"A Game of Separation"

Cultivate multiple 

Kingman, Dave Kingman. He had a 16-year Major League Baseball career, hitting 442 home runs. What's not to like? During that time he had 17 "Wins above replacement" (WAR) about one a year. He struck out a lot and was a terrible fielder. He was a home run specialist. 

Contrast the WAR of the Red Sox Cedanne Rafaela (5.5) and Wilyer Abreu (5.4) with a month to go in the season. Rafaela has 13.4 career WAR and hasn't turned 26. At age 27, Abreu has 13 career WAR. 

There's value in becoming an "anti-specialist" (generalist) who adds value in multiple areas that get and keep you on the court. You don't need every skill to earn coaching trust, but you need "separating skills" for your position.

Front row players need to attack and block. The DS needs to dig, pass, serve, and make "out of system" plays. Setters must set, defend, block, and attack with "demonstrated reliability."

The anti-specialist isn't great at everything. She gives the opponent little to attack.

Imagine two outside hitters. Player A crushes the ball but struggles in serve receive, gets tooled, doesn't cover well, and is error-prone. Player B is an 'adequate' hitter but passes, serves, blocks, covers, communicates, reads well, and keeps tough balls alive. Which player adds more value over a hundred plays? 

Volleyball is good exposing weakness because opponents can choose whom and where to attack. The anti-specialist separates by hard to chase off the court. 

Consider a central coaching insight:

Availability earns opportunity. Reliability earns minutes. Versatility keeps them. 

Especially on defense, you become indispensable through consistency. Anna Burns makes plays like the "volleyball robot" - she gets to balls, makes good decisions, and passes well. Coaches don't have to think about her. Less glamorous skills but valued ones.

If you want more time, ask "What weakness could force my coach to substitute me out?" Reduce that weakness. Become the player that a team doesn't want to hide.

"Do well what you do a lot." When a team has players like that across the roster, they become a tough out. "Reliability everywhere" and "excellence somewhere" is a potent force. Separate yourself. 

Lagniappe. Standards vs rules... 

"Standards are for people who aspire to do special things. Rules are for people who can't follow directions."
-Tim Corbin

Rules create order.
Standards create separation.
The teams that do special things expect more than what is simply required. pic.twitter.com/Ukkh0pXSIQ

— The Winning Difference (@thewinningdiff1) August 31, 2026

Attitude

The best competitors carry two mindsets:

Train with the hunger of someone who has never won.

Compete with the confidence of someone who has never lost.

“I train like I’ve never won, and I compete like I’ve never lost.” - Eileen Gu 🔥 https://t.co/VCFVaRAM3r

— Greg Berge (@GregBerge) September 1, 2026

You probably know the saying, "It isn't the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."

This shows up as legacy, literature, and film. Consider:

• "David and Goliath"
• "Hoosiers" (based on a true story)
• "Rocky"
• "Million Dollar Baby"
• "GI Jane"
• "Akeelah and the Bee"
• "Hidden Figures"
• Katniss Everdeen in "The Hunger Games"

If you had a solid performance yesterday, build on it at practice today. Coach Ellis Lane always told us, "I'm pleased but I'm not satisfied." 

Compete. Be fierce. Earn the right to win. 

Radical Candor and More*

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

"Share something great." Find a great recipe, quote, movie, book, life hack, or a great play. Share relentlessly. Don Meyer was a great coach and an amazing sharer. Answered questions online...

Coach Michael Neighbors is a sharer, including many "Things I Have Stolen." 

Here's an abbreviated list from Leadership maven Jeff Janssen via Coach Neighbors.  

1. Character Based Credible Coaches are people with great character. 
2. Competent - know the strategies and skills of their sport
3. Caring - real passion for players and coaching 
4. Confidence Builder - their athletes feel good about themselves 
5. Communicator - talk and listen well 
6. Consistent - consistent philosophies and moods 

Seek to be a "better coach than I was yesterday." Strive to model excellence, "utilize strengths" and "attack weaknesses." 

