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."
— 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."
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.
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.
All opinions expressed in the blog are solely my own. The blog is not an official publication of any City of Melrose organization. *Adapted from my basketball blog...
*Information adapted from Amir Levine's MasterClass on connection. Although designed for "relationships," there's obvious overlap with coaching.
"Never be a child's last coach."
Everyone wants safety and security in life.
Coping strategies impact our physical and mental performance. And it's not a plea for equal playing time, but attention to psychology.
Some readers will just say, "BS, I'm out." Others seeking higher performance teams, read on.
Connection Strategies
Connection begins before we're verbal...as studies have shown parent-child interactions vary greatly during early life.
Major strategies are:
Security (about half of people)
Avoidance (a quarter)
Anxiety (another quarter)
Science: Brain volume versus energy
The brain comprises about two percent of our mass but consumes 20 percent of our energy. The brain isn't good at shifting from "vigilance" (safety) energy use to "creativity and performance" in the prefrontal cortex.
Scientists learned that test subjects perform better (consume less energy) when performing hard tasks with trusted contacts than with strangers.
Sports application: Teamwork saves energy.
Exclusion - The Cyberball Experiment
Serious adverse effects also occur with social exclusion.
Screenshot from MasterClass (highly recommended)
When one player becomes excluded, brain imaging shows enhanced areas related to pain, distress, and self-scrutiny light up. People sense loss of control and reduced self-esteem. "Why aren't they passing to me?" You're not sensitive, you're human.
Examples
It shows up with relationship changes with a new pet, a new baby, or in sports, with new teammates and role changes. Being consistent, available, and responsive reduce those feelings.
Sports: minutes or role reduction can result in players acting out.
Still Face Experiment
You can have exclusion with only two people. If a mother and baby are filmed and interacting normal, there's attention and smiling. When the mother is asked to turn around and turn back with a still face...there is a dramatic change. Distress occurs, agitation, and then crying. When the mother repeats the sequence and re-engages, distress resolves.
When coaches stop coaching a player, "putting her in the doghouse," taking away reps or playing time, the same psychological response occurs. This is the coaching version of "ghosting." The "relationship homeostasis" gets disrupted.
Sports application: Secure people do not usually "ghost." Coaches with big doghouses usually have their own issues.
The Need for Closure
This is a form of the brain trying to maintain connection. The "Need for Closure" is in a sense, a trick of our brain trying to keep a relationship alive. T. Swift sang about this:
Maintaining and Improving Connection
Author Amir Levine advises 'hyperinclusion'. Small interactions, availability, and "coaching" re-establish safety. He advises CAARP -
Levine advises forming a "Secure Village," because it's unreasonable to expect one person to meet all our emotional needs. Within a team, assistants, captains, and teammates all fill valuable roles.
Sports: Create a culture of inclusion.
Practical Strategies
Greet every player daily. Small but inclusive. This helps 'dial down' the detachment alarm system.
Explain that playing time is not equal to value. The reserve player who works to improve, competes at all times, and is never a distraction adds value.
Avoid figurative or literal 'ghosting'. Close the doghouse.
Team building activities like group reading.
Open communication lines. Reminders about networking (don't hesitate to ask for letters of recommendation).
Recognize reserves. Dean Smith made it a point to credit role players who impacted winning. Stars always get noticed.
The "safety bubble" coaches create helps our physical, immune, and emotional status by stress reduction.
As coaches, we want to either "turn off" or "turn down" the alarm system that changes in player status or relationships can project. Fear consumes bandwidth and connection frees it.
Players play best when correction does not threaten connection.
Summary:
Relationships are complex. We seek safety and security and can fall short with avoidance or anxiety.
Experiments validate this with either the Cyberball Experiment or Still Face Experiment, where figurative "ghosting" occurs.
Exclusion produces predictable angst and loss of self-esteem.
Healthier connections result in better physical and emotional health.
Relationship awareness and CARRP can "tone down" emotional alarms.
Lagniappe. (Via AI)
Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment:First published in 2010 and translated into over 42 languages, the book has sold more than 3 million copies and offers a framework for understanding why relationships succeed or fail based on three distinct attachment styles:
Secure: Individuals who are comfortable with intimacy, warm, and loving.
Anxious: Individuals who are often preoccupied with their relationships and worry about their partner’s ability to love them back.
Avoidant: Individuals who equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness.
Lagniappe 2. Set the example.
