Today, I listened to an audio recording of USA Volleyball’s Head Coach Hugh McCutcheon’s Q & A presentation at last December’s AVCA Convention in Kansas City.  A question raised to Hugh was, “How does the world perceive the success of USA Volleyball when it does not have a professional league?”.  Hugh’s response was based on the United States’ culture of “fighting until the end”, competitive advantages, and coaching methodologies.  Of which I agree, but these are small pieces of a larger puzzle.  An Open Source puzzle. 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

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