"Because you consider yourself to be only one thread of those which are in the tunic. Well then it was fitting for you to take care how you should be like the rest of men, just as the thread has no design to be anything superior to the other threads. But I wish to be purple, that small part which is bright, and makes all the rest appear graceful and beautiful. Why then do you tell me to make myself like the many? and if I do, how shall I still be purple?" - Epictetus
The Romans wore all manners of togas and tunics. The amount of purple in garments separated royalty and common people. Commoners had plain, white garments, each thread as indistinguishable as the citizen was in the state.
In the discussion above, the slave turned Stoic philosopher Epictetus asked rhetorically how he could stand out from the crowd as a purple thread?
Your part in Melrose volleyball establishes you as those purple threads. Strive to be extraordinary. Celebrate being that purple thread, different not better.
Lagniappe (something extra). I am not a volleyball expert. Use video and online instruction to work on your game. Check with your coaches to see if they have different or additional suggestions.
I suggest that when working with a partner, consider using some cellphone video to create a record of your progress.
MasterClass has a new series, "GOAT" starting with Dale Harris the 2017 Barista World Champion. He explains that the world's best coffee starts with great ingredients. He shows how to make great expresso and cappuccino.
This analogy has everything to do with coaching, vital to success. The world's greatest coach (barista) won't win without talent.
1. The athlete. Coaches thirst for size, athleticism, and skill. Starting with youngsters, a coach projects end products (players) and end state (play).
Investment isn't random. Melrose has around 30,000 people. 62% aged 25+ have college degrees or higher, and the median household income is $125,000. Parents decide how much to invest in extracurriculars.
Become an explosive athlete. Jumping rope and intermediate-distance sprints (timed 220s) seems worthwhile. Stretching and weight training have potential value, too.
2. Skill development. "Skill, there is no substitute."
Each season captains are selected. For the 2023 season, Sadie Jaggers returns along with new captains Grace Gentile and Leah Fowke. Captains serve as liaisons between Coach Scott Celli and the team, promote collaboration, teamwork, and improvement.
Who 'trains' you to lead? Without followers, there are no leaders. Leaders remember PUSH-T(hrough)
P - Purpose (Have a successful season)
U - Unity (Do what is best for the team)
S - Servant leadership (You are and represent the community)
H - Humility (Don't think less of yourself; think less about yourself.)
T - Thankfulness (Appreciate the opportunity you have)
Alabama football coach, Nick Saban, includes lessons in his book, How Good Do You Want to Be. Here are a half dozen from Chapter 5 on Leadership:
- Great leaders allow the team to take ownership of the rules. Do nothing that will compromise or embarrass the team. The best teams are led by players.
- Great leaders pick their battles. Is it worth a fight?
- Great leaders hire good people. "Hire tough." That also implies allowing non-contributors or malcontents to leave.
- Great leaders make tough decisions. "Coaches and leaders make decisions based on what is best for the team."
- Great leaders accept responsibility.
- Great leaders insist on excellence. "How you do anything is how you do everything?" What are your processes, your habits, your followup to measure progress?
Lagniappe (something extra). Develop consistent technique. Study the slow motion video. Practice coordinating the footwork/runup, the launch, and the swing itself. You can put up a line and throw a tennis ball over it to simulate the attack. Find a teammate to take cellphone video to study your improvement. "Form begets function."
The same concerns occupy Melrose volleyball fans each offseason. Where will the points arise, who steps up in the back row, and who's the setter? Admittedly, those were lesser concerns heading into the 2012 season after the prior season's appearance in the Finals.
This campaign Melrose needed to replace 469 kills lost to graduation with Elena Soukos, Abby Hudson, and Ava Burns. Gia Vlajkovic, back to attack, and Anna Shoemaker combined for 453 kills themselves, while Trinity-bound Chloe Gentile and Sadie Jaggers boosted their totals to add 383.
The back row got massive talent infusion from Emma Desmond, Ava McSorley, Gia, and Grace Gentile to more than hold their own.
Ruth Breen erased the question mark at setter with an historic season of her own with 639 assists.