DAMIAN LILLARD ON ACCOUNTABILITY
“I make sure that I’m on time to the gym. I get there early. I make sure I’m the most coachable. That shows I am accountable for myself, now I can hold other guys accountable.”
(born roughly 1997–2012) is defined by being the first digital native generation, having grown up with ubiquitous internet, smartphones, and social media from a young age."
Apply this to our coaching:
1) "Without skill, we're a "bucket brigade" with empty buckets."
2) Strategy demands "know your job" to do your job. "We practice passing so much because excellent teams are strong passing teams."
3) Physicality (athleticism) "leverages" skill and strategy. Quickness, strength, and conditioning make everything you do more effective. Have a plan, execute your plan, track the results.
4) Psychology includes mental toughness or "resilience." Players and teams able to reach within themselves for "one more" play with the match on the line earn time on the court.
Every team has a unique lexicon, meaningful terminology. For offensive delay or 'no shot' situations we used "4" as homage to Carolina's "Four Corners" offense.
In volleyball, numerical hand signals relay plays, serve targets, defensive assignments, blocking schemes, or tactical adjustments without shouting across the court.
Different teams create unique “languages.” What matters is your system. Several conventions are common.
Here are a few typical uses:
Serve Targeting
Numbers often correspond to zones on the court.
Example:
1 = left back
5 = right back
6 = deep middle
A coach flashing “1” may mean: serve short to Zone 1.
Players need to learn terminology early to "be on the same page."
Numbers can represent shortcuts for words as well. "3" could be a shortcut for "You did well" or "2-4-3" might mean "Trust me. I believe in you. You've got this."
Lagniappe. Coach Donny discusses hand attack signals. MVB won't have all of these.
Sabine isn't walking back through those doors. Establishing offense through the middle should create more headaches for opponents. The competition for the middle slots should be fierce with an abundance of talented players with differing athletic profiles and skill sets.
Alphabetically, that includes at a minimum - Elise, Lorena, Maggie, Sabrina and anybody else available via position flexibility.
Aside from offense, one "differentiator" will arise in the ability to double block the outside. Work on your reading, footwork. athleticism, and timing.
Lagniappe. Study and refine your approach from game film.
— Coach AJ 🎯 Mental Fitness (@coachajkings) March 18, 2026
Kara Lawson said it simply: “Conflict is a pivotal part of a successful team.”
And more importantly: “You commit to one another, so when there is conflict, you can move past it.”
Conflict isn’t the problem. Unresolved conflict is.
Conflict Happens Every Day
We think of conflict as arguments. It’s not. Conflict shows up in quieter moments: “I don’t feel like doing this drill.” “I should sprint, but I won’t.”“I want playing time, but I'm not into it today." That’s conflict.
Nick Saban says it best: "The challenge is doing what you should do when you don’t want to - and not doing what you shouldn’t do when you want to."
The “Get To” Shift
Part of resolving conflict is language.
“I get to set up equipment so we start on time.”
“I get to clean up the bench because it’s our responsibility.”
“I get to practice hard because I’m part of something bigger.”
"Good artists borrow, great artists steal." - Picasso
Volleyball essence is offense that puts the ball down and defense that keeps the ball up. The synergy between blockers and defenders (see below) informs a key part of that mission. Early reads, quick reaction, and disciplined blocking inhabit the process.
There's a basketball saying, "Spacing is offense and offense is spacing." Restated, basketball offense spaces out the defense, creates separation with cutting and passing, leading to the "scoring moment."
Volleyball is similar. Spacing creates options and defense reduces spacing, compromising the opponents attack. Making a team play "out of system" is a key part of volleyball, often by making the first pass difficult.
"The foundation of consistency is a sound pre-shot routine." - Bob Rotella in "Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect"
Serving is the only part of volleyball under your complete control. Exceptional serving overlaps with golf (addressing the ball) and basketball (free throw shooting) as the pre-shot routine combines both physical and mental components.
What belongs in the pre-shot routine?
Strategy - where do I place the serve to increase the chance of scoring by putting the defense in a bad position (e.g. out of system) play.
Mental preparation - might include a deep breath (Dot b - stop and take a breath), visualization, or an affirmation ("right now" or "strike zone" or whatever)
A high toss means the ball accelerates down through contact, making consistent contact more difficult
A toss too far in front makes a net ball more likely.
Alisa has unique footwork and delivery. Notice that her toss is relatively low, which means minimal chance for "downward acceleration" that would reduce the contact "sweet spot." The serve forces a less accurate first pass which leads to out of system play.
