As I walked off the court for the last time in the 2024 volleyball season, all I could think was, “I think they believe now.”
Three months ago, I didn’t know I would be coaching a volleyball team this fall. My daughter signed up to play, and I emailed the school to find out if they needed a helping hand. That turned into finding out that they had enough players to form two teams, and one of them needed a coach. Could I possibly do it?
I hadn’t played volleyball since middle school but understood the basics. Bump, set, spike. How hard could it be? It could be very hard. But also, very fun.
Here are five things I learned from my first time coaching a sports team.
Keep it simple
I inherited a team of mostly first- and second-year volleyball players and dropped into coaching them barely a week before the first game of the season. My expectations were pretty simple: We would work hard, have fun, and end every week better at volleyball than we started it.
For that first week, we worked almost entirely on bumping and communication-calling for the ball.
In our first game, we played against a team that would soon be moving to the next division up from us, and we got crushed. There was a lot of watching the ball hit the ground and me bumbling my way through attempting to make substitutions. It was a good reality check for everyone. For the team, they saw what they had to work on, and for me, I had a lot to learn about coaching.
Keep growing
Over the coming weeks, I dug into the two things I had asked of the team on my first day coaching them. Every day, we would work hard and have fun. We worked on communication. At least one drill at every practice. Then, two drills. Then entire practices devoted to it. Calling for the ball. Reacting a split second sooner. A half-second that allowed for one more step to the ball, that allowed for the time to shout, “Mine!”
Over the coming weeks, there would be more losses, but we ended every week better than we had when it started. Bit by bit, they improved. I didn’t have to call timeouts anymore to remind them to call for the ball. Soon enough, I didn’t need to remind them to take that one more step or watch where the ball was coming from. We went from working on bumping to setting to finally getting them ready to be attacking volleyball players.
Be relentlessly positive
The following week, several of them actually started hitting during the game. Did they all go over the net? No. Did I care? Absolutely not. I was too busy jumping up and down on the sideline, yelling, “Yes, that’s it. Keep at it!”
More losses followed usually because we would have one bad stretch where the other team would run up seven or eight straight points.
However, each week, I could see wheels turning and lightbulbs turning on. It wasn’t happening yet, but I firmly believed they could beat anyone if they stopped those bad streaks. Every week, they were improving. Every week, they were growing stronger mentally. At the start of the season, my voice was hoarse at the end of every game because I encouraged every single one of them after every play. As the season progressed, I still needed throat lozenges every week. Still, they were taking ownership of encouraging each other, picking their teammates up after mistakes, and having more successes to celebrate.
Don’t be afraid of a challenge
I signed the team up for the end-of-season open playoff tournament with four games in five days to end the season.
Of the approximately two dozen teams that entered across three divisions, we were the bottom seed, and in the play-in round, we were paired with the team that won our division.
Before the game, I emphasized to the team that I believed they were absolutely capable of beating anybody and that our goal for the tournament was that nobody would get more than three points in a row off of us.
We then immediately fell behind 9-0.
I called timeout and said starting right then, the other team would not get more than three points in a row. Sure enough, they didn’t. We didn’t win that first set. But we won the second set, and then in the third, the girls did just enough to fend off a determined rally by the other team. At the last point, I jumped into the air … and they all stared at me. They didn’t realize they won. Then, the loud squeals of excitement began.
Believe
It’s become a cliché thanks to Ted Lasso, but seeing that they could do it made them believe they could. Our first win of the season put us into a higher bracket, facing teams from the next division up. The next night, we lost our first bracket game. That earned us a date with the team that won the next division up and had been undefeated until the night before. My team didn’t back down. After a tough first set, they came out and forced a third. The game came down to the wire, and we lost an incredibly close game. But now they knew they truly could take on any team in the league. They no longer needed reminders to communicate, to attack, or to get in position on defense.
The next morning, they retook the court and swept our final opponent of the season in two sets. This time, they were ready to celebrate, and celebrate they did.
The win was nice, but even better was in the post-game huddle, I saw eight smiling faces who were already excited to get to work for the next season.
Eight kids who believe.
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