Four early season non-league losses hardened the team for postseason play. The team fostered an 11-game win streak and reached the Final Four again with big wins over Billerica and a program 'signature win' over undefeated Duxbury on the road.
The senior contributions (all had meaningful roles) will be hard to replicate. Multiple players must step up to approach the all-around play of Gia. Who will recreate the blocking of Chloe and Sadie in particular? Sadie and Manon Marchais return as a potentially potent pair, and Coach Scott Celli has elite size returning with Sabine Wenzel and an athletic outside in Caroline Higonenq as a second possible pair.
Grace Gentile will be a competitor for libero along with Maggie Turner. A panoply of junior varsity players may figure in the mix. Offseason 'repetitions make season reputations'. We never know whom may emerge.
Tricaptain Leah Fowke is an early favorite as the next setter but you never know whether a promising defender like Maggie Turner can challenge for a role. DS Gigi Albuja could be hunting a designated server/defender spot.
Players should remember that coaches seek size, athleticism, and skill to develop elite players. But don't discount the advice of rocker Meatloaf as to filling spots. Coach Scott Celli faces 'good problems' seeking a "three-peat" of sectional championships with three distinctly different rosters.
"I think I was happiest as a lawyer as a young associate. I hated doing all the 'grunt work' but there was always the promise of tomorrow." - Milton Bombay, Boston Legal
Growth demands learning. Is it better to be vulnerable or validated?
It depends...on which helps pull another rabbit from another hat.
Coaches have escalating goals - good practices, improved play, winning games, winning seasons, league titles, championships. What if we knew which tools aid ultimate goals at the expense of lower ones?
Celebrate bad early losses to preempt painful late ones. Choose one:
Undefeated regular season, win three playoff games with sectional game one point loss at the buzzer
Regular season losses dispensing lessons leading to sectional title
Some teams win too many noncompetitive games and lose out by learning to win close games. Sacrifice lesser losses for bigger wins. "I missed the rabbit but bagged the deer." A weak schedule can bite us.
Mean losses justify end wins.
Don't bury the metaphorical hatchet. Use it to cut dead limbs or sculpt beauty from ugliness.
It's easy to reject pain. Comforting. But we have to exorcise self-destructive behaviors defining defeat. How?
"No pain, no gain."
Lack of knowledge - teach and study
Lack of experience - "I didn't know that could happen."
Lack of conditioning - condition within practice, with the ball
Lack of effort - reassign minutes to higher motor players
Lack of judgment - practice and study video (? study practice)
Lack of belief or acceptance - "what happened didn't happen"
With proper analysis and correction, improved performance should follow although to what degree variable.
Develop a process.
- What problem or problems caused us to lose? "NFL Monday"
- Share and discuss those problems.
- Retrain players (easier said than done).
- Measure the response (e.g. turnovers, bad fouls, bad shots, bad decisions, transition scores allowed, etc.)
The latest MasterClass shares recently retired Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski on leadership.
Here are notes from his lecture on communication:
"Communication has to be taught...verbally and in other ways."
"Communication...is the lifeblood of the team."
"Unless you are talking, you do not bring everyone together."
"Giving instruction while the activity is going on."
"If a player is not talking to a teammate...he is talking to himself... thinking...has to coordinate what he is doing with what we are doing."
"You let other people in."
Coach K takes input from staff during the game (as opposed to during timeouts).
During staff meetings he often says, "what do you think?"
To players, "what do you hear me saying?"
Use multiple techniques = analogies, stories, humor, self-effacing stuff
"Create an environment that's conducive to communication..."
"You have to be vulnerable...and transparent...not a heavy load all the time."
"What are the rules of your meeting? Are they thinking of what we're talking about?" NO PHONES.
"Discipline means that you're going to get the most out of a situation you're in."
"If you find yourself saying the same thing over and over and it's not being done...can you deliver it differently...it's not resonating."
First practice, Shane Battier addressed the team unprompted. Coach K thought he couldn't do better. Coach asked him to talk before every practice. "You have to teach communication in your workplace...that was one of the reasons we won the whole thing."
