Dig & Swing – Details, episodes & analysis

I sit down to chat with the coaching staff for UW-Green Bay:  Abbey Sutherland (Head Coach), Korey Schroeder (Assistant Coach), and Delaney McCreary (Assistant Coach) to talk about how to build a team culture, what UW-GB has done to shape their program and athletes, and transferring this to the youth level.  So many great nuggets in this episode!  And a fun call back to Trevor Ragan's Anti-Talent Show!

You can catch UW-Green Bay Volleyball on the socials here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gbphoenixvb
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gbphoenixvb
Twitter: https://twitter.com/gbphoenixvb
Website: https://greenbayphoenix.com/sports/womens-volleyball

This week BJ LeRoy is my guest cohost and we chat with Marouane Jafir.  Marouane is an experienced volleyball player with his roots starting in his home country of Morocco!  He has a bunch of cool stuff on his resume like Player of the Year, Player Honors, etc etc.  Basically he's awesome.  He's currently the Club Director of Delaware United Volleyball Club and if you look at his Facebook profile, it looks like his favorite thing to do is fish.

We talk about how he went from a player on the Moroccan National Team to a coach in Delaware and a well regarded CAP Cadre!  Him and BJ are besties so they'll share some fun stories in the mix too.

Sara talks to Pat and BJ about drills and what makes them work.

Today I'm talking to Dan Mickle about Mental Skills Training!  This seems to be the trend lately among clubs and coaches, so let's hear about it from an expert! His Mental Skills website: https://soulperformanceacademy.com/ His regular website: https://www.danmickle.com/

Sara and Pat talk to BJ LeRoy about planning for the team you have, the season ahead, and everything in between!

Here is a list of all the resources Loren mentioned: John Kessel – Growing the Game Trevor Ragan – The Learner Lab Joey Peters– Game Play Learn Marianne Davies  -https://dynamics-coaching.com/ Kathy Sierra – Pantherflow

This week, I'm chatting with Loren Anderson.  Loren is the director of Rise Volleyball Academy in Idaho and has a fantastic approach to coaching.  We talk about our philosophies, our successes and our challenges navigating our careers as coaches. Loren gave some GREAT resources at the end that I am uploading that as a separate episode with links to all the great people he mentions!

Sara and Pat talk about starting out as a coach!

Sara's Website:  www.digitwithsara.com

VCT Facebook page:  www.facebook.com/groups/volleycoaches/

Ruckus Drill: 

This is from a couple years ago, but it was a drill that changed my practices from "meh" to "woah", in terms of court awareness and energy.

X vs X (or Y, make it work for your team), players serve. Coach's sole job is to work the flip-score to the best of his/her ability. Points are scored via any meaningful communication made by any player. Open your mouth = 1 point for your team.

Example: Team A serves to Team B. Team B calls the serve in (+1), deep (+1), and the serve receiver herself calls mine (+1). The setter would be calling "here" as she transitions up (+1) and God forbid the passer calls the intended setter's name (+1). Let's say there are 3 individual hitters calling for their set (+1) (+1) (+1). So by the time the hitter has made contact with the set, in a perfect world, Team B has scored 8 points.

Team A could be calling on/off/over (+1) on the pass, along with the set that has been made (+1), and whether the player who was set is swinging or tipping (+1). Without having touched the ball, Team A can score 3 points.

Play the rally out as a normal match generally would. Rally points scored count for 1 point as well.

*Obviously you can adjust this for what your gym values in terms of communication. Adjust if you want them to rotate normally, etc etc etc. Make this fit your system*

Play the game to 99 points. The "game" generally takes ~8 minutes or so, IF the players are consistently communicating the right way.

Here we go!  I'm so excited to get this started!  Here's a little peak into what this is all about!

David Cordes, the Director Ridgecrest Starlings Volleyball Club, joins me and BJ to talk about punishments.  David is the perfect guy to talk to about this because he's an everyday coach just like us!  He despises the use of punishments in the gym and talks to us about all the ways coaches try to justify it.  Be prepared for a lot of moaning and groaning from me.

Coaches - we are better this.