Coach Houser:
I currently coach a 14s club team and am having the normal issues of not being able to get them to communicate on the court. The other issue I have is teaching my girls how to have fun but play hard, they are either screwing around or way too serious and not having any fun.
When I played I was more of a "tom boy" so it was fine for a coach to make us run or do push-ups or something if we screwed-up but I think that may be too harsh for them.
I know some of this just has to do with age, but any feedback you can give me or helpful hints would be greatly appreciated. My girls have the skills now they just need the "volleyball edge".
COMMUNICATION: You may want to consider helping your team with their communication. I mean, you decide whose ball is whose. You decide who takes the seam ball, and you decide who takes the campfire tip. I'm coaching 15's and that's what I do on my team. After that, the girls can play with a clear conscious (No more, "Am I being a ball hog?") and the girl with the most attitude isn't taking all the balls b/c no one else will.
SILLINESS: My 15's team got very silly last Sunday right before our final match. So we didn't play very well. Being a 50 year old man, I accepted long ago their need to have fun. But I've never accepted their need to be silly to point of distraction. The girls started getting that way again at Wednesday's practice. So, before today's practice began, I had a talk with them. "I want you to have fun. But we will not be silly, goofy. We will have our fun by our hard work. So when someone makes a great dig, or makes a great hit, or our setter makes a great set, then we'll get crazy. How's that?" I think this will work with your 14's, as long as you keep their minds occupied, as long as your practice is full of effort & energy. One of my players went to another team's practice today, and came to my practice saying, "It was boring." That's the LAST thing you want your kids to say about your practice, or you're the reason they're misbehaving. Same thing in the classroom......half of the discipline issues that teachers have with kids is b/c the kids are bored. We can solve that problem by making their time with us interesting, exciting & fun!!
CONSEQUENCES: I think I've raised my voice at my team twice since we had our first meeting in November. And I think I've twice told them, "I'm getting upset. We don't want to go there." All the rest of the time, it's "Bonus Point!," or "That's a great play!!!", or "The team needs you to do this. Can you? If you can't, let me know." In fact, I just wrote an article for Dave Cross about positive coaching. If you'd like to see it, I'll attach it to an email. I've gone completely away from punishment b/c I figure if it's not useful in training dogs, cats or horses, how effective will it be on humans?
Tom Houser
http://www.coachhouser.com/