Training

You don’t have to be great to train, but you have to train to be great.

An Important Volleyball Exercise

Goblet squats 

Bequests to Young Coaches (and Players)

What "best advice" have mentors given you throughout your life? If you could bequeath coaching advice to a young coach, what would it be? 

1. Build relationships. Establish trust with coaches and players. Help the players build trust with each other. Small player rivalries can grow to unfathomable proportions. 

2. Never stop learning. Nobody has the franchise on continuing education. Everyone can learn from Coach Don Meyer's "three notebook" policy. One was for basketball, another was for general information, and a third was a gratitude notebook that he gave to his wife at the end of the year. MasterClass and Blinkist are additional resources I use. 

3. Be a problem solver not just a critic. Most of us have no issues solving other people's problems when we struggle with our own. Solutions require listening, openness, and nonjudgmental attitudes. 

4. Find mentors. Mentoring lineages go back thousands of years. Socrates taught Plato, who taught Aristotle, who mentored Alexander the Great. Among the worst mistakes any coach can make is believing they know-it-all. Kevin Eastman advises coaches to become a "learn-it-all" not a "know-it-all." 

5. Share. My favorite basketball quote is Phil Jackson's "basketball is sharing." Sport is "open source." There is no secret sauce. Share. 

6. Learn player development. Even if you're literally the "Recruiting King" (think Nick Saban), you still need to develop players. "Every day is player development day." Consider adding "every day is role development day." Teach players to know and to embrace their roles. For example, if you don't serve reliably, it will bite you on your backside eventually. 

7. Fundamentals beat strategy. Coach Popovich says, "technique beats tactics." Lesson one from Sahil Bloom is, "you'll achieve much more by being consistently reliable than by being occasionally extraordinary." 

8. Keep a rethinking scorecard. Professor Adam Grant wrote, "Think Again." The ability to change our mind is strength not weakness. The "arrogant jerk" you can't stand could become a trusted confidant. 

9. "Read. Read. Read. Read. Read." - Werner Herzog  "The differences between the person we are today and whom we become in five years are  the people we meet and the books we read." Read widely and find elements from other domains to bring into our lives. 

10.Seek work-life balance. Life is about finding balance. Courage balances recklessness and doubt. Without balance, many careers have the potential to lead to self-destruction. Avoid that path.

Lagniappe. Highlight videos have merit. Jen Cain was terrific and I think there are talents in the system that remind me of her. She gets on top of the ball, has excellent hitting power, and strong instincts that translated to playing college volleyball. 

TEAM First

WE NEED PASSES THAT DON’T MATTER

My college coach used to say this all the time. We need passes that connect our offense, and build rhythm. If every player tries to make a play on every catch, the momentum of the ball stops.
A simple way every player can help their offense is… pic.twitter.com/VV7nonm659

— Steve Dagostino (@DagsBasketball) January 14, 2025

Some messages resonate across sports. Find ways to contribute to "keep the line moving." 

Everybody doesn't get the same number of attacks (shots). Get married to the scoreboard not the scoresheet. 

Coaches have priority messages to share:

"Care about your teammates. Be a great teammate."

"Put the team first." 

"Pay attention. Do what we're teaching. Communicate." 

"Impact the game." 

Think about a player like Leah. Yes, she was an excellent setter. She was an impact server. She was the best ever blocking setter for Melrose. She was an excellent defender. Build your all-around game...coaches will appreciate you. You'll earn minutes. You'll get recognition. 

Success Versus Process

Dawn Staley said, “A lot of people notice when you succeed, but they don’t see what it takes to get there.”

There is no such thing as an overnight success, it takes time.
• It takes sacrifice.
• It takes discipline.
• It takes commitment.

Success is earned, not given. pic.twitter.com/LrgS1NP4YH

— Coach AJ 🎯 Mental Fitness (@coachajkings) January 15, 2025

Nobody sees the hours the concert pianist put in to craft her performance. Nobody sees the extra time the valedictorians spent earning their grades. Nobody sees the first, second, and third draft of the best-selling authors. People notice the result not the process.

Show your work. Plan your process. Write it down. Keep track of your progress. Some of you have HUDL accounts displaying your highlights. That's terrific. "Unseen hours" show up in late August at tryouts and scrimmages. 

Simple Equations for Life - IYKYK*

All opinions expressed in the blog are solely my own. Don't blame anyone else. 

IYKYK*

Mathematics can restate 'concepts' into equations. Here are a few for your consideration. Don't memorize them; embrace them. Think about these in the context of "control what you can control." 

