Remember Picasso's quote, "Good artists borrow; great artists steal." Be open to stealing and sharing the best you can find.
Tommy LaSorda used to say to us: “You have to BELIEVE that you’re the best baseball player ever, just don’t tell anyone” https://t.co/laEFjcYEqC
— Dr. Ismael Gallo DPT, MBA (@flowsdoc) May 9, 2026
When you're on MVB 26 in August, believe it's for reasons:
You earned it with your offseason work.
You earned a role at tryouts.
You own making your teammates better.
You impact winning.
You can be even better by improving every day.
You can only be as good as you believe you are. When you ace a serve into a seam, that's not luck. It's results.
Lagniappe. First, what is lagniappe? Lagniappe is "something extra" it's the thirteenth item in a baker's dozen or an extra quarter cup of sugar added by the vendor who sells you three pounds of sugar. Or it's a bonus for readers.
Coach Ellis Lane told us this using different words, "I'm pleased but I'm not satisfied."
A phrase coaches should repeat 1000x:
"Don't mistake good results for permission to abandon the process."
Develop long and short-term plans. Brad Stevens keeps a sign near his desk:
What do you want?
What's true?
How do you get there?
He also said, "Our margin for error needs to get bigger, and at the same time, I don't think we're like way far away."
Margins reflect all the inputs - skill, volleyball IQ, physicality, and resilience. All matter. Excellent teams and players are always resilient, capable of standing up in the face of adversity.
Performance can always improve. Where do the "margins show up?"
Service aces and service points. It's not enough to get it over the net. Pace, spin, and targeting work together.
Blocking the pins. More HANDS ON attacks demands better reads, reaction, and execution.
'Got to have it' attacks. Earn the privilege of "finishing time" to make winning plays in 'close and late' situations.
Do the work. Leverage workouts by practicing with teammate. Compete.
Last year MVB got valuable experience. There's a saying in sports that "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want."
Two other Stevens quotes:
"The game honors toughness." Toughness reflects volleyball competitive character. Sport allows you to perform when it counts the most.
"The magic is in the work." Nothing works unless you do. MVB student-athletes and there families are sacrificing every offseason because they care.
Lagniappe. How you do anything is how you do everything. You compete in school, at practice, in games. Embrace the spirit of competition.
Anyone can work hard, but it always comes down to your willingness to compete. pic.twitter.com/AUAlCSxLa8
— Coach AJ 🎯 Mental Fitness (@coachajkings) May 5, 2026
“Hope is not a strategy.” Everyone goes as far as the talent takes them. Skilled, athletic, and tough players can succeed without elite size. MVB 2012 was not exceptionally tall, but the pieces fit exceptionally well.
Every team enters a campaign with unanswered questsions.
Questions:
Who are the three hitters who will deliver over 550 kills?
How much development occurred in the offseason for the 10+ sophomores and juniors with a shot to be on MVB 26?
Can the pin blockers become more impactful this season?
Will the graduation of Sabine Wenzel make Melrose more diverse and less predictable offensively?
Will Sadie Smith approach or eclipse 600 assists?
Who wins the intense battle for designated servers that requires both strong serving and solid defense?
Will a blocking pair emerge to become a force that limits opponents’ outside attack?
How will the revised ML12 schedule with an in-season tournament play out?
Will “young experience” help Melrose close out the “Gotta Have It” moments?
Who makes the dynamic athletic leap as unexpected contributors?
Every season is a cliffhanger.
Lagniappe. Be able to set and attack from off the net.
"No progress occurs without change, but not all change is progress." - John Wooden
Study leadership to understand the qualities of great leaders. In Lincoln on Leadership, Donald T. Phillips explores the personal and professional character and decision-making of our 16th President.
Lincoln was an avid and curious reader. He was the only President to have a patent and met with inventors who might help win the Civil War. He believed in trial periods, in which subordinates had a chance to prove their mettle. And he recognized the importance of change and flexibility as well as stability and consistency.
The ability to change when change is necessary yet remain consistent to principles has been a staple of MVB under Coach Scott Celli.
One season, the team opened with a 6-2 and struggled to an opening match loss at Belmont. That ended that strategy at that time.
