Learning the Ropes

As high school basketball players, we jumped rope for five minutes to start practice. As the video informs, rope jumping increases coordination, endurance, leg and ankle strength.

It requires no complicated equipment, no teammates, and little space. Jump ropes are inexpensive and add value for your training. 

Lagniappe. Here's a one paragraph ChatGPT Plus summary of Pete Carroll's philosophy on competition. 

Pete Carroll believes competition is not something reserved for game day — it is the engine of daily growth. His philosophy centers on creating an environment where players constantly “compete to become their best,” with energy, enthusiasm, accountability, and psychological safety. Carroll emphasizes that true competition is not about fear or humiliation, but about bringing out maximum effort and continual improvement through challenge. Every rep matters. Positions are earned daily, not protected by status or seniority. Applied to volleyball, Carroll’s approach would mean creating a gym culture where athletes compete relentlessly in serve-receive, transition play, communication, conditioning, and problem-solving while still supporting teammates. Competition becomes developmental rather than threatening. The goal is not merely to identify the best players, but to elevate the entire level of the gym by making improvement visible, measurable, and constant.

 

Forge Identity Throughout Every Day of Competition

"Good artists borrow; great artists steal." - Picasso

Coach Steve Collins asks a great question. Everybody says "we're about mental toughness, execution, and identity." But are we? 

When the game is on the line, what behaviors show up? 

• Quality shots or "me, too" shots 
• Intensity or submaximal defensive effort 
• "The ball is gold" or turnovers
• Locked in mindset or mental mistakes (e.g. missed assignments)
• Toughness or wilting under pressure

Sustaining Excellence

A more inclusive question is do our teams sustain focus, intensity, and discipline throughout the entirety of practice? 

• Who's "all in" as "full tilt, full time?" 
• "Who cheats the drill?"
• "Who is coachable, working to follow directions?"
• Who are the alphas dragging everyone higher? 
• Do we have that "foxhole mentality" that binds us inseparably? 

End State or End of Practice?

In military operations (or ideally in any project), both leaders and followers should have clarity on "how the end will look." Initial operations often be met with resistance or delay ("the enemy gets a vote"). Operators need to have "Commander's Intent" about "intermediate steps." 

Clarity of Vision and Purpose

Teams reflect the personality, teaching, and effectiveness of leadership. 

Clear philosophy is necessary. Belichickian principles are clear:

1. Know your job.
2. Do your job. 
3. Work hard. 
4. Put the team first. 

Gen Z Asks "Why?"

• "Win this possession." Each game is a sum of individual actions.
• "Play harder for longer." Finish stronger than opponents.
• "Specials" - with players physically and mentally tired, we finished practice with "Specials" also known as "O-D-O" or "Three possession games." Each O-D-O would start with a BOB, SLOB, ATO, or free throw. Players understood that to succeed in highly contested games (close and late), they needed good decisions and execution. Volleyball can be the same way, starting at "23-23" or trailing "21-23." 

Lagniappe. "Soft skills" aren't soft. 

St Joseph's head coach Steve Donahue breaks down the intricacies of how they develop the "soft skills" throughout practices.

Catch his return to The Basketball Podcast:https://t.co/RpScld3B3Z pic.twitter.com/M7JtVWHTm3

— Chris Oliver (@BBallImmersion) May 15, 2026

 

Get More Ups

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How are you working on your legs? Exercises to consider after warming up:

Pogos into higher intensity pogos

Bounds

Skater jumps

Serial broad jumps (sets of three)

Box jumps 

Tuck jumps

Hurdle jumps (low hurdles - front and side to side)

Calf raises (only about 15-20 percent of jump force)

Jumping rope - 

• Timeline: Improvements usually appear within 6–8 weeks of consistent, high-intensity training, though results depend on individual fitness levels and complementary strength work.

Punch Lines

All opinions expressed in the blog are solely my own. The blog is not an official publication of any City of Melrose organization. 

