Don't Tell Your Coaches You Can't. Show Them You Will.

Make the players around you better. And never let people say that you can't. 

Pareto Principle and Building Your Attack

The "Pareto Principle" says that 80 percent of the benefits come from 20 percent of the effort. What's your plan to improve today? SKILL, STRATEGY, PHYSICALITY, PSYCHOLOGY. Attack your plan. Be relentless.

The most obvious need and opportunity for the 2023 version of Melrose volleyball is also one of the most coveted, the outside hitter spots. Gia Vlajkovic and Anna Shoemaker aren't walking in the MVMMS doors.

What's your "today plan?" I ask young patients, "where do you see yourself in five years?" The answers range from, "I have no idea" to "I will become the world's leading designer of _________." Whom do you think has a better chance to reach their destination? 

SKILL. "Repetition makes reputations." Great hitters have great approaches. 

Practice footwork without a gym or training facility. When you get into the gym, exploit that training. Remember the wisdom from James Kerr's Legacy, Champions do extra. 

Influence expert Dan Pink (recently profiled) says, "do five more." Read five more pages, study five more minutes, make five more calls, do five more repetitions. 

Coaches are like Santa Claus. They know whether you've been naughty or nice.

Study video. 

Watch the approach (run up), the launch, the "core/hip rotation" and arm swing in the context of the prior videos. 

Watch another attack, this time from the middle, by two time All-State hitter Sarah McGowan. Do you SEE any differences? Now focus on her core and hip rotation.

Study this sequence of Sarah McGowan highlights from the 2011 State Championship game. Study the process, the athletic explosiveness, the "quick leaper" element to her game. 

National Mentoring Month

It's easy to become jaded with the abundance of people and causes celebrated. Why not share the love? Find and become a mentor.

Here's a mentoring toolkit.

Share mentoring stories. Mentoring need not be long-term or fully appreciated. As a student in 1972, I applied to college, without money, legacy, or connections. 

Future Federal Judge A. David Mazzone, Harvard Class of 1950, was the father of one of my high school classmates. Unsolicited, Judge Mazzone advocated for me, taking me into the Harvard admissions office, leading me on a tour, introducing me to the baseball coach. I got in. 

I coached Lauren in basketball for three years in middle school. She attended Austin Prep High School, becoming an elite student and three-sport captain. One day I saw her mother at Dunkin' Donuts, asking how Lauren's college search was coming. Mary shared that Lauren dreamed of going to Annapolis. I asked whether she had a Congressional nomination (each Congressman can name two). She did not. Upon returning home, I wrote a lengthy recommendation to Congresswoman Clark, extolling Lauren's character, work ethic, and accomplishments. Lauren got the nomination, acceptance to Annapolis, and is a Naval Officer today. 

Melrose volleyball is fortunate to have exceptional leadership in Coach Scott Celli. He has brought skill to Melrose in coaching and personal growth for decades. That mentoring elevated the character, competition, and recognition of local athletes. That's mentoring worth celebrating. 

Lagniappe. Improve with practice, using a variety of drills. Find a partner and grow the skills for two. 

Selling Your Program and Yourself

 "I'm a salesman." - Chuck Daly, two time NBA Championship coach

Why should somebodies listen to this nobody? To sell better. Your "elevator pitch" is a one-minute capsule of your program, your plan to build character and competence. 

The Greeks emphasized ethos (character), logos (reason), and pathos (passion) in their stories. The Red Sox manager in 1967, Dick Williams, took a last place team to the American League pennant. "We'll win more than we'll lose." 

Being better means a relentless commitment to acting better. You are selling yourself at home, in school, on the job, online, and on the court. 

What works? Influencer Dan Pink, author of "Drive," tells us to invite collaboration...conversation to collaboration. Pink reminds us that every email is a pitch. Make them have UTILITY, adding value or CURIOSITY, what intrigues you? 

From MasterClass, Dan Pink

Make the reader feel the email must be read.

Get listeners to act. Help them know, feel, then do. 

When the facts are on our side, ask a question. "Are you better off than you were four years ago was Ronald Reagan's campaign question?" That question didn't work for Mitt Romney in 2012, four years after the global financial crisis. 

Make a one-minute "hype video" about your program. 

Tell stories using "The Pixar sequence."