When we find something that resonates for us, "steal it and make it ours." Become one of the "good guys" whose players celebrate "the team experience." 

Believe that we can teach players to defend the outside attack and to defend teammates. Believe that we can teach players to excel on the court and off the court. Believe we can teach players to care about success in basketball and in the classroom. 

There's an "inside view" from people intimately familiar with a team's process - players, coaches, selected 'advisors'. There's also the "outside view" from fans, writers, and other "backseat drivers" - some of whom have considerable expertise but incomplete information. 

Outsiders identify what they see, what could be missing (e.g. hard to defend actions, disciplined spacing, on-court communication, etc.) and will be questioned about their intent or motivation. 

Lagniappe. Use better prompts to get better coaching input from AI, here Google Gemini. 

Prompt: Coaching is about relationships, including "hard conversations." Using principles from 'radical candor' share how a coach might tactfully respond to parental concerns about their child's playing time. For example, include three dos and don'ts and realize some will not be listening...

At its core, Radical Candor is the intersection of Caring Personally and Challenging Directly. When a parent approaches a coach about playing time, the "Radical" part is being honest about the child's current skill level, while the "Candor" part is doing so without being a jerk.

Here is how to navigate those high-tension conversations using these principles.

---

The Radical Candor Approach

In this framework, silence or "sugar-coating" is considered Ruinous Empathy, which ultimately hurts the athlete because they never learn what to improve. Conversely, being blunt without empathy is Obnoxious Aggression.

Three Dos

• Do: Focus on the "Future State." Instead of justifying past benching, frame the conversation around the specific growth required to earn more time. This moves the conversation from a complaint to a roadmap.

• Do: Schedule a "Cooling Off" Window. Radical candor requires presence of mind. Implement a "24-hour rule" after games so that both parties can move out of an emotional state and into a collaborative one.

• Do: Provide Objective Benchmarks. Use data or specific technical milestones. "I care about your child’s development, and right now, their defensive rotation is at a level that limits their safety/efficacy in high-speed play."

Three Don'ts

• Don't: Discuss Other Athletes. Radical candor is about the individual relationship. Comparing a child to a teammate is a shortcut to "Obnoxious Aggression" and creates a toxic culture.

• Don't: Use the "Feedback Sandwich." (Positive-Negative-Positive). Parents often listen for the "bread" and ignore the "meat." Be direct about the performance gap immediately, then pivot to how you will support the child in closing it.

• Don't: Take it Personally. When a parent isn't "listening," they are often in a state of protective bias. Maintain your "Care Personally" stance by staying calm, even if they become confrontational.

---

Navigating the "Non-Listener"

When a parent is too emotionally invested to hear the truth, the coach must shift from feedback to boundary setting.

If the parent refuses to acknowledge the performance gap, a tactful response looks like this:

"I hear how much you want [Child's Name] to be on the field; I want that for them, too. However, my responsibility to the team and to [Child's Name]’s safety is to play those who have mastered [Specific Skill]. I am happy to keep working with them on this, but my decision on playing time stands for now. Let's touch base in two weeks to see their progress."

Summary Table: Feedback Quadrants

Quadrant	Coach's Response Style	Outcome
Radical Candor	Clear, kind, and evidence-based.	Growth and trust.
Ruinous Empathy	Avoids the truth to keep the parent happy.	Stagnation and confusion.
Obnoxious Aggression	Blunt, dismissive, or insulting.	Resentment and conflict.
Manipulative Insincerity	Passive-aggressive or talking behind backs.	Total culture breakdown.

 

Scrimmage #1 Observations

MVB 26 traveled to Lynnfield to scrimmage the always-skilled Pioneers. In addition to the thirteen returners, newcomers Mia Sasso and Lorena Contin got their varsity feet wet. 

The result was competitive, high octane volleyball unexpected in the early preseason.