ACHIEVEMENT = PERFORMANCE x TIME

HAPPINESS = RESULTS - EXPECTATIONS 

SAVINGS = EGO - SPENDING 

VOLLEYBALL OFENSE POINTS SCORED = ACES + BLOCK KILLS + ATTACK WINNERS

VOLLEYBALL NET POINTS = POINTS WON + OPPONENT POINTS LOST - POINTS LOST - OPPONENT POINTS WON

Design your life. Choose to make it happen in a way that works for you. 

IYKYK* = "If you know you know." 

Lagniappe. This shows "the future," applying AI to analyze volleyball performance. Sport gets back to "technique beats tactics." 

Battle for Every Point

Nebraska with an extended rally. 

Separate Yourself

Your title doesn’t make you a captain—your actions do.
✅ Be the first one to practice.
✅ Be the hardest worker.
✅ Be the energy giver.
✅ Be the one who praises teammates.
✅ Be the one who holds people accountable.
✅ Be the last one to leave.#CultureWins

— Jeff Janssen (@janssenleader) January 13, 2025

Lagniappe. An underdog story... from walk-on to the NFL. On Netflix... 

Optimism and Pessimism

"Pessimism just sounds smarter and more plausible than optimism." - Morgan Housel, “The Psychology of Money”

Housel adds, "Optimism is a belief that the odds of a good outcome are in your favor most of the time." 

Imagine two previews of MVB 25. 

(Melrose, MA) "Melrose volleyball faces steep challenges after graduating nine seniors from the 2024 season. Gone is All-State setter Leah Fowke. Gone is starting middle hitter Sofia Papatsoris. Gone are number two hitter Carol Higonenq and the defensive trio of Maggie Turner, Gg Albuja, and Alex Homan. ML12 opponents literally lick their lips at the prospect of facing a depleted Melrose squad."

(Melrose, MA) "Melrose volleyball returns a cast of veteran and young players which helped the team to their sixteenth consecutive title. MAVCA Hall of Fame Coach Scott Celli begins with 6'5" Sabine Wenzel looking to establish herself as the most dominant frontcourt player in Melrose history. She has considerable size up front paired with rising senior Emme Boyer and junior Maggie Shoemaker. Promising defenders Anna Burns and Adele Akland are poised to become the newest back row stalwarts. Three freshmen contributed to MVB 24 success - Sadie Smith, Elise Marchais, and Ella Friedlaender. And help arrives with developing players from the JV and middle school program. Melrose fans can't wait for the 2025 season." 

There's an old joke that says, "I can predict the MVB 25 record before the season even starts. 0-0." 

Apply the "COTE of armor" of Weisinger and Pawliw-Fry in Performing Under Pressure. 

C - Confidence 

O - Optimism

T - Tenacity

E - Enthusiasm 

After you've done the work, success begins with self-belief. 

Unseen Work

Behind every accolade, there’s a saga of sweat, sacrifice, and unwavering discipline.

Greatness isn’t born in the limelight; it’s crafted in the solitude of relentless effort. pic.twitter.com/0ejxGZrAvR

— The Winning Difference (@thewinningdiff1) January 12, 2025

Mia Hamm inspired Anson Dorrance's quote. 

What happens in the shadows prepares you for the spotlight. 

"Win the Game in Your Head"

WIN THE GAME IN YOUR HEAD FIRST

"Players and people break down mentally before they do breakdown physically. You're not just training them to run, jump, and do things. You're training them, hopefully, to think under pressure." (Geno Auriemma)

~ via @TheCoachJournal pic.twitter.com/L6QrtwEadR

— Jamy Bechler (@CoachBechler) January 13, 2025

Coach Auriemma says, "force me to play you..." 

How do you earn playing time (in my opinion)? 

1) It starts in the offseason with your plan, preparation, and action. Commit to outworking and out-thinking everyone. Yeah, that's hard. 

2) Earn the right to self-belief. The work produces the magic. 

3) Grow both your mental and physical skills. Mindfulness improves focus, decreases stress hormones, and improves sleep. 

4) Become a better athlete. "Sports reward athletic explosion." The ability to move more quickly and powerfully translates. 

5) Impact the game; impact winning. It's not just numbers... communication, teamwork, reliability in all areas. 

When you've worked on your mind and body, your communication and technique, and increase the probability of your team succeeding, you earn the coach's trust. That translates to playing time. 

