Milestones (I) Congratulations

It's never been about statistics...but we don't ignore them either. 

Six hundred wins...is a big number. The regular season finale earned Melrose Coach Scott Celli his 600th career win including Avon, Melrose, and St. John's Prep. Congratulations.

 

Game 20: Melrose 3 Stoneham 0

Melrose ended the regular season with a 25-11, 25-8, 25-10 victory over Stoneham. The win raises Melrose's record to 16-4. 

Melrose waits to see its MIAA seeding and its opponent in the Round of 32 sometime late next week. 

Dartmouth is in the driver's seat pending the outcome of its match today with Old Rochester. 

Here are some MHS-TV video clips:

Senior Middle Chloe Gentile closed out her solid senior campaign with a strong attack. 

Ruth Breen with an athletic one-handed set of Gia Vlajkovic. 

Stoneham's defense improved. They fought off a Chloe smash but Gia put the next attack away. 

Flexible attacks earn winners. Again Stoneham fights off a first attack but can't handle the short set to Sadie Jaggers. 

Sophomore Maggie Turner serves and Gia finishes the play. 

Now, Melrose Volleyball waits. 

What Coaches See Is What Impacts Winning

“The uneducated feel like if you aren’t scoring you aren’t doing a lot, Reggie makes plays that don’t show up on a stat sheet”

Wise words from a wise man

(Via @gocoogs1 🎥)

pic.twitter.com/6Xnf9Z9UEu

— Hoop Herald (@TheHoopHerald) October 28, 2022

Impact winning. Star in your role. Bring energy. We've seen great energy recently from the bench. 

Keeping a ball alive can make the difference between winning and losing. 

Advice from a Legendary Basketball Coach That Works for Volleyball

Take the best from everyone you meet and leave the rest. 

Coaching has universal truths. Here are some from former Indiana coach Bob "The General" Knight via Don Meyer's website. 

Knight coached three NCAA basketball champions. He is a polarizing figure, a brilliant tactician and teacher - and a hothead. 

We try to get our players to play intelligently. A key to that is getting them to understand not just that something works but why. 

A coach needs to understand the strengths and weaknesses of every player who plays for him, and make them understand too. 

Emerson said, "Nothing great is ever accomplished without enthusiasm." 

Kids will be satisfied with what you tolerate.

You are trying to get players to understand that how they play is a lot more important than whether or not they win. 

Winning is a byproduct of preparation and work at practice.

Here are kids who work as a team, they're good students, and they show that good students can win.

The only obligation you have to have to your players is that they know you are starting the best lineup you have. 

We don't have to have the best talent to win. 

I've never expected anyone, including players, to agree with all that I do. But to the absolute best of my ability, I've tried to provide them with a work ethic, and ability to excel at crucial times, and a determination to be as good as they could be at whatever they do.

Friday Finale

"We are what we repeatedly do. Therefore, excellence is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle

Melrose hosts Stoneham in the final game of the regular season. With the playoffs just around the corner, playing well reinforces good habits. It also allows hardworking teammates to see game action. 

You study history for a reason. When we think the past doesn't affect the present, we lack all the facts. Agree or disagree, the past affects the future. 9/11 impacted decisions leading to the Iraq War. 

"History may not repeat but it rhymes." I think it was in 2002 that Melrose led a set in Reading and early substitutions cost Melrose the set as the team collapsed. Similarly, in 2005, in the State Championship game, Melrose trailed by two sets and 16-23, only to rally with the starters in to take the match to five sets in a losing effort. 

Leaders lead. With six seniors playing their final regular season game, this message goes out:

You are always being judged - attitude, choices, effort, performance. Exceptional teams have the capacity to play "harder for longer" than average teams. Effort is a skill. Focus is a skill. Toughness is a skill. 
 

The Past as Prologue...Look Back to the 2021 Season

Look to the past to see the future. 

Melrose's 2021 team built on previous legacy. 

Roster Construction Is Fluid

Regardless of sport, imagine your roster is comprised of four 'categories' of players:

• Lottery picks (high draft picks)
• First rounders
• Second rounders
• Free agents

Highly successful teams have more talent. For example, the Celtics have a trio of 'top three' picks in Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Al Horford. Marcus Smart was a sixth. You don't get those guys in free agency out of school.  

Lottery picks don't start middle school as elite. They train, play club and high school basketball, and so forth. There's no guarantee that personal training, club play, and time make you a lottery pick or even a first rounder. But you can move between categories with training and experience. 

You don't have to be a first round pick to become a champion. Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors was a second round pick who has won four championships and been on four NBA All-Star teams. The second round pick became first round talent. 