Coach Scott Celli experimented with a multitude of lineups - a luxury afforded by a young but experienced lineup. 

This Is a New Year

With Sabine Wenzel now a D1 middle, the distribution of attacks changes in both direction and predictability. Opponents will not be able to "load up" anticipating a "middle-oriented" offense. 

Hit the Ground Running

Melrose's players have had only a few weeks off since the club season ended with high level experience including a roster replete with players who played at the Nationals in Indianapolis. How that translates to ML12 play remains to be seen, but there's not a lot of rust. 

Pressure Cooker

The team "played faster" and emphasized aggressive play when appropriate. 

Athletes

Sport rewards athleticism in addition to skill, volleyball IQ, and resilience. Melrose has one of its most athletic groups. 

Caveat Emptor

Buyer beware. Don't be seduced in the face of "cognitive biases." 

• Sample size - it's one game. 
• Recency bias - we focus on what we've seen lately. 
• Anchoring - players carry "reputations" which don't carry over from previous seasons. 
• Confirmation bias - we tend to read information which supports our pre-existing beliefs. 

Lagniappe. Melrose will be back at it tomorrow at practice and has a second scrimmage Wednesday, hosting North Andover. 

 

So, You've Got a Jumprope in Your Bag?

In 1972-1973, we jumped rope for five minutes as a basketball practice warm up. High school boys with a children's 'toy'. Coach Ellis Lane said, "Nobody will be in better condition than you are." Can you jump rope for five continuous minutes?  

Learning Tips

MVB has a tradition of academic excellence dating back three decades. Anyone can learn better by applying proven techniques.

You could take the free Coursera "Learning How to Learn" course or you could use AI as a tutor. 

 

View on Threads

This thread includes:

1) Self-testing

2) Spaced repetition

3) Feynman technique

Whether it's learning footwork or French, platform or physics, use proven study techniques to raise your game. 

Lagniappe. Repost. Don't get caught "late" to the armswing during your approach. 

"Yes...And" (Volleyball is Improv)

The participants in Adam Grant's podcast argue that improv makes life better.

They say that your job is to make the other people funny. Just as in volleyball, your job is to make your teammates better.

What's an overarching lesson connecting improve and volleyball? 

The game is not scripted. Preparation is.

After the serve, responders improvise on both teams. What percent of the game is improvisation? That's hard to know...anything instinctive is. 

I asked ChatGPT to help on this on. It did. There's room for commentary.

Prepare to improvise. Improv isn't the absence of preparation. Good improvisers have accumulated patterns, structures and experiences that allow them to respond quickly. That's exactly your chess “chunking” idea. A coach can't anticipate every situation, but can build a large enough library that fewer situations are genuinely new. You don't prepare the answer; you prepare yourself to find the answer. 

Emma Desmond chases down a ball and rescues it and Chloe Gentile improvises a tip winner. 

“Yes, and” beats “No, but.” The fundamental improv principle is accepting what your partner gives you and building upon it. In coaching, reality is your scene partner: your setter is struggling, the opponent has changed defenses, the official is calling the match tightly. Accept the new reality first. Then add the solution. Arguing with reality wastes possessions.

Resilience means constructive response. In the heat of the match, the best response is almost always, "Reset. Next play." Don't let a single cut lead into a blood transfusion from a series of cuts.

Listen to understand what happens next. Weak improvisers are planning their next line while somebody else is speaking. Weak players do the sporting equivalent: they decide what they're going to do before reading the play. Great players see → interpret → respond. That is essentially the foundation of your volleyball reading work.

Good players become excellent players by reading the play to anticipate what comes next. Excellent players will try to disguise their intention. 

If a serve leads to a difficult pass or out-of-system pass from zone 6, it's unlikely that the passer can create a middle attack. Read early to see the pin attack. 

Make your teammates look good. Improv collapses when everyone is trying to deliver the funniest line. Sport collapses when everyone wants to make the winning play. The best improviser gives teammates something they can use. In basketball: make the simple pass. In volleyball: give the setter a playable ball. Great teammates improve everybody else's options.

