Already recipient of MAVCA All-State and Boston Herald All-Scholastic recognition, Gia Vlajkovic added the third pelt, the Boston Globe All-Scholastic on her proverbial horse.
With the second leading number of kills in Melrose single-season history, the senior helped power Melrose to its tenth Final Four appearance since 2003.
Congratulations to Gia, her family, teammates, and coaches.
How do you improve? Here are five ideas:
1. Become more athletic. Combine explosiveness and power, speed, and weight work. Karen and Paula Sen both benched over 125 pounds.
2. Learn to set. Front row players improve teammates by learning to set.
3. Build stamina. A running program and jumping rope up to five minutes a day will help.
4. Pair up. Workout with a teammate. Build platform skills (see below).
5. And work alone. "Don't tell me you can't. Show me you do."
Lagniappe (something extra). Work on your leadership style. What does being a leader mean to you and for you? How do you intend to lead better and to be a better teammate?
Everyone can lead. Lead by showing up on time, bringing energy, supporting the team, and never being a distraction.
Leaders make leaders. Without a team, there are no leaders. Leaders bring a positive attitude.
Here's a short summary of "Extreme Ownership."
Here are 3 key lessons from the book:
What makes a leader?
Be effective. There's a great saying, "It's not enough to be right. You have to be effective."
Stay focused. David Cottrell reminds leaders, "The main thing is the main thing."
Make it about the team. Another Cottrell principle is, "People don't quit jobs; people quit people."
Lagniappe (something extra). More on serving...
The names are omitted to protect the sources.
Melrose shut them out early in the season. The opposing coach told a Melrose player, "we should have beaten you today." That didn't sit well with the team. In the rematch at Melrose, Melrose won the first set 25-3. The Melrose player walked by the coach and asked, "is that good enough for you?" If you talk trash, prepare to back it up.
Melrose went on the road for a tough sectional match. A player went into the ladies room before the game to wash her hands. One opposition girl told her teammate, "Melrose looks scared. This should be an easy game." Not so much. Melrose delivered a 3-0 whitewashing.
Earn the right to have swagger when you walk onto the court. Stay hungry, stay humble.
Lagniappe: The biodynamic process of arm swing. Load, rotate, drive. Never stop working on fundamentals.
What makes a drill great? That's open to debate but I'll argument that great drills embody:
1) Offense
2) Defense
3) Decision-making
4) Competition
Here's a candidate, "the Alabama Drill."
Steph Curry explains process in his MasterClass. Curry is one of the greatest shooters of all-time, a four-time NBA champion. He was not heavily recruited out of high school. But he persisted.
Find ways to apply his experience, if excellence is important for you.
"Being great in competition means relentlessly focusing on the small things."
"You have to get in the gym with a ball in your hands and work on your mechanics every day."
"Don't listen to what anyone says you can't do."
"You can impact people by how you approach your every day."
"How I approach basketball is how I approach everything in life."
"Coach invested in not only the basketball player but the human being...taught me...to be a leader, a man of character and value."
"How you treat your family, the decisions you make on a daily basis that people don't see, all those things make up the character of who you are."
"What makes me a great basketball player I hope would make me a great human being."
"Your state of mind is the main driving force behind your successes and your failures."
"The ones that can sustain it...and push themselves to new levels... internalize that drive."
"Your mental state...is extremely important...to staying in the moment. That's the only thing that you can control."
"I train my mind...meditation...float tanks...yoga...block out the noise as best I can."
"My family are always my voices of reason."
"Find people who are better than you."
"Seeing (NBA guys work out) that firsthand was something that changed my approach."
"What do you do with that advice and that knowledge?"
I am NOT a volleyball expert. Yet, I know that great players do not tire of working on their fundamentals.
Coach Ralph Labella used to tell players, "Entertain me and entertain your parents at the game." He taught fundamental play and wanted to see it reflected during the games.
Reading shouldn't be tedious. Reading is opportunity. Here's a tentative list of coming attractions.
Learn from volleyball experts (not I) who share their experience and expertise about the "Big Six" skills:
As a boxer, when Ali stepped into the ring, he looked at his opponent, telling himself, "you stole my bicycle." The rest is history.
Several teams stole your bicycle last season.
Nobody takes your metaphorical bicycle and gets away with it.