Some players are so valuable to the process that it's psychologically painful for the coach not to play them. Been there.  

Lagniappe. Better reception. Exceptional teams win the serve-receive battle. 

The Workout Habit

"The magic is in the work." Do the work to have a shot to be a contributor or more on MVB 25.

Let's look 'under the hood' of Fogg’s excellent "Tiny Habits" to influence your behavior (workouts). I

Start with the Maui habit, a phrase when you put your feet on the floor:

"Immediately say this phrase, “It’s going to be a great day.”" 

A behavior (Fogg) equation: 

A cue (prompt), plus motivation and ability determine our behaviors. We change behaviors by altering the inputs. For example, imagine you're like me and you like ice cream. Seeing ice cream in the freezer would be a cue to enjoy. Except that it's not in our freezer. 

Imagine that your motivation to workout is good or better...and that you have a home gym or gym membership. High motivation and easy ability puts your "dot plot" above the action line, so it will likely happen. 

Now imagine the same situation except that your motivation is low. The "dot" shifts way down, maybe below the action line so the workout doesn't happen. 

If you have the flu or a sprained ankle, then the ability point shifts to "hard to do," so the workout won't happen.

For many players, the problem is less with motivation than with ability. How can you "shift the ability" to easier to do. 

1. Schedule it. Bake it into your day. Put it on your 'to do' list on your phone. 

2. Workout with a friend. Friendships strengthen, workouts can be competitive, and more drills can be competed as a pair. 

3. Bring your workout gear to school and see if you can get permission to work out 'on site' after school, preferably with a friend. 

Another trick Gelb discussed was "keeping it tiny." He did two pushups after using the bathroom. "Anybody could do that." 

Make good habits easier to do and bad ones harder.  

 

ISO - "In Search Of"

A former President toured NASA Houston. He asked a custodian, "what's your job?" The janitor asked, "I helped put a man on the moon." 

What's your WHY? Author Simon Sinek poses a question, "what's your WHY?" Why do you get up in the morning? Why do you play volleyball? What do you do? 

When you're young, you probably don't ask yourselves these questions. You just do, under the guidance of your family. 

Why do you read the blog? There's no secret sauce. There's nothing you can't hear elsewhere. 

Be an excavator of knowledge, of truth, in search of excellence. 

Tom Peter's wrote In Search of Excellence. What separated excellence from something less? 

...a unique set of cultural attributes...developed under the tutelage of a special person. Nobody wants to win as much as Coach Celli. 

"Leaders make leaders." That's where the expression "coaching tree" arises. The tree is more than the coaches spawned. Think about the "fruit of the tree," the MVB graduates. 

Think about that. IT'S ABOUT YOU, the players and the meaning, your WHY? Why do you pepper, train your platform and run-up, jump rope and lift, meditate? In a world of infinite choices, is sacrifice rational?

Evaluate the triad of ATTITUDE, CHOICES, and EFFORT. Excellence requires focus, positive attitude, productive choices, and relentless effort. 

Exceptional players build a vocabulary designed to flourish under a wide array of conditions. Two decades ago North Andover got to the sectional finals with consistency and an excellent 'short game' of tips. MVB contained the tips, erasing their dominant weapon. And MVB won the sectionals. 

The 'why' of "the blog" seeks to inspire inquiry into excellence. "How you do anything is how you do everything." Team first. Improve always. Accountability matters. Family. School. Sport. Find excellence.

 

Lagniappe. You can do most of this without a gym. Having a partner makes it more fun and you elevate each other. I've heard that some of you are close friends and work out together. 

What Made You Think It Would Be Easy?

Winning is hard...whether in the soft suburbs or the hardscrabble streets of Chicago. When the Manley High School crew team was practicing in the late 1990's, a teacher asked, "what made you think it would be easy?"

Your families don't have it easy. Your teachers don't have it easy. Your teammates don't have it easy. What made you think it would be easy? 

• Acquiring skills isn't easy. 
• Game understanding for ideal positioning isn't easy. 
• Athletic training and endurance training isn't easy. 
• Resilience, learning how to win, how to fight for your teammates isn't easy. 

What made you think it would be easy? Be up for the challenge. 

Your "Out Pitch"

There's a concept in baseball of the "out pitch." Watch top pitchers and they have a pitch that gets guys out - even when they know it's coming. Mariano Rivera had the cutter. Pedro Martinez a blazing fastball and a vicious changeup. Ron Guidry had a slider.