Whether you're outside or middle, you won't get every set and you don't want that because the defense will make your life harder. 

Mistakes are information, not endings. An improv scene can't stop because somebody delivered a bad line. The performers incorporate it and continue. That's NEXT PLAY in athletic language. The question isn't “Why did that happen?” during competition. It's “Given that it happened, what do we do now?” Reflection comes later.

After a "mistake" it's either, "Next play" or "reset and keep this point alive." In League of Our Own, Tom Hanks says, "There's no crying in baseball." Feel sorry for ourselves on our own time, not during a match.  

Constraints can increase creativity. This is counterintuitive but important. Improv performers aren't helped by infinite possibilities; rules and structures narrow the search space. Sport does the same thing. “We're running pick-and-roll until they stop it” reduces cognitive load. Your principles and systems don't suppress improvisation; they create the boundaries within which intelligent improvisation becomes possible.

Sabine is in East Texas, not Melrose. That allows for a more diversified and less predictable offense. Sometimes less becomes more.  

Don't confuse control with leadership. Coaches naturally want control. Games relentlessly remove it. You can't control officiating, injuries, opponent adjustments, bad bounces or whether your best player has her A-game. You can influence the team's response. That's a profound distinction: coaching isn't scripting what happens; it's preparing people who can respond when the script disappears.

The game is for the players. Coach Celli can't think for everyone. Read the play and make the best decision available. Pro sports sees change in acronyms:

NBA = next best answer

NFL = not for long 

Psychological safety enables improvisation. Players who fear mistakes become cautious. They stop experimenting, communicating and solving problems. An improv troupe needs enough trust for someone to offer an idea without knowing whether it will work. Teams do too. That doesn't mean eliminating accountability. It means players understand: a good decision that fails is different from a bad decision. Coaches who punish both eventually create players who wait for instructions.

You may have heard the expression, "Don't be a robot." Robots are improving fast, but there's no robot volleyball team yet...  

Practice

"Practice is process."

MVB 26 prepares for the first scrimmage tomorrow against Lynnfield at 5:00 P.M. at the Huckleberry School.

What are the hallmarks of MVB practice? 

Attention to detail

Practice specific skills.

Play with purpose - be intentional. 

Accountability 

Reinforce playing the right way regardless of outcome.

Correct when necessary.

Positivity 

Praise the praiseworthy.

Create and maintain a 'safe space' for mistakes.

Everyone won't he happy all the time. That's the nature of sports. But the process runs with consistency and integrity.

Lagniappe. Another good day for Sabine... (via AI):

Sabine Wenzel had another strong match, particularly at the net defensively.

East Texas A&M beat ULM 3–2 (25–19, 25–19, 20–25, 21–25, 15–13), improving to 2–1. Sabine's line was 11 kills, 4 errors, 24 attempts, .292 hitting, 2 solo blocks + 6 block assists = 8 total blocks, 16 points. She led the entire match with those 8 blocks and was third on East Texas A&M with 11 kills.

Through her first three Division I matches, her offensive totals are now:

Match	K	E	TA	Hit %	Blocks
Texas Southern	8	1	14	.500	1
Southern Illinois	12	1	22	.500	3
ULM	11	4	24	.292	8
Total	31	6	60	.417	12

So her season hitting percentage is now .417: (31−6)/60.

What impresses me most today isn't the .292. That's a perfectly good number after the almost unsustainable .500/.500 opening. It's the eight blocks in five sets. The official box has her with two solos and six assists, accounting for 8 of East Texas A&M's 10 team blocks.

For a freshman middle after opening weekend:

31 kills — .417 hitting — 12 blocks — team 2–1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scrimmage Monday at Lynnfield - Huckleberry Hill School (5 PM)

Melrose starts the exhibition season off Monday with a road tilt versus Lynnfield, a perennial contender, at 5 PM at the Huckleberry Hill School.