Draft status depends on many factors including size, athleticism, and skill. In The Undoing Project, Michael Lewis profiles Nobel Laureate Danny Kahneman and his late colleague Amos Tversky. Lewis explains how top NBA picks depend on age (younger is better), college (legacy programs are better), and performance. 

History shows that players evolve. Rachel Johnson spent most of her career as an elite blocker but improved enough to become a "first round" player with improved attacking, averaging nearly ten kills a match during the final three games of the 2012 Melrose title run. Add her to the 'lottery picks' Sarah McGowan, Brooke Bell, and Jennifer Cain and it's easy to understand how Melrose had a 'wagon'. 

Every player on Melrose has improved during the season. But the growth of one in particular parallels the Rachel Johnson story. Roster construction is fluid. 

Athleticism

Elite play doesn't require elite athleticism. But it helps. 

What does elite athleticism help?

• Vertical jump (helps attack/block/net play)
• Hand-eye coordination (setting, digging, receiving, attack)
• Change of direction 
• Power for attack 
• Adjustment to the ball 

Here's a replay of brilliant athleticism shown last night. 

Every great player in Melrose history had elite athleticism in varying combinations with high skill levels. 

Elite setters combine athleticism with strong decision-making. Melrose had many including All-State players Brooke Bell, Lily Fitzgerald, and Colleen Hanscom. 

Elena Soukos has a 32 inch vertical jump and skill to match.  

Sarah McGowan blended skill, athleticism, and power. 

What do all have in common? They folded their skill and athleticism into the team concept to make everyone around them better. That is the challenge for every athlete in team sports, making the team better. 

Game 19: Melrose 3 Wilmington 0

Melrose grinds toward the end of the regular season with a 25-8, 25-10, 25-15 home win over the Wilmington Wildcats. The win ups Melrose's record to 15-4, 15-0 in the Middlesex League. 

Skill, athleticism, and size are key inputs to making plays. The theme for tonight's piece is athleticism. 

Leah Fowke's serve set up a long first set run, keeping Wilmington on the defensive (video from MHS-TV). 

The serve sets up Melrose after a great dig by Ava McSorley leading to Ruth Breen setting Gia Vlajkovic who "wipes the block" for a point. 

Athleticism manifests in many ways. In basketball, there's a saying, "great offense is multiple actions." 

That's true here. Chloe Gentile makes an athletic serve and Maggie Turner digs out a pass to Ruth who sets Gia. Wilmington makes a fine block and Turner keeps it alive. Notice how Gia's athleticism and skill allows her to make a rapid adjustment to the ball for a kill. 

Improvement often defines team success. 

Approach to the ball is critical. Note how Anna Shoemaker drifts back behind the 10 foot line to prepare her attack. She strikes the ball far enough behind the net and high enough to make a block less likely. That earns her a kill in the 25-10 second set. 

Coaches cannot teach some skills.  

Ava serves and Wilmington gets a good attack. Chloe gets a fingertip on the block. In a remarkable sequence, Gia, Ruth, and Gia again get "chicken wing" saves leading to an unexpected gift at an unexpected time. 

Young players are progressing. 

Sophomore Caroline Higonenq shows promise as an all-around player. In this sequence, she gets a solid attack from the outside. 

Melrose notes: Melrose looked like a good bet to finish the regular season power rankings at #4 in D2. But Dartmouth topped Barnstable 3-0 to send a monkey wrench into that projection. There's a chance that they spring ahead of Melrose in the final rankings, depending on their final game result against Old Rochester. 

Wilmington Today

Melrose hosts Wilmington tonight in the penultimate game of the regular season.

Mastery flows from showing up every day. Sam Jackson shares sticky lessons from his career. Show up, step up, bear up. 

"You're never too good to audition." 

Jackson went to a reading in 1980 and spotted James Earl Jones. Jackson presumes that Jones is the lead, because he was THE preeminent black actor of the day. "No, I'm here for an interview, just like you." Keep growing and fighting for the parts you want. Dissatisfied with your role? Work harder. 

"Your best moments can be lost in the editing room." 

He discusses how he played a scene in A Time to Kill and everyone on the set cried, overcome by how he performed. The scene never made the movie. Your contribution may not survive the editing room. That doesn't diminish you. It's part of the process. Jackson describes feeling ruined...because he still had an "Oscar bait" mentality (he no longer does). 

In the coaching profession, we suffer similar emotions. Sometimes our best work helps a player, team, or family during practice or a season with a forgettable record. Process and results aren't always tightly linked. 

"Every time you're in front of somebody, you're being judged." 

Jackson said it another way, "there are no small parts only small actors." 

Aristotle remarked, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." 

During practice, coaches study your execution and decisions, including attitude and effort. But attitude and effort are choices. Bring your best self to the classroom, the weight room, and the court. Compete.