In every sport, every field you need something to 'separate yourself' from ordinary. In the NBA pregame show, Charles Barkley would ask, "what's your NBA skill?"

An outside hitter might have a full repertoire of attacks, but she has a "special delivery" when she absolutely has to have it.

If you're a setter, maybe it's a quick set, a shoot, or a setter dump. Alyssa DiRaffaele had that deadly topspin-sidespin 'slider' of a serve.

Bad teams beat themselves. Exceptional teams beat their opponents with combinations of service, attacks, and block kills. Winning more points is a sine qua non of excellence. What's your MVB skill? What's your 'out pitch'? 

Bonus Material: Comfort Food, Lentil Soup

Readers know that I periodically provide "bonus recipes." Want to increase dietary fiber? Legumes are a food group for you.

Here's a recipe for a delicious lentil soup - high fiber, low calorie.  

Learn from Analogies

Learn from analogies. Morgan Housel's The Psychology of Money shares life lessons through money stories. Grow your volleyball wealth. Let's examine a lesson from each of the first ten chapters (there are twenty): 

Chapter 1. Nobody's Crazy - "Some lessons have to be experienced before they can be understood." - Michael Batnick  Our experiences color our decision making. Learn from setbacks. Over twenty years ago, substituting reserves in early almost led to a loss at Reading. That never happened again. 

Chapter 2. Luck and Risk - Luck and Risk stand at opposite ends of events affecting sporting and financial futures. Bill Gates and Paul Allen had literally a one in a million chance of attending high school together with cutting edge technology. There's also discussion of 'attribution bias', as we see others' failure based on character and ours relate to bad luck. "Focus less on specific individuals and case studies and more on patterns." Bad starts can be hard to overcome. 

Chapter 3. Never Enough. - For many there is never enough. Insider trading undid a hundred million dollar man, Rajat Gupta and former market maker Bernie Madoff. Some risks become our undoing.  

Chapter 4. Confounding Compounding. The sooner you start saving, investing, and specialized learning, the greater your chance to grow your prospects. The author explains that Warren Buffett's remarkable results in part accrue via 75 years of compounding. The volleyball player who starts at six has an edge over one who starts at fifteen. 

Chapter 5. Getting Wealthy Vs Staying Wealthy. It's hard to stay at the top. The Patriots got and stayed near to the top for almost twenty years. That was then. Legendary investor Jesse Livermore earned the equivalent of three billion today dollars when the market crashed in 1929. And he ultimately lost it. Money shares similarity with reputation. It can be destroyed overnight. A lack of humility contributes. MVB has to do the work to stay on top of its game. "The wind blows hardest at the top of the mountain." 

Chapter 6. Tails, You Win. Heinz Berggruen accumulated a massive portfolio of expensive art. He bought collections and a few pieces became fabulously expensive. It's the outliers (tails on distributions) that help make your reputation. Amazon Prime and Amazon Web Services drive their business. The iPhone drives Apple. 

Since 2000, nearly 300 have worn the MVB uniform. 

Eight MVB players had earned the distinction of being All-State and playing on triple sectional finalists. Sadie Jaggers was the latest until Leah Fowke joined the list recently. "Tails drive everything." Outliers help build programs. 

7. Freedom. Freedom is about having the time to do what you want when you want. Researcher Angus Campbell highlighted the meaning of happiness.

Athletes and their families sacrifice the now looking for future happiness. Americans have a higher standard of living than they did in the 1950s but are not happier. 

Happiness is also the difference between results and expectations. 

8. Man in the Car Paradox. People seek admiration and respect over things.

Sport gives you a chance to share experiences with your friends and coaches that can't be bought. The MVB Experience matters. 

9. Wealth Is What You Don't See. 

You might have two choices, buy a second home or save for the future - a child's education or retirement. Or you could go out for the weekend with friends or train at a volleyball tournament. To accumulate "volleyball wealth," training is not optional. 

10. Save Money. Savings can seem undetectable. It comes about in different ways including not spending. 

MVB has accumulated "wealth" in championships - league, sectional, and state titles - through the accumulated efforts of players, families, and coaches. They invested in volleyball instead of an alternative. 

Lagniappe. To become great at almost anything, at some point you become your own coach. Identify strengths and need areas and develop a plan to consolidate strengths and lessen needs. 

Keep working on your volleyball athleticism.

Quick tips for the outside. 

 

Coaching Life

Effective coaches leave a positive impact on players that impacts them through life. Think back to Sarah McGowan's Hall of Fame induction speech.