'Momma said, "Don't give up. It's a little complicated."'
Tom Brady had a massive chip on his shoulder. Drafted at number 199, he never got over it, still seeking to prove himself, seven NFL championships later.
Rodney Dangerfield had no respect since childhood.
Melrose might have a respect problem in some parts. 3 losses to the number one teams in their divisions (Westborough, Newton North, Frontier) and a fourth to the #3 ranked team below. Here are the final Boston Globe volleyball rankings.
"You can do this." Every player in a strong program that makes the varsity team has the potential for excellence. Not every player can or will choose to make the sacrifices to do so.
Senior Gia Vlajkovic adds to her hardware with selection as Boston Herald All -Scholastic.
She has previously been recognized as All-State, Freedom Division MVP, and ML12 All -Conference.
Her 338 kills this season were the second highest single season total in Melrose history.
I’m sure she shares appreciation with her teammates and coaches who helped her receive this deserved recognition.
Congratulations!
Some find extra meaning here. We'll see how it goes.
What's your 'ethos', your code, your "this is how I roll?" Choose excellence or something less. Alabama Coach Nick Saban says, "are you investing your time or spending it?"
Being on the team is good enough for some. Others want a bigger role. Some want to lead and find something special. "It's your choice."
A result is one of a thousand possible outcomes. Learn to 'see' possibility.
All opinions expressed within are solely those of the author. They don't reflect opinions of the City of Melrose, the Melrose School Department, or the Melrose High School Athletic Department.
"Comparison is the thief of joy." - Teddy Roosevelt
How would one select a historic twelve? Examination of the history of anything suffers from memory, "era effects," supporting cast effects, recency bias, anchoring, and endowment effect.
Any discussion of elite Melrose players starts with D2 All-Scholastic Players of the Year - Hannah Brickley, Brooke Bell, and Lily Fitzgerald.
Listing All-State players doesn't help much because there have been so many (17). Seventeen doesn't fit into twelve.
Focusing on recent years, we have the "Third Dynasty" with consecutive Final Four appearances. You never win a sectional alone although I recall Melrose nemeses like Fairhaven's Kara Charette and Medfield's Barrett sisters. Amidst recently luminaries Elena Soukos (2021) and Gia Vlajkovic (2021-2022) stand tallest.
The "Second Dynasty" featured a State Championship (2012) and a four-peat of sectionals from 2009 through 2012. It could have been longer, because Central Catholic thwarted Melrose twice in sectionals before reassigned to Division 1.
The beginning featured Hannah Brickley and her incredible run of All-State performance three years running (2007-2009). Fair or not, I view her as the "Queen of Melrose Volleyball." She was a victim of Central Catholic excellence. As was Colleen Hanscom, another player who won both volleyball and basketball sectionals as seniors, and like Hannah, earned Melrose Athletic Hall of Fame entry.
The latter stages of the "Second Dynasty" belonged to the 2012 quartet of future All-Staters - Bell, Sarah McGowan, Jill MacInnes, and Allie Nolan. That omits the up and down roster contributions from "The Great Wall" uber-blocking duo of Rachel Johnson and Kayla Wyland, the brilliant all-around play of Jen Cain who played D1 volleyball at Merrimack, or the underrated defensive excellence of Amanda Commito.
Study Amanda's defensive body of work to learn the position. She didn't get a lot of awards, but earned an ML All-Star and a state championship medal.
And that leaves us to a few deserving additional mention. Emma Randolph made it to a state final, earned All-State recognition, and led all Melrose attackers in kills - by a wide margin. Numbers matter.
Any All-Time team I'd assemble includes Victoria Crovo, the "V-Rex." Victoria, like many past 'middles', played all-around. She probably could have played middle linebacker or safety for Coach Morris, too, in her favorite sport. She embodied toughness, ferocity, and leadership. Regardless of her statistics (they're great), she'd belong on my team as a Captain.
Check out the defense at about 4:30.
This omits other All-State players and All-World teammates over two decades of observation. Even then, without watching video, you forget how terrific these players have been.
Challenge yourself to study and to learn from great players past and present.
Melrose concluded its 2022 season with it annual breakup banquet at the well-appointed Bellevue Country Club.
Coach Scott Celli reflected on the season as the 'most likable team' which brought him to work and home with "a smile on my face."