Author Matt Haig wrote that every story is about "someone searching for something." Each basketball season informs a journey with a panoply of possibilities. Teams with mediocre talent, leadership, and coaching have different destinies than talented, well-coached clubs. The former believe the 'we're good' lie and the latter prove it.
Fire emerges at the intersection of fuel, heat, and oxygen. Analogically, players are the fuel, competition is heat, and coaching is oxygen.
And each day coaches consider "what's the right question?"
1. What's our fuel?
"Every day is player development day." The magic comes from blended size, athleticism, and skill. Meatloaf sang it well, "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad."
Development grows explosiveness, skill, and resilience.
Development teaches players to become their own coaches. The players learn to ask, "how am I getting better today?"
Turn up the heat with better habits, Atomic Habits. "When you focus on tiny increments instead, each small success motivates you to achieve other successes."
Never allow the heat to dissipate. Clear advises about building habits, "don't miss twice." Don't miss two workouts in a row.
3. How do we give dreams oxygen?
Positive thinking drives positive lives.
Positivity makes us smarter.
Find mentors. "Mentoring is the only shortcut to excellence."
Read. Study. Learn how to learn.
Become a copycat. Study greatness. Find stories and lives to power your dreams, like Tolstoy's tale of meeting barbarians and their request, shared by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.
“‘But you have not told us a syllable about the greatest general and greatest ruler of the world. We want to know something about him. He was a hero. He spoke with a voice of thunder; he laughed like the sunrise and his deeds were strong as the rock and as sweet as the fragrance of roses. The angels appeared to his mother and predicted that the son whom she would conceive would become the greatest the stars had ever seen. He was so great that he even forgave the crimes of his greatest enemies and shook brotherly hands with those who had plotted against his life. His name was Lincoln and the country in which he lived is called America, which is so far away that if a youth should journey to reach it he would be an old man when he arrived. Tell us of that man.’"
Your families, friends, and communities value you and want you to be playing volleyball for a long time.
Lagniappe. "Do the right thing. It's that simple. Do the right thing when the right thing is not popular. Do the right thing when no one else is around. Do the right thing when temptation tells you otherwise. Do the right thing all the time." - Nick Saban, in How Good Do You Want to Be
When I taught medical trainees (interns and residents), I heard one say the best piece of information he absorbed. "If you learn five useful things a day, pretty soon you know a lot."
Some will translate to sport, others won't.
1. Hard work is a skill. You don't have to be the most athletic, biggest, or smartest to succeed if you commit to consistent work, unrequired work. "Champions do more."
2. "Always do your best." The fourth agreement of "The Four Agreements" helps us know when to speak or remain silent. Our best effort won't always be great or our best performance. But giving our best leaves no regrets. In "Toughness" remember how embarrassed Jay Bilas was when he did a poor job changing out the contact paper on his sister's vanity. His father came home late and redid the job, saying nothing.
3. "A man's gotta eat," said Patriots' cornerback Ty Law about his contract dispute. Learn to eat better, cook better. It is said that a chef's hat pleats (toque) corresponded to the number of ways to prepare eggs. Michelin 3-star chef Thomas Keller starts every day with two hard-boiled eggs, cooked exactly four minutes and topped with a drop of olive oil and finishing salt.
4. Toughness is a skill. Toughness isn't just physical toughness. Play harder for longer. Author Dan Pink says, "do five more." Read five more pages, study five more minutes, do five more sprints, or five more reps. "Repetitions make reputations."
5. Share better. Sharing means being a better teammate. Share credit. Jonas Salk earned fame for helping develop the polio vaccine which helped eradicate polio. But he never won a Nobel Prize and wasn't elected to the National Academy of Science because he was a credit hog. He didn't give credit to coworkers or researchers who preceded him. "One colleague told a reporter, “At the beginning, I saw him as a father figure. And at the end, an evil father figure.”
"Relationships are difficult, especially when they involve people."
Teamwork creates challenges. People feel comfortable in silos with asymmetrical information, resources, and cultures. But operating in silos means that "mission critical" information gets withheld from the broader organization.
The natural order is "me first, mine first." That egocentric behavior starts in childhood, resurfaces in adolescence, and defines adulthood for others (takers not givers). Become an ambitious giver.