From MasterClass, Dan Pink

Once upon a time a little girl dreamed of going to the Naval Academy. She tried out for a middle school team. Each practice she was the first there and last to leave. One day her coach learned about her dream. Because of that, he wrote their Congresswoman praising the player's character, achievements, and work ethic. And that girl got the Congressional nomination to Annapolis. Today, she is a naval officer. 

Coaches make dreams become reality.

Summary:

• We all sell. Sell better.
• Use character, reason, and passion.
• Invite a collaboration.
• Add value and spark curiosity.
• Ask a question if the facts are on your side.
• Make a hype video.
• Use the Pixar sequence.

Lagniappe (something extra). Somebody will earn those coveted "outside hitter" positions. Why not you? 

Lessons Learned

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

Sports teaches a lifetime of lessons. Basketball coach Chris Kreider wrote this article about what coaching taught him. 

What's a short list of important lessons I've learned? 

1. Share. Great coaches are great sharers. Phil Jackson distilled it to "basketball is sharing." A team 'works' with shared vision, shared sacrifice, and shared rewards. 

2. Add value. The best players make those around them better. That may require fewer statistical inputs from them. 

3. "Look for the helpers." Mr. Rogers said that. The harder you work, the more people go out of their way to help you. "Mentoring is the only shortcut to excellence." 

4. Sacrifice. Put the team first. Put your teammates first. Thinking less about yourself doesn't mean thinking less of yourself. 

5. Choose to be a great teammate. Drag a teammate to a higher level by practicing with them. Or be the teammate willing to be dragged higher. Be happy for everyone else's success, not just yours. 

6. Live gratitude. Take the Gratitude Challenge of nightly writing down three things we're grateful for over 21 days. Be thankful for great family, teammates, and coaching. 

7. Prioritize. Family. School. Everything else. I've heard multiple coaches say that they would never recruit a player who disrespected their parents. "There is no ability without eligibility." 

8. Simplify. "Fall in love with easy." Find ways to reduce complexity. 

9. Be positive. Shout praise and whisper criticism. Use the 'sandwich technique' to put correction between praise. How does it feel to play for me? How does it feel to be my teammate? 

10.Get feedback and "readback." Little feels worse than hearing, "I thought you said..." It's easy to ask, "what did I just say and what are we going to do? 

Lagniappe. "Don't tell me you can't. Show me you do." 

Learning Across Disciplines, Borrow from Howard Marks

Don't rediscover the wheel. Use it and learn from its developers. The best advice is seldom new.

Consider this, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." Aristotle usually gets credit, but perhaps Will Durant deserves it. 

Today, I share six quotes from investment guru Howard Marks' book, "The Most Important Thing Illuminated." Change investment to coaching or work. 

Don't get caught by, "if only." If only I studied more, practiced harder, listened to the coach. 

Don't expect magic beans. Coaches measure players looking for athleticism (cash), skill (assets), and performance (results).  
 

Other forces like attitude and short-term slumps distort value in the short term. "She had a bad game." Short-term weakness can mean opportunity. That's also counsel to beware 'sample size'. 

In most sports, teams fluctuate from highs to lows. That's true for the Patriots recently. Melrose volleyball hasn't been as susceptible to wide performance swings because of coaching stability and culture. 

It takes uncommon skill to evaluate, acquire, and train quality players (e.g. assets) over long periods. 

 Coaches have 'sharp pencils' when evaluating talent. Spotting size and athleticism are easier than identifying will and persistence to transform potential into performance. As an example, Coach Scott Celli recognized Rachel Johnson's aptitude for blocking early on. She became a critical member of teams that won multiple sectional titles and a state championship. 

I've asked Coach Celli how long it can take to identify the next new thing. Once he told me about a player, "five minutes." 

Lagniappe. Ball skills are perishable. Train to maintain and build skills. 

Putting Together a Team Shouldn't Be "Pub Talk"

Study thinkers in sport like cricket's Ed Smith, selector of the English national team from 2018-2021.  "Innovation begins with a simple insight." He argues, "There is value to skepticism." 

Selection shouldn't be "pub talk," as in "I like this guy." There is a team dimension. "How do we create a team that's more than the sum of its parts?" If I pick an "all-time" team of Melrose players, I include Victoria Crovo for her leadership and intangibles which are off the chart.

• What are our priorities?
• What are our needs?
• Who's the opposition? 
• What's the best lineup? 