In addition to smiles, the team delivered its sixteenth consecutive Middlesex League title, an undefeated league campaign, and its tenth sectional championship. In a computer-seeded All-State tournament, this is a special achievement.
In addition to five ML All-stars, the season spawned the Freedom Division MVP, Gia Vlajkovic, also ordained an MAVCA All-State selection.
The coaches handed out certificates, letters, 'stars and bars', and additional awards.
Freshman - Most Improved Player, Isla
JV - Most Improved Player - Sofia
JV - Most Valuable Player - Alex
Varsity Awards:
Top Server (Percentage of Points Won) - Emma Desmond
Top Offensive Player - Gia Vlajkovic
Top Defender - Emma Desmond
Most Improved Player - Ruth Breen
Unsung Hero - Anna Shoemaker
Most Valuable Player - Gia Vlajkovic
Coach’s Award (for Overall Contributions) - Chloe Gentile
Coach Celli described the captaincy and competitive selection process. He emphasized that all decisions are in the best interest of the team, and volunteered that everyone can be a leader.
Captains for 2023:
Sadie Jaggers
Grace Gentile
Leah Fowke
Having watched Melrose volleyball for twenty years, I've seen all Melrose's sectional champions. I think Coach Celli did his best work in navigating the 2022 season, helping the team reach its full potential. They came in with a lot of questions about roles - setting, libero, outside hitter, serving - acing the test.
Teams have traditions like songs on the bus. Former pitcher Joaquin Andujar said, "They have a word for it in English...youneverknow."
Thanks to the Bellevue staff for serving an excellent event.
"Tradition never graduates."
Tonight Melrose Volleyball celebrates its players, families, and culture with the annual end-of-season breakup dinner.
There's always plenty of good food, company, and memories to share.
Coaches Celli, Schmitt, and Mays review their season and distribute certificates and awards (i.e. Varsity letters, All-Star Recognition, et cetera).
Graduating seniors often share a few of their thoughts.
Sometimes there is a slide presentation or video recap of the season.
And the leadership mantle is passed from this year's captains (Chloe Gentile, Gia Vlajkovic, Sadie Jaggers) to next. Coach Celli reviews the attention to detail in captain selection, from application to discussion with school administration leaders.
It's worth reflecting on 'unseen inputs' that contribute to consistent success.
THE SEVEN TRAITS OF ELITE CAPTAINS
Melrose had many exceptional leaders and players. Here's a look back at an end-of-season picture.
Be ready to perform at a high level when called. Gary Washburn explains Blake Griffin's mentality, "Griffin said he has accepted his role in Boston, which is whatever coach Joe Mazzulla asks. There are going to be nights when Griffin contributes to a win and others when he doesn’t leave the bench. He’s at peace with that."
1. "Always do your best." This is the fourth agreement from "The Four Agreements." It won't always be THE best or our personal best, but it leaves no regrets.
2. Show up. "90 percent of success is just showing up." One basketball player came to ninety percent of offseason workouts, often alone, often in searing heat. And she worked. She never "cheats the drill." She's been All-Scholastic twice and has a lot of D1 interest. Because she shows up.
3. Be coachable. "Have the soul of a poet and the hide of an elephant."
5. Be a great teammate, like Blake Griffin. Everyone can't be a great player but everyone can be a great teammate. Jane Goodall discussed chimpanzee mothers. They are there fully for the first five years of an offspring's life or until they have additional children. They are affectionate and supportive, but not overly supportive. But if they sense a threat from an overly dominant mother, they rush in and protect their child. Teammates have each other's back.
To become more, do more. Author Cal Newport coined the term "Deep Work," our best work done in a distraction-free environment.
We have become "addicted to distraction." Quality work demands a distraction-free environment.
Improve as a student and an athlete. How?
Deep work means work not capable of being done by a casual participant.
- Work in a quiet environment.
- Use the Pomodoro Technique (25 minutes on, 5 minutes off)
- Use spaced repetition (repeated study, not cramming)
- Self-test. What did I just review? What are the key points?
The same principles apply for volleyball training - skill, strategy, physicality, and psychology.
- Walk through the footwork for serving or attacking. Then practice at a higher pace, game speed.
- Watch video of elite players, their footwork, swing, platform skills.
- Become more athletic with strength and conditioning.
