleyball Vertical Jump Chart

Volleyball Cauldron Sheets (4 spreadsheets within workbook)

If you have similar resources you would like to share, please leave a comment or send me a message. I will coordinate getting it posted!

This article also covers college volleyball programs and upper level club volleyball programs.

What are we in the High Performance Program looking for in
National-Level Volleyball Athletes?

-    Collin Powers, USA Volleyball Manager of High Performance Program

Listed below is a general discussion of the characteristics we in the High Performance Program are looking for (and hope to develop) in National Level Volleyball Athletes.
These characterizations are not an exact science and their application may mean different
things to different age groups, types of players and positions. Continue Reading