Here's a piece about former UNC hoop coach Dean Smith, one of my "dead friends." (I never met Coach Smith) 

Dean Smith didn’t just coach basketball; he coached life.

Here are 8 timeless insights from Coach Smith that every coach, leader, and athlete should know:

1️⃣ LEADERSHIP
"A leader's job is to develop committed followers. Bad leaders destroy their followers' sense of… pic.twitter.com/0YXu1eTymv

— Greg Berge (@gb1121) December 27, 2024

How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci (and Apply It)

Leonardo da Vinci was one of history's greatest individuals - thinker, inventor, musician, artist. What made him tick?

Michael Gelb wrote a book "How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci." Here are some highlights. The finding that extending our intelligence and learning capability is possible deserves our attention. Let's apply them to MVB. 

From a book summary of "How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci"

1. Curiosity. Ask better questions. How does this work? What made her a successful player? Volleyball is a thinking person's game. Consider a "high" toss. While it generates momentum, it returns with a higher velocity, reducing your margin for error while serving. 

2. Demonstration. "Show me." Coach Wooden's formula was EDIRx5 - explanation, demonstration, imitation, and repetition times five. You've seen the video of Alyssa DiRaffaele's serve and video of Elena, Gia, and Sadie hammering the ball from outside. For Leonardo, demonstration meant practice. 

Alyssa delivered 'sliders' that moved down and away from receivers. She also hit seams and sidelines. 

3. Sensation. How do you perceive the world around you? Use crowd noise to motivate you when needed and be able to block it out. Visualize performing a skill as part of your training and resilience. 

4. Sfumato blends ambiguity and change. I think of it as 'reading the game' and making decisions in real-time. They won't be perfect but don't let that deter you from striving to improve decisions. 

5. Art and science. Study the game and your ability to impact teammates and winning. That helps you get the most from yourself and others and to 'limit' the top players from opponents. 

6. Body and mind. Leonardo enjoyed both a remarkable mind and physical beauty. He sought to cultivate both during his life. Every elite MVB player was an exceptional athlete. 

7. Connection (analogy). Leonardo was a gifted inventor who designed bridges, musical instruments, and military weapons. He tried to copy birds' flight in search of developing a flying machine...using analogy. What analogies do you see in understanding volleyball? Imagine having a bow and a quiver of arrows. Is each arrow the same or does each have different properties - an explosive shot, a tip, a cut shot, and more. 

The more that we understand the world, people, our sport, and ourselves, the greater chance of success that we have. Invest some time every day thinking. Keep a journal of thoughts and ideas. 

Lagniappe. A brief summary of the brilliant Leonardo bio by Walter Isaacson... from ChatGPT

Walter Isaacson's biography of Leonardo da Vinci presents an intimate and richly detailed portrait of one of history's most brilliant minds. Drawing from thousands of pages of Leonardo’s notebooks, Isaacson explores the artist's insatiable curiosity and multidisciplinary genius, showcasing how his work in art, science, engineering, anatomy, and botany intersected to create groundbreaking discoveries and timeless masterpieces.

The biography highlights Leonardo's relentless observational skills, such as his studies of light, human anatomy, and the flow of water, which informed his artistic achievements like The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. Isaacson delves into Leonardo’s unconventional life as an illegitimate child, a self-taught polymath, and a man of boundless imagination who was often distracted by the breadth of his interests, leading many of his projects to remain unfinished.

Isaacson portrays Leonardo not as an otherworldly genius but as a human being—deeply curious, flawed, and driven by a desire to connect art and science. The book emphasizes that Leonardo's ability to blend empirical observation with creative thinking was the key to his greatness, making him a model for innovation in any field.

Through vivid storytelling and accessible explanations of complex concepts, Isaacson reveals how Leonardo’s legacy as a thinker and creator endures, inspiring readers to embrace curiosity and think across disciplines.

 

Evolve as a Player

Nick Saban and Bill Belichick talking about the lessons Kobe Bryant taught them 🥺 pic.twitter.com/8gnEer21Kj

— Football’s Greatest Moments (@FBGreatMoments) January 8, 2025

The analogy might be to a boxer. At one point, you might be bigger, stronger, and more athletic. But sooner than later, you meet the opponent who has similar athletic profile but is more skilled.

Train to compete against the best, both physically and mentally.

Former Dodgers' manager Tommy LaSorda used to say, "there are three kinds of people - those who watch things happen, those who make things happen, and those who wonder what's happening." Make it happen for you.