Retired General Stanley McChrystal wrote about challenges and solutions in integrating the Iraq intelligence community to fight a different kind of war. Part of his strategy involved assigning a team member to another team, not to infiltrate but to share process and experience.
Trust takes time. It means commitment to "be a good teammate" and "do what's best for the team." During our lives, we're part of many teams - family, class, school, extracurricular, and community, so we have divided allegiances. If what is good for the team doesn't mesh with messaging from friends and family, that creates "cognitive dissonance..." literally two minds.
When at practice or during games, devote full focus to the task. Don't "operate in silos" concerned about statistics or what others think. "It's the scoreboard not the scorebook."
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt."
Find your voiceto make a difference. Consider a few stories:
GM CEO Alfred Sloan remarked, “If we are all in agreement on the decision — then I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.”
Nelson Mandela accompanied his father to meetings. His father spoke last. Hearing other opinions allowed him to give more nuanced remarks. Earn the right to have the last word.
Golden State trailed Cleveland in the NBA Finals in 2014. Based on video, Videographer Nick U'Ren, a lower level staffer, suggested 'small ball' substituting Andre Iguodala for Andrew Bogut. The Warriors made the switch and the rest is championship history. Good ideas can come from anywhere.
Leaders not only diagnose problems but find solutions. You might have the answer if you share it.
Sometimes young people are afraid to speak up, concerned about 'speaking out of turn' or being thought of as 'bossy'. Listen carefully and develop the courage to speak.
Lagniappe (something extra). Overcome the Curse of Knowledge with great stories.
Role playing is a psychological convention where you put yourself in another person's position. Imagine that you are the adult and your parent is the child. Or imagine that you are the coach and the coach is the player. What messages might you want to send?
A blog reader sent me a line about the blog's messages:
1) Be a good team player.
2) Do what is best for the team.
Coach Scott Celli explicitly sends a message at each breakup dinner that he will always do what's in the best interest of the team. That's an age-old adage crafted by UCLA Coach John Wooden whose teams won nine NCAA basketball titles in ten seasons.
What are coaches seeking and how?
Impact winning. Nobody seeks failure. Every activity should impact winning by teaching offense, defense, skill, resilience, and competition.
In MasterClass "Crisis Day" former FBI hostage negotiator reviews his first hostage negotiation during the attempted robbery of a Chase Manhattan NYC bank branch.
We are often awash in a sea of brain chemicals to make us hyperalert. That doesn't necessarily make us smarter. Staying positive and focused makes us smarter. Staying on process yields the best results.
This matters at home, at school, on the job, and on the court. Be positive to be at our best.
Already recipient of MAVCA All-State and Boston Herald All-Scholastic recognition, Gia Vlajkovic added the third pelt, the Boston Globe All-Scholastic on her proverbial horse.
With the second leading number of kills in Melrose single-season history, the senior helped power Melrose to its tenth Final Four appearance since 2003.
Congratulations to Gia, her family, teammates, and coaches.
1. Become more athletic. Combine explosiveness and power, speed, and weight work. Karen and Paula Sen both benched over 125 pounds.
2. Learn to set. Front row players improve teammates by learning to set.
3. Build stamina. A running program and jumping rope up to five minutes a day will help.
4. Pair up. Workout with a teammate. Build platform skills (see below).
5. And work alone. "Don't tell me you can't. Show me you do."
Lagniappe (something extra). Work on your leadership style. What does being a leader mean to you and for you? How do you intend to lead better and to be a better teammate?
Lagniappe 2. What are you doing for your platform skills? Better skills get you on the court more.
Melrose shut them out early in the season. The opposing coach told a Melrose player, "we should have beaten you today." That didn't sit well with the team. In the rematch at Melrose, Melrose won the first set 25-3. The Melrose player walked by the coach and asked, "is that good enough for you?" If you talk trash, prepare to back it up.
Melrose went on the road for a tough sectional match. A player went into the ladies room before the game to wash her hands. One opposition girl told her teammate, "Melrose looks scared. This should be an easy game." Not so much. Melrose delivered a 3-0 whitewashing.