- Devote time to mindful meditation and visualization, like professionals and Olympians
"Mentoring is the only shortcut to excellence."
Everyone benefits from coaching. Dr. Atul Gawande, author of The Checklist Manifesto and Being Mortal, hired a surgeon to oversee his technique. Kentucky Coach John Calipari has a Personal Board of Directors, a group of trusted advisors, with whom he meets periodically.
Mentors help us examine our strengths, weakness, and process. We decide how to use that advice through creating better habits and tracking our progress.
Long-term become your own coach. Make lifelong learning a priority to become a "learn-it-all" not a know-it-all.
Establish better habits - pick, stick, check.
How do you become successful? Develop systems to manage ourselves, allowing us to lead others.
Education is about changing behaviors. Educate ourselves to increase productivity.
Peter Drucker is the father of modern Executive Training and his book, The Effective Executive is the bible of executive leadership. Examine key points from Drucker to apply to our lives. The sooner we start, the better. Why?
Remember the achievement equation:
ACHIEVEMENT = PERFORMANCE x TIME
Because many readers are young, they benefit by extended time to apply better systems.
Here are Drucker's five critical points:
1. TIME. Use time better. Track your time and reduce time wasting. Time is our most valuable commodity.
2. EFFICIENCY. Enhance efficiency. Practice more efficiently, which often involves a partner.
3. STRENGTHS. Press your strengths. As a coach or a player, "do more of what works (strengths) and less of what doesn't (weaknesses)." Melrose didn't score much on backsets or setter dumps. So, they did fewer and won a sectional championship. #TheSimpleGame That doesn't mean abandoning other skills, but press your strengths.
An offensive possession includes the initial setup, advantage creation, and advantage exploitation.
4. PRIORITIES. "Put first things first." That means developing a list of considerations. Former Patriots coach Bill Parcells took a sheet of paper, folded it in threes, and had headings of MUST, NEED, WANT. I had one for basketball.
5. DECIDE. Decisions have costs as does inaction. Another Parcells quote is, "Coaches are the most selfish people. We put the players on the field who will make us look good."
As a player, force the coaching staff to get you on the floor with your technique, tactics (game understanding), athleticism, and resilience.
Summary: Effective Executive
"An analogy is a figure of speech that creates a comparison by showing how two seemingly different entities are alike, along with illustrating a larger point due to their commonalities."
Inventor Thomas Edison believed the keys to invention success were imagination, persistence, and analogies.
Imagine linking cooking and volleyball. You're stuck?
Chef Roland Henin, Thomas Keller's mentor, said that cooks cook to nurture people. Coaches coach to nurture people, to help teams go where they cannot go alone.
You may have heard that "revenge is a dish best served cold." Proving yourself and your team is more like lobster or the Danish pastry, Kringle. It taste great hot or cold.
Thomas Keller discussed the 'disciplines of success' during the cooking process.
Organization. "Organization speaks for itself." You know it when you see it. "It is the difference between failure and success."
Efficiency. Efficiency builds execution. Practice at a higher tempo. Use that most valuable resource...time.
Critical feedback. Understand how our input improves others' output. "It's the critical feedback that we learn from the most." He focuses on the restaurant customer who is not happy...how can we improve their experience? Growth... understanding... self-analysis.
Repetition. "Repetition makes reputations." John Wooden marveled at how Bill Walton never tired of repeating the same footwork and moves that produced greatness. "Make gnocchi every Sunday...you'll have it in the freezer for convenience meals." Make the gnocchi.
Rituals. Great habits build consistent performance. As Aristotle said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." We make our habits and our habits make us. What habits make us?
Teamwork. "Without me being part of that team, being efficient, they couldn't do their job (server, chef, bartender)." Unless the twelfth player on the team is punctual, committed, challenging the starter, then the team suffers. Volleyball is a collective experience. Do you play on the team or for the team?
All cooking occurs at the combination of time and temperature. Do you want to be an exceptional player? You put in both the time and the intensity needed to excel.
Use "tools of refinement." In cooking that includes:
WHAT A RALLY 😱 @UHCougarVB pic.twitter.com/OhwuGCpWCz
— ESPN (@espn) December 3, 2022
People are storytelling animals. Humans passed down knowledge, language, culture, values, and more via stories.