Coach Scott Celli has emphasized the importance of scrimmages to sort out lineups and playing time when the regular season starts on September 8th. 

 

Sports Concept: "No One Is Coming to Save You"

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Enough. You are enough.

Sport challenges you every day - opponents, fatigue, uncertainty.

You start the preseason scrimmages Monday (Lynnfield 5 PM unless I hear otherwise).

Focus. Be present. Compete. You are enough.  

Creativity

Volleyball is a thinking person's sport. It requires spatial awareness, understanding geometry, angles, and split-second vision, decisions, and execution.

Here's a play from Brooke Bell during the magical 2012 season. It's not solely the execution but reading the defense before the play is made.  

We Are All Misaeng (Incomplete)

I’m a Thursday’s child. The saying “Thursday’s child has far to go” can point toward achievement, growth, or the ongoing need for improvement.

1. competence precedes confidence

Bill Parcells said, “Confidence comes from proven success.” It can’t be manufactured or sold. It must be earned.

2. every task matters

Every day is showtime. Show up and bring receipts. The court is a laboratory; practice is an experiment. Excellence begins with ordinary work done extraordinarily well.

3. character is revealed under pressure

How we perform under stress defines us as parents, workers, and students.

4. separate the person from the performance

Athletes make mistakes and coaches make poor decisions, but neither makes them bad people. Coaches who say “You’re worthless” reveal more about themselves than the player. Great coaches critique behaviors, not identities.

5. a title creates authority, not value

A title doesn’t create value or earn respect. Leadership, compassion, and wisdom aren’t bestowed by titles. Authority differs from behavior, judgment, and wisdom.

6. teach judgment, not dependence

Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg reportedly said, “Ask me in twenty years and I’ll be able to give you a better answer.” Leaders make leaders. Judge coaches by the people who emerge from their program.

7. teams succeed through complementary strengths

Seek contribution, not recognition. Game‑day performance reflects people, strategy, and execution—much shaped in practice. Reserves and assistants are vital. Leaders who claim credit and distribute blame don’t understand leadership.

8. quiet consistency beats loud talent

“An empty barrel makes the most noise.” Flowing water carves canyons through relentlessness, not force. Bring consistency every day.

9. preparation is an act of respect

Listening respects others. Embracing coaching respects the time, experience, and knowledge of teachers and mentors.

10. integrity has compound interest

A 1% daily improvement becomes more than 37 times better over a year. Small gains accumulate. The chessboard and grain‑of‑rice story illustrates exponential growth.

11. the best leaders absorb pressure

“Pressure is a privilege.” Weak teams never feel pressure because expectations are low. Strong teams earn meaningful games.

12. learn before demanding recognition

“The best way to get respect is to give it.” Loud critics often haven’t won the most. Credibility comes first.

13. there is courage in perseverance

Do not quit. Sometimes courage is quiet persistence despite adversity or uncertainty.

14. every move matters

Baduk (Go) teaches that victories come from hundreds of small, seemingly insignificant moves. Attention to detail separates excellence.

15. reflection improves decisions

Clear your head. Take a breath. Create cognitive space. Leaders pause and think.

16. organizations have two structures

Life and coaching revolve around relationships. We have organizational charts and relationship charts. Ignoring either creates blind spots.

17. every person wants to matter

Everyone wants to be seen, heard, and valued. Two coaching reminders stand out: “Never be a child’s last coach” and “How does it feel to play for me?”

18. reputation is accumulated, not announced

Trust is earned through repeated actions. Playing time isn’t earned through speeches or gestures—only reliability.

19. the road is made by walking

A road is created by those who keep walking. Footwork, platform skills, service, blocking, and more are built through repetition. You construct them one day at a time.

20. we are all misaeng

In Go, misaeng means an incomplete life or unsettled group - not yet secure, not yet fully alive. None of us is finished. We are all becoming. 

Lagniappe. Improving. 