MVB has always functioned with core competencies of ball control and defense. As the game evolved, "middle dominant offense" changed to more attacks via the pins - with All-State outsides (Elena Soukos, Gia Vlajkovic, Sadie Jaggers) turning "prove it" into "do it" careers.
The best lineup finds itself on the court, although the Opening Day lineup is often not the end-of-season lineup. JV players can ascend to rotation players during the season. Underclassmen can earn playing time when they add value. Players like Gia or Alyssa DiRaffaele can find themselves in a different position in the best interests of the team.
Effective coaching considers numerous factors. Balancing stability and consistency (values, goals, and standards) with change and flexibility can mean difficult decisions and hard conversations.
Other Coach Wooden quotes include:
“Place the team above yourself always.”
“Losing yourself for the good of the group—that’s teamwork.”
“Happiness begins where selfishness ends.”
Team sports teach many lessons, primary among them, "Team first."
Lagniappe. How you speak becomes a vital part of your character and competence.
All opinions expressed within the blog are solely my own. The blog is not an official publication of any City of Melrose institution.
*Adapted from my basketball blog
Know your audience. In a book, article, or interview, you address a variety of 'constituencies'. Do you want to inform, educate, correct, raise questions, or have some other intent?
Be aware that we are always communicating with our team.
The "Bully" Pulpit
Don't be a bully. "Listen, Dummy, you have no right to criticize me or question my decisions." Remember Chuck Daly's advice, "never get in an argument with a guy who buys ink by the barrel."
You want to address the reporter's question, but not to insult either the questioner or possible targets of the question. If someone asks a "gotcha" question like, "Is it true that there's a morale problem on the team?" find a way to answer respectfully. "On any given day, in any family or organization, we have ups and downs. And we communicate about them within the family because that's what families do."
Fandom
Bobby Knight had it right, "If you listen to the fans in the stands, soon you'll be up there sitting next to them." As a messenger, don't be dismissive or question their intelligence. "It's always a difficult decision to assign minutes to a given player against a certain lineup, depending on the matchups, player strengths and limitations."
The Team
"It's true that we didn't play our best tonight. We've worked hard to prepare them to compete every night. Maybe we overworked them recently and they didn't have as much "stuffing" tonight." Rather than blame them for a lack of effort directly, you're shifting the responsibility off them and onto yourself.
Your Opponent
Give credit to the opposing team, their coaches, and their administration. "Those guys work hard, prepare hard, and competed hard in tonight's game. If we didn't play well at times, their players and scheme had a significant role."
The Volleyball Community
Every game has meaning. "When we play well and succeed, we want to understand what we did and why we won. We also want to understand where we didn't do well and find ways to be better in the future." Win or lose, engage the process of teamwork, improvement, and accountability. "We won tonight and we're pleased but we're not satisfied. We want to be harder to play against every time out."
Colin Powell shared perspective in "It Worked for Me." Here are a few of his suggestions:
1. They get to pick the question. You get to pick the answer.
2. You don't have to answer any question you don't want to.
3. Never lie...beware of being too open.
4. Never reveal private advice you have given your superiors.
5. Answers should be directed to the message you want readers/viewers to get. The interviewers are not your audience.
Stay humble and hungry, true to your purpose. We are grateful to read about the accomplishments of local student-athletes - in class, on the court, or in other extracurricular activities.
Nobody gifts you success. It’s hard, just as raising a family is hard. Be a leader. Be a mentor. Do hard well.
All opinions expressed in the blog are solely my own. The blog is not an official publication of any City of Melrose organization. *This piece is adapted from my basketball blog. AI assists are credited.
Why can we remember "art" better than "life" sometimes? What inspirational messages do you remember from your playing or coaching days?
One I remember vividly was after a two point loss to the defending state champions. Coach Ellis Lane read us the riot act for about 45 minutes. He told us that we lost because their jerseys said, "LEXINGTON..." and that "the better team lost." The message wasn't that we were losers but that we choked because we didn't believe in ourselves. He told us "WE won't lose to them again."
In the rematch, we crushed them 70-52 at their gym. You could hear a pin drop in the fourth quarter. And in the Sectional Final, we beat them in overtime in Boston Garden. Belief is powerful.