Consider Aesop's Fables. The story of the Tortoise and the Hare informs that "slow and steady wins the race." Consistency defeats flash.
How do we develop better stories? Chip and Dan Heath share a mnemonic in "Made to Stick" - SUCCES.
S - simple
U - unexpected
C - concrete (specific)
C - credible
E - emotional
S - story
She was athletic, tall, and not highly skilled as a freshman, playing on the Freshman team in 2009. She kept improving, especially as a blocker. She was also a great person at home and school, and a great teammate. She made the leap to the varsity in 2010, playing 41 sets as part of a Sectional Championship team. By the time she was a senior she was fourth in kills on the team and part of the greatest blocking duo in team history.
Improvement is about commitment - in school, sport, or other activities.
Here are some tips from MasterClass experts on success:
1. "Bring your best self." - Samuel L. Jackson
2. What does it take to be successful? 1) Be on time. 2) Don't be a jerk. - Helen Mirren
3. "Find the best version of the truth." - Investigative journalist Bob Woodward
4. "The film is made in the editing room." - Director Ron Howard
5. Success "takes the soul of a poet and the skin of an elephant." (Be able to withstand criticism/coaching) - Director Mira Nair
6. Become more athletic. "I can throw a football like an NFL quarterback." - Serena Williams
7. "Read, read, read, read, read." - Director Werner Herzog
He requires all of his film students to read The Peregrine. “Cold air rises from the ground as the sun goes down. The eye-burning clarity of the light intensifies. The southern rim of the sky glows to a deeper blue, to pale violet, to purple, then thins to grey. Slowly the wind falls, and the still air begins to freeze. The solid eastern ridge is black; it has a bloom on it like the dust on the skin of a grape. The west flares briefly. The long, cold amber of the afterglow casts clear black lunar shadows. There is an animal mystery in the light that sets upon the fields like a frozen muscle that will flex and wake at sunrise.”
― The PeregrineSport is a microcosm of life, a people business. Great achievements happen through collaboration, working together to do more than one person can.
When a former President visited NASA in Houston, he asked a custodian about his job. The employee answered, "I helped put a man on the moon." Take pride in your job, show up. "Make the big time where you are."
People tend to pigeonhole coaches as "relationship-oriented" (players' coach) or "task-oriented" (hard guy). The best coaches combine people skills with game-focused competence. Coaches can't teach players to SEE THE GAME unless they have the team's attention and buy-in.
What attributes help coaches and players win the 'people business'?
Positive attitude. Negative attitudes foster negative results.
Energy. The coach and the star players cannot be energy vampires.
Adding value. The best coaches and best players make those around them better. Some use the term "force multiplier."
Speak greatness. Suggest don't qualify. Better to say, "That was good AND you might consider trying this" than "that was good BUT you should try this."
Build confidence. Nobody can 'bestow confidence" on us. NFL championship coach Bill Parcells says, "confidence comes from proven success." Players have success from growth in skill, strategy, physical, and emotional strength. "Every day is player development day."
Nothing sends a more powerful message than, "I believe in you."
To bring our best self, seek improvement. While doing so, seek understanding not validation.
Coach (and former Melrose AD) Sonny Lane set clear priorities for taking care of business:
To capture your best success, here's a little advice. Write better.
1. Use a thesaurus (I didn't know thesaurus means treasury) to discover the ideal word.
2. Keep a dictionary nearby to aid 'assiduous' study. Assiduous is a word that appears on SATs and similar tests.
3. Spell correctly...especially names. Melrose had some brain-teasers this year.
4. "Read, read, read, read, read." - Werner Herzog Read widely. Recently I reread Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.
5. Explore a new class. I'm taking one by former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi on MasterClass.
6. Listen and network. As Yogi Berra said, "You can observe a lot by just watching."
7. Research. Think critically. We're wired to hear or read and accept as true. "You can't believe everything you read on the Internet" - Abraham Lincoln
8. Think it through. Write in your head. Ideas come from everywhere. Thresh them out.
9. 0,0,0. Find your coordinates for reading, writing, studying. David Mamet had a cabin in the woods. Dan Brown (The DaVinci Code) had a writing desk.
Take pride in your accomplishments at home, in the classroom, and on the court. "There is no ability without eligibility." If you can learn volleyball or cooking, you can decipher calculus or American History.