Be Specific

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A post shared by Coach Riley -Hacks, Habits & Motivation for Student Athletes (@6am_practice)

Energy

Many Melrose players brought energy and energized others. Elena Soukos is one who immediately comes to mind. 

Communication

Maggie Turner was the "mouth that roared" as an accomplished defender and "The Voice" on the court. 

Ownership

Own the responsibility as a contributor and leader. Dr. Victoria Crovo represents a shining example.

Celebration

It's tough to identify one player who was the biggest cheerleader. Adele Akland is one who always "showed up" for the team. 

Contribution without "the biggest numbers" - Underrated

The 2012 team had players who shined from the shadows. Some contributed with exceptional team play and deserve recognition - Jen Cain, Rachel Johnson, and Amanda Commito. 

Amanda didn't try to make perfect passes. Good passes allow setters to prosper. Notice how many were high, middle of the court, at the ten-foot line, perfect for Brooke to set. 

You're Part of MVB 26. What Now?

Congratulations. You're on the 'box score'. Now come the hard questions that you have to answer.

1. What gets you and keeps you on the court?

2. How do you make the team better?

3. How do you make the girl "one pass away" better? 

4. How do you impact winning?

5. What specifically can you do to earn the coaches' trust?

There's no 'secret sauce' but pathways exist.

Intangibles (hard to measure but real qualities) 

• Connection (teamwork)
• Coachability
• Communication (talk)
• Effort - practice is the bank where you make deposits
• Toughness - resilience under stress
• Leadership (do the right things, the right way, as much as possible)

Execution

• Good decisions (volleyball IQ)
• Playmaking (relative to your position - serve, receive, attack, set, block, pass)
• Results (keeping the ball up, putting the ball down)

If a coach approaches you at practice today and asks "how can you contribute today, this week, this season?," provide an answer because you've thought about it. 

• 
  

Sabine with an Excellent Debut

Via AI: 

Sabine Wenzel had a terrific Division I debut last night for East Texas A&M. The freshman middle from Melrose wasn't merely given a few introductory rotations—she was a meaningful part of the offense in a 3–0 season-opening sweep of Texas Southern, 25–20, 25–16, 25–9.

Wenzel's line

8 kills | 14 attacks | 1 error | .500 hitting percentage | 1 block

That made her second on the team in kills, behind senior Ariana Brown's 14. East Texas A&M specifically noted Wenzel's kills during the Lions' second-set surge and again as they pulled away in the third. She was one of three players making their Lion debuts.

For a freshman middle, 8 kills at .500 in her first college match is about as encouraging a debut as you could reasonably ask for. The efficiency particularly catches my eye. Fourteen swings means she wasn't just an occasional front-row substitute; the setters were willing to involve her.

There is also a nice connection to what coach Joe Morales said when he signed her. He specifically cited her 6'6" length, blocking, lateral movement and ability to attack off one foot behind the setter, calling that slide attack perhaps her best offensive trait.

And remember the transition she's making. She's gone from being the 2025 Middlesex League MVP and Melrose's single-season kills record holder (369) to Division I volleyball, where virtually everybody was an accomplished high-school player.

So my first-game scouting interpretation would be:

The most important number isn't eight. It's .500.

A freshman middle getting 14 opportunities and converting eight of them suggests she is already earning setter trust and can translate her physical advantages to the college game. The one block is less revealing from a single match; college blocking—reading faster setters, closing seams, handling tempo—is often where a young middle has the steepest learning curve.

And there is another encouraging sign: East Texas A&M hit .458 as a team in the third set. Wenzel was participating in an offense that became increasingly efficient as the match progressed.

She gets a substantially better measuring stick today at 4 p.m. against Southern Illinois in the Lion Invitational.

For someone coming directly out of the Melrose program, 8-for-14/.500 in her first Division I match is a heck of a first entry on the résumé. 

Academics of Positive Psychology

This is an AI "call" (prompt) and "response" (hallucination). 