What matters more, the "professionalism" of doing everything the right way - at home, in school, on the court - or artificial injection of connection and confidence?
Coach Mike Krzyzewski of the US Men's National Team asked the team to take a moment to think about what it would be like to stand before the Olympic Final. He told them to reflect on the one person who was most responsible for helping them get to that moment. He dismissed them. When they returned to their rooms, each had their Olympic uniform laid out on their bed. Imagine that moment.
Do pregame "Pep Talks" make a difference? Here's AI input:
The concept of the "pregame speech" is a staple of sports cinema, but in reality, its effectiveness depends heavily on arousal regulation—the science of getting an athlete’s heart rate and focus into the "sweet spot" for performance.
1. The Anatomy of a Great Pep Talk
According to Motivating Language Theory (MLT), an effective talk generally balances three specific types of communication:
Direction-Giving (Uncertainty Reduction): Clarifying the plan. "We focus on the transition game; we stick to the man-to-man defense." This reduces anxiety by providing a sense of control.
Empathetic Language (The "We" Factor): Acknowledging the difficulty of the task and the bond of the team. This builds social cohesion.
Meaning-Making (The "Why"): Connecting the game to a larger purpose or legacy. This is where the "Churchill-esque" rhetoric lives.
2. Is There Evidence It Works?
The short answer is yes, but with a "decay" factor.
The Psychological Boost: Studies in the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology suggest that motivational speeches can increase self-efficacy (the belief that one can succeed). High self-efficacy is one of the strongest predictors of athletic performance.
The Physiological Response: A high-energy speech triggers the sympathetic nervous system, releasing adrenaline and increasing heart rate. For sports requiring explosive power or aggression (like football or sprinting), this "up-regulation" is beneficial.
The Over-Arousal Trap: For sports requiring fine motor skills or high concentration (like golf, archery, or even quarterbacking), an intense pep talk can actually decrease performance by causing "noise" in the nervous system and tightening muscles.
3. Sustainability of "Competitive Fury"
Competitive fury is a high-octane fuel, but it has a very small tank.
Biological Limits: The "adrenaline dump" experienced during a high-intensity speech usually lasts between 15 to 30 minutes. Once the initial surge wears off, athletes often experience a "crash" or a period of emotional exhaustion.
Cognitive Narrowing: Intense fury narrows focus. While great for running through a wall, it is terrible for making complex tactical adjustments. If a team relies solely on "fire," they often struggle in the second half when the game shifts from emotion to execution.
The "Habituation" Problem: If a coach gives a "speech of a lifetime" every Tuesday, the brain stops responding. The most sustainable performance comes from intrinsic motivation and consistent habits, not external emotional spikes.
The Verdict
The best leaders—much like Fergus Connolly might argue—don't rely on "fire and brimstone" to create fury. They use the pregame moment to operationalize wisdom: reducing the chaos of the game into 2-3 actionable cues that the team can execute even when the initial adrenaline fades.
I was never responsible for "consequential" pregame messages. What were the most memorable and meaningful messages I gave?
1. To Cecilia Kay (current A-10 player) - "You're the best player I ever coached. It's good that you're moving on to other coaches who can take you further." She became a Boston Globe and Boston Herald "Dream Team" player.
2. To an eighth grade team - "You don't play for me. Don't play for the city, your school, or your family. Play for the girls next to you."
3. After a devastating loss (as an assistant) - "That was unacceptable effort. How you play is how you live your life." About six months later a player came up to me saying, "That how you play reflects how you live you life" stuff really got to me."
4. At a breakup dinner for middle school girls (as an assistant) - "There's a famous quote from a legendary football coach (Amos Alonzo Stagg) asked about his team. "Ask me in twenty years and I'll be able to give you a better answer." So far, so good.
5. Our best player (Samantha Dewey, Richmond, A-10) was out with a family obligation and we were playing a rival in the second game of a back-to-back, having won the first by two points. I asked the girls, "Sam isn't here. Make one more play each, get one more rebound each. Do that and you succeed." A substantial underdog, we won. "One more."
Messages work when they stick. They stick when they're simple, credible, specific, and emotional.
Athletes can't fix mechanics on the fly. Game time isn't the moment to fix your hitting stance, free throw form, or your arm swing.