Lagniappe. The best teams play with force. Consistency and aggressiveness are the hallmarks of excellence. Coach Scott Celli likes to say that you compete with serve and passing and win with attacking and blocking.
Footwork and passing technique are perishable skills. Spending a small amount of time reinforcing technique pays off. It's not "muscle memory." It's laying down more myelin (nerve coating) in the brain that makes the nerve input both faster and more reliable.
All opinions in the blog are solely my own. The blog is not an official publication of any City of Melrose organization.
"People by and large become what they think about themselves." = Dr. Bob Rotella in Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect
As many readers are young people, choose to become the person you want to become. Do you want to become a boss or a leader? Answering that question escapes some leaders.
Overlap can occur, but what separates leaders from bosses?
Leaders inspire as they prioritize team development. They make every decision with the best interest of the team as their "North Star." Brad Stevens says, "What does our team need now?"
They consider how planning, preparation, practice, and decisions impact both the well-being of the team and the development of individuals.
When well-done, leadership creates something that people want to become a part of. The whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts. Training and decisions become "force multipliers."
In ancient Rome, a position existed called "anteambulo," literally meaning "walking in front of." They helped smooth the path for those who followed. Another expression relates to "finding canvases for others to paint on."
In Adam Grant's book, Give and Take, he describes personal styles as givers, matchers, and takers. If you only give, you will exhaust yourselves. The people who do best are "ambitious givers."
It's not all sunshine and roses as leaders must make difficult decisions, "Sophie's Choice" and navigate hard conversations.
Developing leadership is a choice.
Lagniappe. There's no one way to teach anything. Here are some additional ideas on training serving with a wall assist.
Coach and author Kevin Eastman has a saying, "You own your paycheck." Take responsibility for the quantity and quality of your study. Eastman, former Celtics' Assistant Coach (2008 NBA Champions) and author of Why the Best Are the Best, reads at least two hours daily.
Here are some study tips:
1. Have a plan. If you don't, make one now and write it down. When you have an excellent plan, stick with it.
2. Focus. Computers don't multitask...they rapidly switch between one task and another.
3. Have a study place free from distractions. Turn off the phone, the television, or any other distractions.
4. Written notes "stick" better than typed ones.
5. Use the "Pomodoro Technique" for study, 25 minutes on and five minutes off. Focus, rest, reset.
6. Practice "spaced repetition." Repeated review of a subject (school or sports) defeats "cramming."
7. Self-test. Ask what is the message of this lesson, this chapter, this book?
8. Learn 'critical thinking'. Textbooks are written to sell in Texas. Is the truth in Texas the same as the truth in Massachusetts? The availability of original documents on the Internet allows a "granular" (detailed) look at complex subjects. If you wanted to study the origins of the Civil War, find the Declaration of Secession by the first state to secede (South Carolina). Students don't have to speculate; read the document.
9. Ask better questions. During early 2020, debate and disagree existed about the significance of COVID. As a doctor, I asked a rhetorical question, "What is the downstream consequence of epidemic deaths?" I Googled "what are the five most popular models of coffins?" One was sold out. Casket makers literally couldn't keep up with demand. The answer was self-evident.
11.Become familiar with Mental Models and Cognitive Biases. Here's an AI 'hallucination' to a prompt asking about volleyball, mental models, and confirmation bias.
An excellent review article linking these topics is "How cognitive biases affect winning probability perception in beach volleyball experts" (Ittlinger et al., 2025), published in Scientific Reports. This study combines sport psychology and informatics to analyze how optimism and confirmation bias distort elite players' perception of set-winning probabilities, leading to systematic overestimation when trailing and underestimation when leading.
Key findings include:
Confirmation Bias: In trailing scenarios, this bias amplified overestimation, causing players to underestimate their disadvantage; in leading scenarios, it improved accuracy by focusing on victory likelihood.
Strategic Implications: Biases can delay critical tactical adjustments, such as increasing serve pressure or changing defensive formations, because players perceive the game as more even than empirical data suggests.
Expert Perception: Elite beach volleyball players frequently recall rare comeback situations, reinforcing the "never give up" mentality despite statistical probabilities indicating a high likelihood of loss when significantly behind.
"Sample size" is an important mental model. "One swallow doesn't make a summer." Watching volleyball tryouts, try not to evaluate a player based on a small number of observations. "Recency bias" is a cognitive bias where recent player or performance sticks with us, good or bad.
12.Expand your learning toolbox (analogy!). Don't write papers with AI, but use AI as a study tool. Here's an example from Threads:
