Humility

Learn from other sports and the world. Here are a couple of passages from a Joe Mazzulla piece from John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal. 

“To me, the killer whale are obviously the most forceful animal in nature,” he said. “But they have the humility. They very rarely attack their prey by themselves. And so you have this concept of ‘I know I could kill you by myself, but I'm not going to do it unless I have my pod with me.’ They only attack in three and four so, like, there's a huge humility aspect to that.”

“Your mindset can't change,” Mazzulla said. “You have to understand what goes into winning and losing. You have to understand the mental toughness that goes into it, and you have to commit to the details on a daily basis.” 

Winning is winning, whether it's the NBA, corporate America, the military, school, or MVB. As Coach Saban would say, "it takes what it takes."

Five current MVB players (Leah, Maggie, Gg, Caroline, Sabine) were on the court for the last sectional championship. One of their jobs is selling MVB culture to fellow players and even JV players who move up someday. 

Never take winning for granted. Remember what went into winning in the past, how pleasing winning is and how disappointing losing feels. Be humble in victory and gracious in defeat. 

What went into winning for you? 

• Volleyball camps 
• Offseason volleyball (time and treasure)
• Summer Leagues
• Team strength and conditioning
• Individual drills and physical training
• Film study
• Post training recovery, nutrition, hydration, sleep 
• Injury recovery (sometimes)

Humility means focus on improvement, knowing you can improve. Think serving practice. What's your target zone or seam? Float serve or topspin? Is your toss reproduced allowing you consistent hitting? Make every rep count. 

It's a lot. Would you do it again to win? In a heartbeat. 

Lagniappe. Setting decisions. It's not baseball where you have to go through the whole batting order.