Toughness is a skill that transfers to school, business, and sports. Develop stories for complex situations. When possible, steal lines where appropriate.

A group's woman leader was in trouble. Her assistants discussed the situation.

Person A: "I suppose the right thing to do in this situation is stay out of it."

Person B: "So, what's your idea?" 

Sometimes a team struggles. Brad Stevens asks, "What does my team need now?" In Upton Sinclair's classic, The Jungle, the hero's answer for everything was "I will work harder." That's wearing 'blinders'. A good answer comes from the East:

"Chop wood, carry water." Stick to the fundamentals. Excellence follows doing the ordinary with extraordinary consistency. 

Charlie Jones covered the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta - rowing, canoeing, and kayaking. With the distant venue he felt left out. He learned how the Olympic crew team ignored factors like rain or water conditions. An oarsman's quote became the title of his book, "That's outside my boat." Take care of your business within the team. Some say, "Keep your cards close to the vest."

Coaches care about everyone on the team. That doesn't mean that they treat every player exactly the same. Red Auerbach made an agreement with legendary Bill Russell that Red could yell at him at practice. Russell also could take a practice off when he needed to. Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said it another way, "There is always a pecking order."

Bruce Jenner won the Olympic gold medal in decathlon in 1976, setting a World Record. During Pulmonary medical training, instructors taught us the elements of the "Bruce Jenner Protocol," what it takes to be your best. 

• Exercise (training) 
• Rest (sleep and recovery)
• Nutrition (protein) 
• Medication (or supplements)
• Motivation (Gold Medal or other reason to achieve)

Former five time NBA Champion coach Gregg Popovich discussed the metaphor of breaking a giant rock. He said that it might take a hundred hits before the boulder split. He explained to players, "You can't skip steps" and "pound the rock."

Gino Auriemma's future "four-peat" National Champions (UCONN Women's basketball) started practice with two laps around the Gampel Pavilion. Every player navigated the full perimeter of the court without stepping within the boundaries. The unspoken message was clear, "Champions don't cut corners." 

Simplicity rules. Years ago we attended a Celtics' practice at the Waltham training center. Brad Stevens spoke with Ellen, who explained that she was a rocket scientist. Stevens explained, "Well, basketball isn't rocket science." Keep decisions simple whenever possible because although a thinking person's sport, keep it simple. 

Comebacks. Unfair criticism is...well, unfair. Remember this. "Dogs don't bark at parked cars."

Lagniappe. Learning is vital. 

“Don't be on your deathbed someday, having squandered your one chance at life, full of regret because you pursued little distractions instead of big dreams.” - Derek Sivers

Lagniappe 2. Defensive tips.

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Volleyball and Life Skills

What can volleyball teach you? Ask yourself.

Recently Englishman Aaron Rai won the PGA Championship. Opponents describe him as one of the "best human beings on the Tour."

When asked about what golf means to him he explained:

1) Humility 

A great quote about humility is "not thinking less of yourself, but thinking less about yourself." Ego is not your friend. Rai uses covers for both his woods and his irons. Some say that his equipment is the oldest on the Tour. He has enormous respect for his family, who sacrificed to help him play the game he loves. 

2) Discipline 

Discipline includes creating a process and sticking to it. Nick Saban might say it means doing what you need to when don't want to and avoiding doing what you want to do when you know you shouldn't. 

Discipline allows an attitude of "get to" not "have to." 

3) Work ethic 

The only place that results come before work is in the dictionary.

These values work for you at home, in school, and in extracurricular activities. "How you do anything is how you do everything." 

I asked ChatGPT Plus what life skills emerge from volleyball:

Volleyball teaches an unusual combination of:

• accountability,
• resilience,
• communication,
• and interdependence.

Few sports expose individual mistakes more publicly while simultaneously requiring constant teamwork.

That tension creates powerful life lessons.

1. Accountability

In volleyball, errors are visible and immediate:

• missed serve,
• shanked pass,
• net violation,
• poor communication.

There is nowhere to hide.

Players learn:

• own mistakes,
• reset quickly,
• and move to the next point.

That is a valuable life skill:
responding constructively instead of defensively.

2. Communication

Volleyball punishes silence.

Great teams communicate:

• early,
• loudly,
• often.

Players learn:

• clarity,
• eye contact,
• leadership,
• emotional tone,
• and trust.

Many young athletes become more confident communicators because volleyball demands it repeatedly under pressure.

3. Resilience

Volleyball is emotionally volatile:

• momentum swings,
• streak scoring,
• long rallies,
• rapid reversals.

A team can dominate one moment and unravel the next.

Players learn:

• emotional regulation,
• short memory,
• composure under stress,
• and recovery after failure.

The next ball always comes.

4. Team-first mentality

Unlike sports where one athlete can monopolize the ball, volleyball structurally requires cooperation:

• pass,
• set,
• attack.

Success depends on sequence and connection.

Even stars depend on teammates.

That teaches:

• trust,
• sacrifice,
• role acceptance,
• and appreciation for unseen contributions.

5. Adaptability

Volleyball is a problem-solving sport:

• reading hitters,
• adjusting blocking angles,
• serve-receive decisions,
• defensive positioning,
• exploiting matchups.

Conditions change constantly.

Players develop:

• pattern recognition,
• anticipation,
• and decision-making under uncertainty.

6. Handling pressure publicly

Serving at 24–24 teaches something real about pressure.

Everyone is watching.
There is no clock to drain.
No hiding in motion.

Players learn:

• preparation,
• routine,
• breathing,
• focus,
• and courage under scrutiny.

Those skills transfer well beyond sports.

7. Delayed gratification

Improvement in volleyball is often incremental:

• hundreds of reps,
• footwork refinement,
• platform angles,
• timing,
• reading.

Players discover:

• mastery takes time,
• habits matter,
• and progress compounds slowly.

That lesson applies to:

• academics,
• careers,
• relationships,
• leadership,
• and personal growth.

8. Leadership

Volleyball naturally creates distributed leadership:

• captains,
• emotional stabilizers,
• communicators,
• energy-setters,
• problem-solvers.

Leadership becomes behavioral rather than positional.

Players learn:

• influence,
• accountability,
• empathy,
• and consistency.

9. Self-awareness

Volleyball provides relentless feedback.

Players learn:

• strengths,
• limitations,
• tendencies,
• emotional triggers,
• and preparation habits.

The sport encourages reflection because success depends heavily on adjustment.

10. Confidence through evidence

Volleyball exposes empty confidence quickly.

Real confidence grows from:

• preparation,
• repetition,
• competence,
• and reliability.

Players learn:
confidence is earned behavior.

11. Responding to adversity

Bad calls.
Bad bounces.
Bad rotations.
Bad matches.

Volleyball teaches:

• control what you can control,
• adapt quickly,
• avoid emotional spirals,
• and compete anyway.

That Stoic element is one reason the sport develops maturity.

12. The value of connection

Perhaps most importantly:
volleyball teaches people to function as part of something larger than themselves.

The best teams:

• celebrate others,
• cover for mistakes,
• share pressure,
• and create collective energy.

That lesson extends far beyond athletics.

In many ways volleyball becomes a classroom for:

• communication,
• emotional intelligence,
• resilience,
• and shared responsibility.

Or in simpler coaching language:

Volleyball teaches people how to respond when things are difficult, visible, fast, emotional, and shared.

Focus on the process. Connect with teammates. Be accountable. 

Lagniappe. Sport has "games within games." In baseball or softball, pitch sequencing creates indecision. In football, teams vary the number, direction, and angles of pass rushers to confuse the offense. In basketball, ball, shot, and movement fakes create defensive indecision. Volleyball has its own nuances. 

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Sow Better Questions to Reap Better Answers

Coaches famously ask, "Do I have to think for everyone?" What they want are players who can function as a coach on the floor.