Prompt: I'm a believer in the value of relentless positive psychology...from "The Positive Dog" to positive self-talk and highlights in the "Jason Selk 10-Minute Toughness" mode. Maybe it feels like overkill sometimes. Share five principles from academic research supporting this approach.

Response: Yes. There is good academic support for the core of what you're doing, with one important qualification: the evidence supports trained, credible positivity, not indiscriminate praise or pretending failure didn't happen.

Five principles stand out.

1. Self-talk changes performance—not merely mood. A meta-analysis of 32 sport studies found a moderate positive effect (ES ≈ .48) of self-talk interventions on performance. Importantly, trained self-talk worked better than simply telling athletes to use self-talk. Instructional cues were especially effective for fine/novel skills.

That supports short, rehearsed phrases such as “see the ball,” “next play,” “high hands,” “I can do this” rather than hoping athletes spontaneously think productively.

2. Confidence and performance reinforce one another. Bandura's self-efficacy concept has considerable empirical support in sport. One meta-analysis found about a .38 correlation between self-efficacy and performance; a more recent sport-specific analysis found a moderate relationship around r=.31, stronger among elite athletes.

That's where your emphasis on highlights becomes interesting. Repeatedly recalling successful execution isn't empty affirmation. It supplies mastery evidence: I've done this before. Selk's success-memory component therefore has a plausible mechanism.

“I've made this serve under pressure before.” → evidence-based confidence.

The second is considerably more powerful.

3. Mental rehearsal is actual training. Imagery isn't mystical. A 2025 meta-analysis covering 86 studies and 3,593 athletes found that imagery practice improved athletic performance, with combinations of imagery and other psychological skills outperforming imagery alone. Interestingly, roughly ten-minute imagery sessions emerged as a particularly useful dosage.

That fits 10-Minute Toughness remarkably well:

remember success → visualize desired execution → attach a cue → perform.

The athlete is building accessible neural/perceptual templates before needing them under pressure.

4. Positive emotion broadens the solution space; threat narrows it. Barbara Fredrickson's broaden-and-build work proposes that positive emotions broaden attention and behavioral possibilities, whereas negative/threat states tend to narrow them. Positive emotion has also been associated with faster recovery following negative emotional activation and greater resilience.

I think this has particular importance in open-skill sports.

A frightened volleyball player thinks:

Don't miss.

A confident player can think:

Where is the seam? What's the setter showing? Where is the block?

One mind is occupied with avoiding failure. The other has bandwidth available for reading and solving.

5. Psychological skills work best as skills—not slogans. This may be the strongest academic validation of your approach. A meta-analysis of controlled sport interventions found an overall moderate performance benefit (g≈.57). Another large 2024 review found promising effects for psychological-skills training, mindfulness/acceptance and imagery, although sensitivity analyses showed that the evidence becomes less certain when weaker studies are excluded. And a very recent 2026 umbrella review similarly concludes that psychological-skills training probably helps, while emphasizing that the overall evidence quality remains uneven.

That caveat matters.

Advocate for relentless constructive psychology.

Those aren't quite the same.

A ball hit out is out. A player who isn't communicating isn't communicating. Poor preparation shouldn't be reframed as excellent preparation. In fact, even positive-psychology researchers have cautioned that some negative affect is adaptive.

The coaching sequence becomes:

Truth → interpretation → response.

“You missed that serve.” Truth.

“That doesn't mean you're a bad server.” Interpretation.

“Reset, visualize the target, breathe, attack the next one.” Response.

That is psychologically positive without becoming psychologically dishonest.

And I think it connects several things you've been working on lately—G.A.B., Auriemma's contribution principle, McCaw, gratitude, and even improv. The common denominator isn't happiness.

It's keeping the athlete's mind in a state where she can still solve the next problem.

Perhaps the simplest coaching formulation is:

Positive psychology isn't about making athletes feel good.It's about helping athletes think usefully. 

Make focus a superpower, helping you to read, react, and execute, play after play.