"Quantity and quality of data" change every way of life.

• Data
• Scouting
• Feedback from coaches and captains
• Psychological and medical insight
• What you see
• Personal insights and intuition

"The strategy of a sports team is about tradeoffs and judgments." "If you're focusing there, you're not focusing in another area." Time spent practicing A subtracts from time practicing B. 

One game doesn't define a strategy as valid. "There is loose correlation between decisions and outcomes (uses the poker analogy of Annie Duke, author of Thinking in Bets)." Over time, "you hope decisions translate into success." 

"Innovation brings about innate risks," an "insult to conventional wisdom." The pressroom, dominated by ex-players, celebrates conventional wisdom from their time. 

Grandmaster Garry Kasparov created "advanced chess" combining both a computer and a person to blend the best of both worlds. 

What would we do differently the next time? Smith felt team was at its best when unconventional in lineup. He thought it better to lead off with top batsmen rather than holding them in reserve (lower in lineup). 

"There's a distinction between truths that help you and spin which helps you look better than you are." As an insider, you may have information that cannot be revealed. 

There is a baseline of team performance. Your goal is to elevate it through selection (and ultimately training and strategy). His program wasn't to be innovative but to solve problems. He learned a lot from other domains (including investing, from his friend Howard Marks). Being different and better risks being different and worse. Your job is to "get more right than the next guy" and "get the next decision as good as possible." 

Some people think sports people aren't intelligent. They're intelligent in a different way. 

"Data shows you how the game is changing." Algorithms can also extract better interpretation of the data. Get better data and better analysis. "Data helps you to understand reality." 

"Teams are typically too cautious." "Data can show the relationship between aggression, risk, and winning." For example, in football, teams punt instead of going for a first down. In tennis, a player chooses a "safer" serve instead of more aggressive serve. 

"The power of having something unpredictable will become powerful." 

When asked for an example of innovation in sport he discussed Daryl Morey (when at the Rockets). Morey emphasized the current three-tiered strategy of getting three-point shots, layups, and free throws. 

"If you know what the optimal play is, you'll be able to defend it better." Scouting shows what worked best for an opponent. Choose a strategy/personnel with the best chance to counter it. 

"The game changer (unpredictability) becomes valuable..." 

"You can't plan for pure spontaneity...for randomness." 

"No one can predict perfect randomness." 

"The value of the human being is when they're most human." 

"If you have confidence in your ideas...they'll be proved better in the long-term." 

Summary:

• Create teams more than the sum of their parts. 
• Data alters our perspective.
• Get better data and analysis. 
• Learn what's going on. 
• Innovation is seen as an insult to conventional thinking.
• Goal is to surpass the baseline performance. 
• Data reveals how the game is changing. 
• Being better and different risks being different and worse. 

 Lagniappe. 

• "The magic is in the work." - Brad Stevens
• "Champions do extra." - James Kerr in Legacy
• "Unrequired work" separates winners. 

Excerpt (25 seconds):

Post 2500: You're a Salesperson

You sell your ability, availability, and accountability. Your mission is to sell the coaching staff on getting on and staying on the court.

What's your 'influencer' plan? 

Start by learning about influencing by reading a summary of Robert Cialdini's "Influence" or studying Dan Pink. 

Applying for a job? Selling. Applying to college? Selling. Trying out for a school play? Selling. Want to be the next "guy" outside? Selling. 

The Greeks used three words to describe influencing: 

- Ethos (character) 

- Logos (logic) 

- Pathos (emotion) 

Screen capture from Dan Pink, MasterClass

Pink suggests considering how our pitch informs, impacts, and motivates the listener in the slide above (know, feel, act). 

How your family, education, and extracurricular lives go relates to your ability to 'sell' yourself, how you communicate, share, and act. If volleyball is important for you, the first person to sell is yourself. 

Lagniappe. Where's your snap? 

Musing on Analytics

Where do wins and losses arise? The come from points. 

In basketball, teams must be good in:

• Executing and defending in the half court
• Defending in transition
• Executing and defending the pick-and-roll

How best can we describe where points come and go? 

• Service aces and errors
• Successful attacks and errors 
• Defensive errors 

As a mathematician, Coach Scott Celli has his system of evaluation. 

Others have tried to analyze points. 