Cultivate great habits, winning routines. Great routines include study, writing, reading, exercise, healthy nutrition, adequate sleep, time management, and mindfulness. If not up to the preparation, then we can't complain about the results. 

Jackson says, "never accept the fact that something is yours." The role you have, your position, your minutes, your paycheck are up for grabs. "It's a tough business." 

Screenshot from MasterClass, Samuel L. Jackson Teaches Acting

Lagniappe (something extra). Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) saved up and bought up a little blue bicycle when he was seven years old. In his tough neighborhood, somebody stole it within a week. Later, as Ali, when he walked into the ring, he said to himself, "that guy stole my bicycle." Find your muse. Whatever it takes.  

Hard Coaching

Coach K didn’t call out Deron Williams or Carlos Boozer in the locker room. He called out Kobe & Bron. The BEST players have to take hard coaching for the TEAM. If the HC can call YOU out and you accept it, the team will follow. It’s coaching. Never personal.

— Jhasmin Player (@thePLAYERway) October 15, 2022

Great players embrace hard coaching. But what does that mean? 

ACHIEVEMENT = PERFORMANCE x TIME

The formula expresses both the need for practice (not everyone agrees with Gladwell's '10,000 Hours') and sustained excellence. 

Michelangelo finished crafting Pieta when only twenty-four years old. When asked how someone so young had sculpted something so magnificent he explained that he had worked ten hours a day for more than a decade to master his craft. 

At extremes, coaching comes in two flavors, "relationship-oriented" and "task-oriented." That boils down to "players' coaches" and "hard guys." Seldom do coaches fall at either end of the spectrum. 

"Be demanding without being demeaning." We have to 'reach' players to get high performance from individuals and teams. 

• Success comes when player and team goals align.
• That may mean sacrifices of 'touches' and 'shots'.  
• We can't know goals without asking. 

What is hard coaching? 

• Extreme attention to detail
• Insistence on strength and conditioning
• Demanding sacrifice of time for practice and study
• Repetitions and more repetitions
• Setting higher expectations
• Most of all, it's asking for more from players

Yelling isn't hard coaching; it's just yelling. 

Chuck Daly explained, "I'm a salesman." Players have to buy what we're selling. It's unrealistic to think that everyone responds to the same message. We ask players to sacrifice time, effort, BST - blood, sweat, and tears. We might be asking parents to sacrifice money - team fees, gym memberships, strength and conditioning, travel, extra medical costs, and more. 

Players have to see added value. For professionals, "10,000 shots can make you $10,000,000" might work. There's no equivalent for adolescents. Coaches ask for sacrifice in return for uncertain possibilities.  

Lagniappe. Geno knows. 

Sound Bytes from Bilas

Many of you have read parts of Toughness by Jay Bilas. Here's a brief Bilas' clip worth your minute. 

"There's a difference between playing and competing"

🗣️ @JayBilas pic.twitter.com/1jkA8SXFHJ

— Duke Men’s Basketball (@DukeMBB) October 25, 2022

Updated Power Rankings

 

MIAA Power Rankings determine seeding. 

Teams beyond the top 32 get in depending on record (.500 or better) and "Sullivan Rule" of .500 or better in your division games. 

"Chalk" means higher seed wins. 

• The top seed would play #32 to start. 
• The 4th seed would play #29. 
• Advance to the second round and #4 meets #13. 
• Advance to the quarterfinals and #4 meets #5... and so on. 

A team like Burlington is tightly wedged between Billerica (2.65) and Amherst (2.58). Note that Billerica, a familiar opponent, has more losses and lower margin of victory but much higher opponent rating (strength of schedule). But Melrose also knows how tough Burlington is. 

Walking the Path

Savor the journey. Enjoy practice, pasta parties, bus rides, and spending time with your teammates. They forge memories that last a lifetime, more than wins and losses or trophies. 

No two seasons are alike. Most aren't even comparable. For example, last season Ruth Breen had thirty-one assists and the senior setter has over four hundred this season. 

No previous team has played the top seed in three separate divisions. 

This is the second season of the MIAA All-State tournament that produced a great postseason in 2021. 

As the regular season winds down, uncertainty abounds. A top four seed offers the possibility of three home playoff games. But what matters most is not where or whom you play but how. 

Melrose Notes: "Moving on up." 

With a pre-Halloween haul of 23 kills, Gia Vlajkovic (246) moves into a tie for 13th on the Melrose All-Time single season kills list. Sweet!

Stats vs. Burlington

Gia Vlajkovic and Chloe Gentile had monster offensive games with 23 and 16 kills. 

Emma Desmond and Gia were stout in the back row on serve receives. 

Ruth Breen has a shot to go over 500 assists for the regular season, a remarkable accomplishment for a first-year senior starter. 