Quality repetitions are key to better performance. Mental repetitions also help. See yourself serving Ss - seam, spin, short, sideline, or (weak) sister.
Regardless of skill or grade level, doubt degrades performance. "Believe it and do it." Visualization and affirmations of identity and performance help.
See your pre-serve routine, your toss, contact, and follow-through into a great serve. Watching video to imprint this also offers reinforcement. Then practice purposefully.How are you doing today?
“A volleyball player has to put aside all thoughts of past failures, and trust that her next swing send a shot where he aims it. He has to develop the basketball shooters mentality.” - modified from Bob Rotella
The same principles apply for attack, block, receive, and setting. Believe it, see it, and do it.
“You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” — James Clear
The off-season is the best season - a time to build habits that separate dreamers from doers. Improvement happens not by accident but by design.
SMART goals give you that design: Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, and Time-bound.
Let’s break down how volleyball players - or any athlete - can use this framework to improve skill, strength, and mindset. Keep your plan in your notebook. Document and monitor your progress.
Core: planks, side planks, dead bugs, 3×45 seconds each
Start with lower goals if needed. Specificity transforms intention into a roadmap.
M - Measurable
“Winners are trackers.” - Darren Hardy, The Compound Effect
If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Establish a baseline and a check-in schedule every 6–8 weeks.
Examples:
Spike touch: current 8′ 3″ → target 9′ 0″
Broad jump: current 6′ 6″ → target 7′ 3″
3-cone drill: current 8 sec → target 7.5 sec
Tracking keeps motivation honest and progress visible.
A - Assignable
“You own your paycheck.”
Improvement doesn’t outsource. It belongs to you.
Choose a training partner or accountability teammate to raise your consistency.
Example:
“We’ll lift Tuesdays and Fridays together. If one misses, the other texts ‘Don’t miss twice.’”
When effort becomes habit, discipline replaces motivation.
R - Realistic
“Faith and Patience flank the top of the Pyramid of Success.”
Ambition without realism breeds disappointment.
If your vertical is 12″ today, it won’t be 30″ next month. But it can be 15″ in two months, 18″ by summer, and 20″ next season.
Progress is like compound interest - slow, steady, unstoppable when consistent.
T - Time-bound
“A goal is a dream with a deadline.” - Napoleon Hill
Set a defined time frame - 8–12 weeks is ideal.
Phase 1: Establish baseline and routine (Weeks 1-4)
Phase 2: Build intensity and track progress (Weeks 5-8)
Phase 3: Re-evaluate and adjust (Weeks 9-12)
Time limits create urgency; resets create reflection.
Growth is not a straight line - it’s a cycle of revision.
Improvement isn’t random. It’s a commitment to structure, reflection, and persistence.
When you combine Specific plans, Measurable progress, Assignable responsibility, Realistic expectations, and Time-bound review - you’ve built a system, not a slogan.
MUSTS, NEEDS, WANTS. At the end of each season, former Patriots Coach Bill Parcells took out a sheet of paper and divided it into three sections - MUSTS, NEEDS, WANTS.
That's a constructive, priority-based approach.
It's not enough for many teams. Extend the framework with blended character and competence based columns - VALUES, STANDARDS, GOALS.
These are possibilities, not even suggestions. The best teams construct their own values, standards, and goals.
Control what you can control. Everyone wants health and luck (how the ball bounces, officiating), but those are beyond control.
Focus on process before results. Values come before standards. Without values, standards are seldom achieved. Without standards, goals are never achieved.
Even the best framework is only words. The best teams translate their words into actions. Actions produce results and results promote belief. Circle back to Parcells who also said, "Confidence comes from proven success."
What are your values, standards, and goals?
Lagniappe. This informs two lessons - making others better and players totally focused in the moment.
Tom Kite writes the forward to “Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect.” He shares that in the 12 years before meeting the author he won five tournaments. In the next ten years he won 14 because of a better mental approach.
He says that on the Tour, the game is 90 percent mental.
Mental strength helps you in every activity. It helps you close out sets when ahead and come back when trailing.
- Believe in yourself.
- Do not show opponents weakness
- Body language is a huge part of communication
Most people become what they believe they are. Use mental strength to become a champion.