All beg the question of where can a team earn more points or prevent losing points? For example: 

- Better serving (more aces or serves into freeballs, fewer service errors)

- Higher hitting efficiency (see definitions above) 

- Better blocking

- Fewer return errors

- Which players have more favorable statistics? 

At the highest levels, teams can organize their play against higher probability attacks. 

Becoming Our Best

Cross-posted

Summary: 

• Have a plan.
• Work your plan.
• Check your plan. 
• Be curious. 
• Bring energy. 
• Check our direction with 'coaching GPS'. 
• Stay relevant. Read widely.

How did you improve today? 

Lagniappe. How does a previous play impact future decisions? 

Globe All-Scholastics Published

Gia Vlajkovic recognized   

Congratulations 

Ask Yourself These Questions

Saturday morning, you roll out of bed, have a bowl of cereal and read the blog, hoping for inspiration. Ask yourself:

1) How am I improving today? 

2) What are the core skills - serving, passing, setting, attacking, blocking, digging? 

3) What is my elite volleyball skill? Restated, what gets me on the court and what keeps me on the court? If you don't have or acquire one, well, what happens to you? 

4) Who is the next elite Melrose outside hitter? I have no idea. If it's you, what are you doing to become that player? To become an elite student, study. To become an elite hitter, practice attacking. You become the person and the player that you work to become. 

5) How important is it to you? What is your level of commitment, of sacrifice? What skill are you willing to build and what alternative activity do you reduce? 

Lagniappe (something extra). 

Find Quotes to Live By

Good coaches put players and teams in position to succeed. Coach Scott Celli always brings a solid game plan. Find three things daily to add to your toolbox. 

"Teach players to 'SEE THE GAME'." - Pete Newell

"Every day is player development day." - Dave Smart 

Develop "competitive greatness." - John Wooden

Teach putting the team first. "Basketball is sharing." - Phil Jackson

"Mentoring is the only shortcut to excellence." 

"Everyone has to make the same movie." - Martin Scorsese (Everyone can't have their own agenda.) In the UNC Women's Soccer locker room, a sign reads: 

"Excellence Is Our Only Agenda." 

"Look for the helpers." - Mr. Rogers

Lagniappe (something extra). Home volleyball drills. Control the ball. 

Fairness. To Become the Teacher's Pet...Work Like a Dog.

All opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author. 

 

Fairness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Sport is often a meritocracy but development differs. 

What is fairness? Fairness crosses many areas. Programs vary by resources and individual opportunity.

• Infrastructure - practice time, equipment, facilities
• Personnel - Help/assistants 
• Finances (I've always been a volunteer)
• Coaching - Who gets what? 
• Roles 
• Playing time (minutes)  

One team has eight hours practice per week, another three. One has experienced coaching and another parental 'bailout' coaching. One team chooses a large roster (twelve or more) and another selective (eight) to minimize weakness of reserves and maximize winning. 

Choose your analogy. Most of the iceberg (development) is below the surface. Where's the beef? Few families see how the sausage gets made.

Watching weekend games doesn't divulge the practice process. Fairness is not equality. 

Player B is a soccer first athlete who attends no offseason workouts. Player A is a basketball first athlete who attended 90 percent of offseason workouts (usually alone). Should A and B have the same role, minutes, and individual attention? I favor the player who has shown exceptional commitment every time. 

Coaches have favorites. The relentless player, highly coachable, who listens and takes advantage of every opportunity...gets more coaching. Unrequired work ingratiates players to coaches. 

Where does the rubber meet the road? 

• Advocate for your child by seeking out coaching and character.
• Prioritize programs about playing the right way, teaching teamwork and sportsmanship. 
• Get under the hood and examine the process. We held open practices if parents chose to watch. 
• Teach children to say "yes" to opportunity, elective workouts including school-offered strength and conditioning. (For our middle school players I offered twice weekly outdoor off-season 90 minute skill-development sessions, Memorial Day to early October.)
• Get to be 'teacher's pet' by working like a dog. 

Lagniappe. 

Believe in yourself... 🙏 #goals pic.twitter.com/F4Tw6mllUL

Excellence demands unusual levels of commitment and sacrifice. 

 

"E + R = O" Don't Just Look at the Right Side of the Equation

"E + R = O." Ohio State coach Urban Meyer wrote Above the Line. One of his concepts follows:

Event + Response = Outcome

Too many people focus on the right side of the equation. Physical and mental preparation works your response for the desired event. 