Game 18: Melrose 3 Burlington 2 "Resilience"

Melrose's road warriors chilled 'The Inferno' en route to a possible undefeated ML12 campaign, downing the Burlington Red Devils 25-22, 19-25, 21-25, 25-8, 15-10.

The win brings Melrose to 14-4, 14-0 in the ML12. 

The large Burlington crowd witnessed outstanding play by both teams and resilience by Melrose down the stretch. 

via GIPHY

Melrose re-engaged in the fourth set with aggressive play. Sustaining aggressive play often carries the day. 

Keys to victory? 

• Chloe Gentile had a strong match throughout. 
• Melrose came out angry after the third set and rebounded by thumping Burlington in the fourth. 
• Sophomore Leah Fowke had an extended service run and Melrose got out to an 18-3 lead en route to the tying set. 
• Emma Desmond continued her strong play at libero. 
• Melrose reduced service errors significantly. 

Melrose notes: Melrose hosts Wilmington Wednesday as they play out the Freedom Division schedule. 

Winning Is Hard

All opinions are solely my own. They do not reflect those of the City of Melrose, the School Department, the Athletic Department, or Melrose High School. 

Winning is hard. That's what makes it valued. 

Sports shares lessons that stay with you, sound bytes. 

"I'm pleased but I'm not satisfied." - Sonny Lane, former Melrose AD  

Winning and playing well aren't the same. Positive attitude, sound choices, and high effort don't guarantee wins. But they get the odds on your side. 

"How you play reflects how you live." 

Former Celtics' Coach Brad Stevens said that he had never had a great defensive player who wasn't an excellent student. Success skillsets overlap. Focus, preparation, high effort, and persistence travel with winners. 

"The game honors toughness."

Tough players communicate. Tough players hit the floor and bounce back up. Tough players bring energy and energize their teammates. 

"Believe."

You can only be as good as you believe you are. In Performing Under Pressure, Weisinger and Pawliw-Fry suggest wearing a "COTE of Armor" - confidence, optimism, tenacity, and enthusiasm. Strong teams often win close games because they believe they will win. Playing to win differs from playing not to lose. 

Replay: the point of the season versus Wakefield.  

Melrose Kicks Off Final Week of Regular Season at Burlington Tonight

 

Melrose travels to Burlington Monday for a rematch with the Red Devils, a solid club which has won 9 of its last 10. 

The match has more than passing interest. If top teams "won out", Melrose would host Burlington in the second round of the playoffs in a 4 - 13 matchup. 

Since 2016, Burlington has won four of thirteen matches against Melrose, including a trio of 3-2 victories. 

Melrose will not be taking the Devils lightly. 

More Lessons from Coach Meyer

This article about Don Meyer deserves sharing. It popped up during a search for "hard coaching." Great players want to be coached hard.

Here are the main themes: 

1. Criticize Players in Private
2. Emphasize What's Most Important
3. Know Why You're Coaching
4. Be Nice to Everyone You Meet
5. Put the Team First
6. Effort is a Choice

Nobody wants to be 'called out' publicly. A coach's job, to get high performance, requires 'correction'. As a player, you control attitude, choices, and effort. Control what you can control. When coaches thinks you need correction - better attitude, decision-making skills, or to work harder - they tell you. 

"The main thing is the main thing." TIA - teamwork, improvement, accountability. Accountability is holding yourself to a high standard. You can't do that without adequate training, nutrition, rest, and study. 

Coaches help people become more. Someone asked legendary coach Amos Alonzo Stagg about his team. He answered, "ask me in twenty years and I'll be able to give you a better idea." Melrose volleyball alumnae are going places. Numerous graduates have advanced degrees as educators. Victoria Crovo is a second year veterinary student. You read about Emma Randolph last week. 

Wakefield Coach Kayla Wyland is as nice as anyone you will ever meet. And you know she played on the Melrose 2012 State Championship team. 

Why play team sports if not to achieve more together? The African proverb says, “If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.”

Winning is hard. "The magic is in the work." To win big in sports or in life, do 'unrequired work'. In James Kerr's book, "Legacy" about the New Zealand All-Blacks rugby team, he explains, "Champions do extra." 

Treasure Your Memories

Images from Melrose Volleyball instagram

 

Melrose - Wakefield Statistics

Statistics via Maxpreps.com, submitted by Coach Scott Celli. 

The first set saw a high number of service errors (6) contributing to the overall low (85%) service percentage. 

Ruth Breen had another solid night setting, contributing to the high number of kills (37).

My '3 hitter rule' says that teams need three dominant hitters to advance deep into the postseason. With Anna Shoemaker's emergence along with Gia, Chloe, and Sadie, Melrose is in good shape for the postseason. 

Gia moves up to 17th on the single season kills list, 14th individually as a number of players appear multiple times.