The visitors came to Melrose without an abundance of confidence. A player went up to a Melrose girl saying, "we heard Melrose had players who were on the All-Camp team at BC. We're probably gonna get crushed today." The Melrose player said, "if I see them, I'll let them know." As Henry Ford said, "whether you believe you can or you can't, you're right."
Earn the right to have swagger when you walk onto the court. Stay hungry, stay humble.
Lagniappe: The biodynamic process of arm swing. Load, rotate, drive. Never stop working on fundamentals.
Steph Curry explains process in his MasterClass. Curry is one of the greatest shooters of all-time, a four-time NBA champion. He was not heavily recruited out of high school. But he persisted.
Find ways to apply his experience, if excellence is important for you.
"Being great in competition means relentlessly focusing on the small things."
"You have to get in the gym with a ball in your hands and work on your mechanics every day."
"Don't listen to what anyone says you can't do."
"You can impact people by how you approach your every day."
"How I approach basketball is how I approach everything in life."
"Coach invested in not only the basketball player but the human being...taught me...to be a leader, a man of character and value."
"How you treat your family, the decisions you make on a daily basis that people don't see, all those things make up the character of who you are."
"What makes me a great basketball player I hope would make me a great human being."
"Your state of mind is the main driving force behind your successes and your failures."
"The ones that can sustain it...and push themselves to new levels... internalize that drive."
"Your mental state...is extremely important...to staying in the moment. That's the only thing that you can control."
"I train my mind...meditation...float tanks...yoga...block out the noise as best I can."
"My family are always my voices of reason."
"Find people who are better than you."
"Seeing (NBA guys work out) that firsthand was something that changed my approach."
"What do you do with that advice and that knowledge?"
I am NOT a volleyball expert. Yet, I know that great players do not tire of working on their fundamentals.
Coach Ralph Labella used to tell players, "Entertain me and entertain your parents at the game." He taught fundamental play and wanted to see it reflected during the games.
Reading shouldn't be tedious. Reading is opportunity. Here's a tentative list of coming attractions.
Learn from volleyball experts (not I) who share their experience and expertise about the "Big Six" skills:
Serving
Passing
Setting
Attacking
Blocking
Digging
Find ways to apply knowledge.
Recommendations:
Have a notebook. It doesn't have to be fancy. A 99 cent composition book works great.
The "right way" is what YOUR coach of the moment wants. Your coach is the person to please.
Consider "why" an action works.
Ask better questions.
What do you want from your volleyball experience?
How will you improve TODAY?
What is your "All-Star" skill? What strength gets you on the court and keep you there? To play more, raise your game.
The "best" players are those who make both the team and individual teammates better.
Every position is open as Coach Scott Celli reminds you.
Remember the power of stories. Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Clay. As a young boy in Louisville, he saved money to buy a blue bicycle. In his poor neighborhood, someone stole his bicycle within a week.
As a boxer, when Ali stepped into the ring, he looked at his opponent, telling himself, "you stole my bicycle." The rest is history.
Several teams stole your bicycle last season.
Nobody takes your metaphorical bicycle and gets away with it.
'Momma said, "Don't give up. It's a little complicated."'
Tom Brady had a massive chip on his shoulder. Drafted at number 199, he never got over it, still seeking to prove himself, seven NFL championships later.
Melrose might have a respect problem in some parts. 3 losses to the number one teams in their divisions (Westborough, Newton North, Frontier) and a fourth to the #3 ranked team below. Here are the final Boston Globe volleyball rankings.
Maybe Melrose should be the "Dangerfields." They're not alone. Westborough falls in the same category as "Atlantis." The top team in the state can't even make the Globe list.
Melrose shut out both #9 Duxbury and #14 Winchester and still lands at #17. At least they moved up from #19 to #17 with a Division 2 sectional title.
Of course, it could be worse. Maxpreps.com has their proprietary system that ranked Melrose #23. Use the chip on your shoulder.
"You can do this." Every player in a strong program that makes the varsity team has the potential for excellence. Not every player can or will choose to make the sacrifices to do so.
