A monumental day for NCAA Volleyball and volleyball in the USA. The first ever NCAA Women’s Sand Championship was held today in Gulf Shores, AL, yes Alabama. ”The Hawaii people and the California people were like, `Are you kidding? We’re going to Alabama to play beach volleyball?”’ said Kathy DeBoer, the Executive Director of the American Volleyball Coaches Association, which is running the event. “But this is an absolute hidden gem.’ I guess it took the USA Volleyball Teams, four Olympic Gold Medals, for the US to wake-up and recognize the great sport of volleyball. It’s only one of the most popular events of the Olympic Summer Games and across the world. As a great French player, Winthrop Volunteer Assistant Coach and friend of mine, Francois “Frenchy” Hertwig, posted on my Facebook status, “It’s about time.” Pepperdine won the first ever NCAA Team Championship Trophy as well as the Doubles Trophy. Continue Reading

This past week in Kansas City at the AVCA Convention and Final Four was thoroughly enjoyable.  It was 24 hours of volleyball.  Blissful.

Even though volleyball is one of the most popular sports in the world, we, in the United States, are fortunate it has not blown-up yet (it will).  It provides us the accessibility for legends Continue Reading

The most wonderful time of the volleyball year! After a great weekend of sweet sixteen and elite eight matches, it leads to the AVCA Convention, held in Kansas City this year, and the Final Four matches.  The year of volleyball parody is evident with only one of the top four seeds making it into the Final Four.  Should we be surprised it’s Penn State?  We should stop doubting Russ Rose and his ability to coach and recruit, but Continue Reading

Doug Beal at the USAV Annual Meeting

USA Volleyball held its annual meeting just prior to the USAV Open Nationals.  In the meeting Reid Priddy presented on the importance of a professional league in the United States, “We began to lay the foundation to discuss the creation of a U.S.-based indoor professional league for Continue Reading

Many women lead boys volleyball teams, but for how much longer? Continue Reading

When I first started coaching, I scoured the internet for the best volleyball drills – the drills that would make my team great. I also purchased AVCA’s 101 Winning Drills, Mary Wise’s Volleyball Drills for Champions, and the like. Then I was fortunate to witness practices run by some of the great coaches, Mike Hebert, Mary Jo Peppler, Bill Neville, and Beth Launiere. To my surprise (and maybe dismay), they all ran similar drills! I came to realize there are only so many ways to teach a particular skill. Ultimately, its not the drills that makes a team great, its how the drills are applied by the coach and executed by the players. Continue Reading

The Top 25 teams were taken from the 2008 AVCA Final Coaches Poll. The data shows the averages of each group (Final Four, Top 10, and Top 25).

The data shows statistical improvements in every category from the Top 25 to the Final Four 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.