In my previous blog, I mentioned Low Country Volleyball Club’s 18s Team winning the 18 Open Division of the USAV Palmetto Region to qualify the team for Nationals in Miami. I received the stats from the team’s championship weekend (we have a parent keep stats), and just for fun compared them with the offensive stats of the 2008 Final Four Teams: Penn State, Stanford, Nebraska, and Texas. I was testing a coaching theory of IPE (read my What is IPE blog if you are unfamiliar with this concept). Here are my findings: Continue Reading

It’s the little club that could. Low Country Volleyball Club with a total of 3 teams in the entire club, won the 18 Open Division of the USAV Palmetto Region Championship this past weekend in Charlotte. This is the second year in a row the team won the region to advance to the USAV Nationals, held in Miami this July. I’m proud to say I coached at this club a number of years ago and it was a joy watching many of the girls I once coached win the championship…again. A club of three teams. Continue Reading

I received the latest AVCA (American Volleyball Coaches Association) publication Volleyball ACE Power Tips and the article happens to be titled, “Make Mental Training Part of Physical Training” with a picture of Lindsey Berg on the cover page. Coincidentally, these are the topics of my last two blogs

Click AVCA PowerTips 3-25-2009 to read the article.

The reason I am a volleyball coach…

LCV Club has been such a blessing for the whole [name withheld] family and we are so grateful to have had this experience. Chuck, I remember when our daughter was a freshman and you invited her to come to Big South with your team. We sat outside of the CNN Center and you talked to the team about your philosophy for that tournament. You told them to work hard, try jump serves, have fun and…you shared your story of life lessons. I knew you were correct about vb and all the lessons the girls would take from this sport to use throughout their lives. I wasn't sure what that would look like for our daughter, but I was excited about the possibilities ahead. I saw you inspire her as you helped her define her goals, she embraced what you said and was so grateful that you believed in her enough to share your thoughts. I have seen her work on this sport all through these years and deep inside was that passion to prove you right for believing in her. You challenged her with the proper effort, diet, commitment and focus, her dreams could become a reality, and now that opportunity awaits her, simple amazing!!!

This player is now going on to play in college. Awesome! Teaching Life Lessons Through Volleyball

Let me preface this blog: this is not a political blog, this is purely marketing.

Fast Company Magazine, March 2009 issue, ranked The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies. #1 wasn’t Google, not Apple, nor Hulu (and if you don’t know Hulu, this blog’s for you), it was Team Obama. The headline reads, “The year’s most successful start-up took a skinny kid with a funny name and turned him into the most powerful new national brand in a generation.” The headline hits a soft spot; I’m a skinny kid, without the funny name. Maybe I’ll be President yet! Continue Reading

I received an email from a coach asking for feedback about players that miss practices and tournaments when part of a small club. In theory, the principle of missing practice and tournaments at a small or large club should be the same, but there are some unique instances that always spring-up. Following is my reply. Your feedback on this subject is appreciated too. Continue Reading

During the season at the U of MN, Mike Hebert received an email from a club coach of which he passed along to me. The club coach was concerned with devising an offense system for a team with very little height. The club coach was quick to point out that the team had three great liberos. Here is my reply with Mike’s blessing, it also gives some insight of things I learned at the U of MN:

I hope this email will help save some trees and save you some money from all the paper you are using trying to devise an offense. But let’s look at two things first: 1) Defense 2) Height, and then we can discuss offense. Continue Reading