A top ten US team (Minnesota) traveled to Japan to face Japanese college teams. They got smoked. The Japanese coach suggested they play against some high school teams. The American coach could have been insulted. But he accepted that challenge. "We went 9-4." Sacrifice is not for everyone. Neither is humility.
If you know what is required then you face choices. Is it worth it? Do I have the physical, mental, and financial resources to 'go for it'?
Some find extra meaning here. We'll see how it goes.
What's your 'ethos', your code, your "this is how I roll?" Choose excellence or something less. Alabama Coach Nick Saban says, "are you investing your time or spending it?"
Being on the team is good enough for some. Others want a bigger role. Some want to lead and find something special. "It's your choice."
A result is one of a thousand possible outcomes. Learn to 'see' possibility.
How you do anything is how you do everything.
Prioritize excellence at home, in school, and on the court.
Never regret doing your best.
Plan to improve a little each day.
Build resilience.
Notes after the McRaven video:
1. Start each day with a task completed. 2. Find someone to help you through life. 3. Respect everyone. 4. Know that life is not fair and that you will fail often. 5. Take some risks.6. Step up when times are toughest. 7. Face down the bullies. 8. Lift up the downtrodden. 9. Give people hope. 10.Never ever give up.
All opinions expressed within are solely those of the author. They don't reflect opinions of the City of Melrose, the Melrose School Department, or the Melrose High School Athletic Department.
"Comparison is the thief of joy." - Teddy Roosevelt
How would one select a historic twelve? Examination of the history of anything suffers from memory, "era effects," supporting cast effects, recency bias, anchoring, and endowment effect.
Evaluating our children subjects us to fatally flawed bias. So, I'll leave Karen and Paula out of the discussion other than saying they were part of the "First Dynasty" the threepeat of sectional championships from 2003-2005.
Any discussion of elite Melrose players starts with D2 All-Scholastic Players of the Year - Hannah Brickley, Brooke Bell, and Lily Fitzgerald.
Listing All-State players doesn't help much because there have been so many (17). Seventeen doesn't fit into twelve.
Focusing on recent years, we have the "Third Dynasty" with consecutive Final Four appearances. You never win a sectional alone although I recall Melrose nemeses like Fairhaven's Kara Charette and Medfield's Barrett sisters. Amidst recently luminaries Elena Soukos (2021) and Gia Vlajkovic (2021-2022) stand tallest.
The "Second Dynasty" featured a State Championship (2012) and a four-peat of sectionals from 2009 through 2012. It could have been longer, because Central Catholic thwarted Melrose twice in sectionals before reassigned to Division 1.
The beginning featured Hannah Brickley and her incredible run of All-State performance three years running (2007-2009). Fair or not, I view her as the "Queen of Melrose Volleyball." She was a victim of Central Catholic excellence. As was Colleen Hanscom, another player who won both volleyball and basketball sectionals as seniors, and like Hannah, earned Melrose Athletic Hall of Fame entry.
The latter stages of the "Second Dynasty" belonged to the 2012 quartet of future All-Staters - Bell, Sarah McGowan, Jill MacInnes, and Allie Nolan. That omits the up and down roster contributions from "The Great Wall" uber-blocking duo of Rachel Johnson and Kayla Wyland, the brilliant all-around play of Jen Cain who played D1 volleyball at Merrimack, or the underrated defensive excellence of Amanda Commito.
Study Amanda's defensive body of work to learn the position. She didn't get a lot of awards, but earned an ML All-Star and a state championship medal.
And that leaves us to a few deserving additional mention. Emma Randolph made it to a state final, earned All-State recognition, and led all Melrose attackers in kills - by a wide margin. Numbers matter.
Any All-Time team I'd assemble includes Victoria Crovo, the "V-Rex." Victoria, like many past 'middles', played all-around. She probably could have played middle linebacker or safety for Coach Morris, too, in her favorite sport. She embodied toughness, ferocity, and leadership. Regardless of her statistics (they're great), she'd belong on my team as a Captain.
Check out the defense at about 4:30.
This omits other All-State players and All-World teammates over two decades of observation. Even then, without watching video, you forget how terrific these players have been.
Challenge yourself to study and to learn from great players past and present.
