28 Volleyball Coaching Principles

a girl's volleyball team huddle

1) The mind is the athlete

    • Skills are neural connections in the brain. The strength of the (mind-body) connection determines your strength at a skill.
    • Improving is about creating and strengthening neural connections.
    • The mind doesn’t know the difference between reality and an imagined scenario – visualizing successful repetitions is nearly as effective as real practice.

2) Make it an emotionally-safe environment

    • Studies show the best teams share one thing in common – an emotionally-safe environment.
    • Continuously make them feel safe through your words and actions, reframing mistakes and errors as opportunities to learn.
    • Praise effort over outcome.

3) You don’t have to like all your players, but you do have to love all your players

    • The most important message you can send a person is that they are accepted just as they are.

4) Be demanding with groups; be patient with individuals

    • You can be demanding and aggressive with groups, so long as you are speaking to the group concept.
    • When dealing with players one-on-one, be as patient as possible, taking as much time necessary to explain and make a connection.

5) Give praise in public; give negative feedback privately

    • Show players respect by not embarrassing them in front of their teammates. Use one-on-one time to give feedback on behavior modification.

6) Treat them all differently

    • Different players will need different things from you.
    • It is your job as a coach to know your players, how they learn, what motivates them, and how to position yourself to bring out the best version of themselves.
7) Players don’t have to like each other, but they must respect each other and themselves
    • Not everyone will get along. The ultimate goal is mutual respect and trust, which enables a team of individuals to accomplish a goal bigger than themselves.
8) Create a group identity/culture by using their Team Name
    • Address them as a group. Set high expectations for the group. Discipline them as a group.
    • Speak to them as a group during time outs.
9) What is important to you will become important to your team
    • Teams take on the personality of the coach
10) Invest time in planning
    • Coach John Wooden would spend more time planning his practices than actually having the practice.
    • A 2004 meta-study on the original 1976 study of Wooden’s success found it was his meticulous practice planning that led to 10 National Championships in 12 years.
11) Reduce the information
    • Information is only memorable if it is immediately applicable; otherwise, it will not be retained.
    • Teach while they play (Humans remember better when blood is flowing through their brains).
    • No lectures
    • Aim for giving players 20-second “packets” of information
12) Show more than tell
    • Humans are predominantly visual creatures – use visual aids as much as possible
    • A coach or player must be able to demonstrate the proper technique for each skill. If an in-person demonstration is not possible, use online videos to show skills.
13) Catch the neuron firing
    • Skills are neural connections in the brain.
    • Reinforce the connection by praising when something is correct AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
    • Send a positive signal to their brain that it is the correct path to repeat and encode into memory.
14) Catch them doing it right
  • What you focus on is what you give your energy to – focusing on the players’ success and what they are doing right will accelerate their learning.
  • Focusing their attention on mistakes will lead to more mistakes.
  • Positive reinforcement is the most effective learning style for most players.
15) Practice makes permanent
    • Practice does not make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect.
    • It is not the number of repetitions that will determine success, but the number of focused repetitions.
16) Preach the struggle
    • At every level, volleyball will be a challenging sport.
    • Frequently remind your players of the struggle and for the need to work hard to obtain mastery.
17) Success rate = 70%
    • Practice should be messy
    • Players should be succeeding at drills only ~70% of the time.
      • Higher – they are not being adequately challenged and will plateau
      • Lower – they are being pushed too far and will not build confidence
18) Give specific feedback
    • Stay away from generic feedback – ex. “good pass.”
      • What was good about it?
    • Use more expressive vocabulary and give context to explain why something was good and what parts of it specifically
      • “Good result, good straight arms, good angle, good early read, etc.”
19) Get them 1% better at one or two things each practice
    • Focusing on getting players 1% better at one or two skills each day turns into exponential growth over time.
20) Stretch their brains
    • A sports psychologist once told Shaq that to improve his free-throw shooting, he should practice shooting from 14 feet away and 16 feet away, in order to give his brain more context for the distance of a 15- foot free-throw shot.
    • Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to constantly be changing through our lives.
    • An easy way to slightly change the environment and stimulate players’ minds is to switch sides of the net.

21) Use the net

    • The game is played with the ball going over the net.
    • Whenever you have access to a court and a net, use the net.
    • Schedule conditioning, team bonding, and any other activities that do not require a net to be outside of the court time.

22) Use a white board

    • Different players have different learning styles.
    • Using a white board will allow players to see the words and court drawings in 2-dimension, helping them to process and internalize the game on a deeper level.

23) Volleyball is random – prepare them for randomness

    • Add an element of randomness and unpredictability into each drill.

24) Give feedback emotionlessly

    • John Wooden’s coaching feedback:
      • 6.7% were compliments
      • 6.6% were expressions of displeasure
      • Over 75% contained pure information — what to do and how to do it, with no emotional context
25) It’s not about winning; it’s about wanting to win
    • We ultimately cannot control whether we win or lose. We can control how hard we work and how much we prepare.
    • Winning is a great by-product of all the work that we put in.
    • Praise effort over outcome.
26) You have to handle their errors so they can handle their errors
    • Volleyball is a game of confidence and errors.
    • A coach’s reaction can help the player accept their error, move past it, and prepare fully for the next point.
    • Your body language communicates more than your words can – eye contact, a head nod, a thumbs up – shows a player you still believe in them.
27) Take it one point at a time
    • Each point is its own separate game.
    • Past points don’t matter. Future points don’t exist. This point is the only thing that matters.
    • It doesn’t matter who is on the other side of the net, or what the score is; each player should be playing their hardest to win this point.
28) Remember it’s just volleyball
    • And volleyball is just a sport.
    • It is a vehicle for self-exploration, building self-esteem, competition, community, connection.
    • But never forget the larger things in life – family, dignity, self-respect, helping others, and being good.