Ask some better questions to improve yourself and your team.  

SERVING

• What alternatives exist to increase service points?
• What percentage of aces would you consider good? 
• What is the benefit/risk ratio that accompanies a higher percentage of aces? 

PLAYING TIME

• What factors increase or decrease playing time? 
• What will earn you more minutes and role? "My MVB skill is ______"
• How can you make players around you better? 

IMPROVEMENT

• What are you doing to improve today? 
• When you watch video of yourself, what are you studying? 
• What's your physical training plan? Do you track it? 

TEAMWORK

• What makes a good teammate? 
• How are you a good teammate? Track opportunities and responses.
• Who was the best teammate you ever played with? 

"NOTHING TO SEE HERE"

• What does a team need that isn't visible? 
• What "factors" don't show up when teams are not succeeding? 
• As a player, what do you want most from your assistant coaches? 

SELF-CARE

• What are you doing before practice/games to prepare? 
• What are you doing during practice/games for self-management? 
• What are you doing after practice/games as self-care? 

Lagniappe. Figure out something that works. Here's a possibility:

 

Lagniappe 2. Dig it. 

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Proper Kneepad Positioning

This sounds right.  

"The Sweet Spot: Most volleyball players wear their knee pads positioned just below the kneecap (on the upper shins). This protects the area that makes initial contact with the floor during proper diving and sliding, rather than the patella itself."

Don't be bound by convention. Wear protective equipment in the way that it functions best for you. 

"Dink and Dunk"

Learn across disciplines. One of my favorite sports books is Dr. Bob Rotella's Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect. Rotella simplifies the game to:

• Think well.
• Manage the course.
• Put the ball in the hole.

He explains how one of his mentees on the PGA Tour was lamenting shooting a 73, which is not 'winning golf'. Rotella broke down the round for the "big hitter." 50 of the 73 shots were wedges and puts. The saying, "drive for show and putt for dough" didn't arise in a vacuum.

Yes, it has been exciting to watch high velocity hitting over the years. But success follows Rotella's principles - think well, choose your shots, and put the ball down. A smash into the net, into hands, or outside the court doesn't score points. 

Let's examine some clips from old video against Lincoln-Sudbury:

Win battles at the net. Sarah McGowan was about 5'9" but often won at the net. 

McGowan managed the game with both power and craft. She elevates aggressively but doesn't assume the "hunter's attack position" and wins with a tip. 

Punish mistakes. McGowan places the overpass short for a winner with craft not velocity. 

 

Quickness eliminates opponent reaction time. 

Setter dumps are another "short game" scoring tool. 

The message is clear, "Manage the game." 

Lagniappe. Coach Jiri shows the elegance of the "power tip."

 

Parent Meetings

All opinions expressed in the blog are solely my own. The blog is not an official publication of any City of Melrose organization.  

How one coach stopped “dealing with parents” ↓

Just before winning a state title in 2016, he changed ONE sentence at parent meetings…

It completely changed his program 🧵 pic.twitter.com/tf8xWoCGIE

— CoachLync | Tools & Playbooks (@CoachLync) May 17, 2026

Most coaches have parent meetings. When I coached (Middle School Travel Basketball), I only had one parent tell me directly that he thought I was a terrible coach. I'm sure others felt that way. Never dismiss criticism out of hand...disagreement doesn't mean misinformation. 

First, I was a volunteer coach. I sponsored entry into two preseason tournaments and hosted an end of season catered gathering at our home to celebrate the experience. In other words, I invested in the program and their children because I believed in them. 

Second, I sent periodic updates to parents with "sandwich technique" - praise, then an area to improve, then praise. A player could be an excellent athlete and yet not have much aptitude for sport. 

Third, I stayed consistent with a team philosophy - teamwork, improvement, accountability. Work to become good enough to compete for a role on the varsity team as a freshman. This invariably brought young players into conflict with older players whose parents sometimes felt displaced. 