What your "today" plan? 

- What strength and conditioning is on your calendar? 

- What skills are you building today?

- How are you tracking your progress? 

You want the biggest event, states. "One-and-done" in the post-season will never satisfy us. 

You perform to the level of your training. Winning is a process, learning to win on the road and against good teams. Opportunity is there for you. 

"What does he know about events?" I got a bite at the apple fifty years ago with two wins in Boston Garden and a basketball sectional title. My daughters helped put three sectional pelts on the horse in volleyball and two in basketball. Winning is hard. That makes it valuable. 

Team sports are about sharing - shared vision, shared sacrifice, shared results. 

Lagniappe (something extra). Hand-eye coordination takes time and patience. 

"Repetitions make reputations." 

 

Gia Vlajkovic Recognized as "Boston Herald" All-Scholastic in Today's Edition

Melrose senior Gia Vlajkovic earns recognition as a "Boston Herald" All-Scholastic in today's edition. 

Gia was one of three ML12 honorees, the other two being Lauren Tian of Winchester and Abigail Farrell of Reading. 

Gia helped propel Melrose to a pair of Final Four appearances during her career, as a setter in 2021 and as an outside hitter who played "all-around" in 2022. 

Making Possible Real

 “I want a contributing role in 2023 Melrose volleyball season.” What are you prepared to do?

Ask better questions.

• What would that take - physically, skill, mentally?
• What's your level of commitment? 
• What’s your plan? Skill, strength and conditioning?
• What's your plan? Offseason play, game study, mental training?

Develop keystone habits, habits that help you succeed across domains. 

Michael Jordan was a freshman at North Carolina and told assistant coach Roy Williams that he would work as hard as any player ever at Carolina. Williams answered, "you have to work harder than that." 

"Mentoring is the only shortcut to success." Find out what you need to do to earn a bigger role. 

"Winners are trackers." - Darren Hardy in The Compound Effect   Measure your improvement, your vertical jump, your lifting, your reps. 

"Attack weaknesses, utilize strengths." - The Art of War

Lagniappe. Setting is for everybody. The great Melrose teams had front row players who set other front row players. 

"Don't Tell Me You Can't; Show Me You Can"

Cross-posted. 

Kyle Maynard climbed a 20,000 foot mountain. You can do more. 

Showdown

Sports shares symmetry. What does that mean? 

Excellent coaches add value to the team and to individual players. And excellent players add value to the coach and the team. 

Bill Parcells, former Patriots coach, used to say, "coaches are the most selfish people in the world. We put the people on the field whom we think will make us look good."

In the long run in life, you become your own coach. 

• How am I going to improve today?
  
• What am I doing to improve skill, game understanding, my physical profile (strength, quickness, conditioning), resilience? 
• Coaches don't pick the lineups. Players do through translating their commitment into tangible gains. 

In this drill, two hitters and a setter compete with one point awarded for a kill, one point subtracted for an attack error, and nil for digs.

Fast Five: Learn from Experts from Many Domains and Apply to Our Life

Lifelong learning is opportunity not obligation. Take time to read great books and others we find entertaining. 

Here are a few lessons absorbed over the past year that might benefit us all. 

"It's not enough to be right. You have to be effective." - Neil Degrasse Tyson's father 

Make the time to listen before speaking. Nelson Mandela's father oversaw meetings in South Africa. He always took the time to listen so that he could speak last to give a more nuanced answer. 

"Do five more." - Dan Pink   Spend extra time reading or writing five more pages, making five more calls, exercising five more minutes. That 'unrequired work' pays off in the long term. 

"Don't make assumptions." Don Miguel Ruiz's book, "The Four Agreements" shares four key concepts. This is an extension of the "fundamental attribution error" where we judge others based on presumed character and ourselves based on the situation. The guy who cuts us off may be a jerk or may be rushing to see a sick relative. We can't know. 

"Do more than count." Disney CEO Bob Iger met with Steve Jobs of Pixar to discuss a possible merger. Jobs went to the white board and made a list of three positives and twenty negatives. Iger said that it must be a non-starter. Jobs said they would merge because the strength of the positives far outweighed the negatives. Think, don't just count. 

Lagniappe. More skill, more opportunity... everyone should have some setting skills.