Fourth, I called it "The Prime Directive." That derived from Star Trek for older readers. Parents have the DNA of advocacy for their child. It takes a lot to put the team first, although some parents absolutely did (including some current MVB parents whose other children I coached).  

Fifth, parents sacrifice an incredible amount of time and money investing in their children's success. Youth sports has become a 40 billion dollar enterprise, high stakes with no guarantees. Few see the pot of gold at the end of a mythical rainbow. 

In other words, it's complicated. Players and families pour their hearts and souls into sport and question the value. For young (preteen) athletes, play several sports and build athleticism while having fun. Build the child up and keep the costs down. 

Sometimes you get the "special player," the once or twice in a generation player. Basketball maven Herb Welling called me and said, "You have to take care of her." 

When you invest in a player who ends up playing at a high level, you don't owe apologies to the players who didn't make the same commitment to show up twice a week for what effectively became private coaching. The player deserves the credit. But that also doesn't mean their priorities were wrong. In Stoicism, they might call that a consequence of Free Will. 

After the parents, the player's biggest booster is "Coach." And as Brad Stevens says, "Coaches get more than we give." 

Sound Bytes

Good advice crosses domains. Listen to the words of sports psychologist Dr. Bob Rotella.

1) "Look at the target, look at the ball, and swing."

2) "The best swing thought is no swing thought." 

3) "Train and trust your swing." 

Psychology doesn't replace strong "mechanics." But nobody is good enough to recalibrate their swing or their free throw mechanics during a game. 

Invest the time to refine your mechanics on the practice court or in the driveway or wherever. Watching cellphone or other game video can confirm or refute your impression about mechanics. 

Watch the Elena Soukos (outside hitter) approach:

• ample runway, well behind the 10 foot line
• three step approach
• good backswing on the approach 
• high contact which avoids the block 

Watch this clip with playback speed at 0.50 to see the approach in slower motion.

Use your "mind's eye" to see a strong approach and then train to produce something similar with your technique. 

Shakespeare and the Thucydides Trap

All opinions expressed in the blog are solely my own. The blog is not an official publication of any City of Melrose organization. 

"This above all, to thine own self be true." - Shakespeare, in Hamlet

Successful teams flourish at the intersection of stability and identity. This principle applies across domains. Unsuccessful businesses chase fads, change accountants, and may assume excessive or ill-advised debt. 

“Don’t confuse performance with identity.” Do what you do and do it better. 

Coca Cola sells beverages. Their memorable deviation - going all in on "New Coke" - was self-induced error. The standard is the standard; your brand is your brand. 

The implications of "to thine own self be true?" 

• Fundamentals are foundational. 
• Emphasize strengths and limit weaknesses.
• Compete with integrity. 
• Identity emerges from discipline.

Conversely, the Thucydides Trap occurred when Athens gained excessive power, leading Sparta to see war as inevitable. Thucydides wrote, "It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this inspired in Sparta that made war inevitable.”

In sports, programs sense vulnerability and overreact:

Challengers improve:

• recruiting or developing better,
• innovating tactically,
• developing culture,
• gaining confidence.

Vulnerability can trigger change, chasing performance and losing identity.

Fear of loss of dominance can trigger new strategies, new rotations, and deviation from proven processes.

In other words, perception can alter process.

During the rise of the New England Patriots, they faced Carolina in the Super Bowl. Bill Belichick's message was that Carolina thinks that they are the new chosen ones. He told the Patriots that they're not us. 

There's no "economic moat" surrounding a volleyball program. Public school teams ordinarily can't recruit from private or prep schools. Some sports use some legerdemain to attract AAU transfers or redshirt (wink-wink) middle schoolers. 

Stick to the process. Do it better. Do it harder. 

Lagniappe. 2018 video explains the Thucydides trap in the context of the past 500 years and possible outcomes. Within the ML12, it's admittedly a tortured analogy for "border wars." 

Lagniappe 2. The message? Assess your contact points. 

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