From a board member: When we’re talking about training athletes, remember — it’s volleyball
Wednesday, December 29th, 2021
By Curtis Madson
Badger Region Board Member
As I sat in a hotel lobby in Columbus, Ohio, waiting to head home after yet another great week of the AVCA Convention, I began reflecting on the week that was. That prompted me to grab my iPad and get to work on this article.
The first thing that comes to mind is how many awesome conversations I had all week. I was able to sit down and talk volleyball with people from every corner of our great sport, from national team coaches, division 1, 2, 3, NAIA, club, high school men’s and women’s coaches. I’m talking about conversations, not just sessions, but real conversations.
My biggest take away, after reflecting on this, is we never talked about men’s volleyball or women’s volleyball systems, we talked about VOLLEYBALL systems. I think this is where we have our greatest disconnect in our community of coaches, and where we hold ourselves back from our greatest growth, by assigning gender to skills and systems. Please hear me out, as I know I may have just lost a chunk of our readers. I promise it will get better.
I think the first thing we need to do when we think about systems, especially those that are outside of our “gender” or comfort zone, is change the way we approach the question. We need to ask “why,” and not immediately look to why not to implement something.
The first session I attended was with USC Women’s Head Coach Brad Keller (a former men’s coach for many, many years), talking about improving your teams out of system offense. What I loved most about his presentation is he started it out with (my summary of his words), this may not be for some of you, and this might be, but just give it a thought.
Where I was immediately saddened was three minutes into the presentation I heard grumbling behind me of, “Why would we use that? That’s a men’s idea.” I challenge us to get away from that way of thinking, please don’t go to that place. The place where we immediately say “why not”, instead look at the skill at its face value and think about why this is being trained and discussed, and can this system FIT me and my athletes.
I’ll admit for the longest time I fell into this trap with running the slide. That’s a women’s set, I don’t run that on the men’s side, we run a 5-1 it can’t work with a back row attacker in right back. I went to the “why not” and lived there for a long time. After time I realized it wasn’t the set that didn’t belong, it was my lack of willingness to look at the slide.
With a few conversations, some video, and a little creativity, we were able to look at our offense and find a way to not only run the slide, but run it with a back row attack, and create more blocking issues systematically with the team across the net. Admittedly it took me a bit to get to this point, but the biggest thing that helped me was going and having conversations with the women’s coaches that I knew to find the “why”, and how to utilize it the best. They became my best resource. From those conversations it opened the door to more questions. We collaborated, in exchange for info on the slide, I talked about the Bic.
Speaking on the Bic, I’m sure all of us in Wisconsin had our eyes glued on the tv, or in the arena on Dec. 18 as the University of Wisconsin brought home its first ever National Championship! One thing that I took away from my time watching both the semifinals and the finals was the amount both Wisconsin and Nebraska utilized the Bic, and the back row. For it being a men’s set, it sure seemed to make its way onto the biggest stage at the biggest moments.
Clearly both coaching staffs have looked at the “why” and chose not to define their systems by gender beliefs, but systems that leverage their athletes and create positive opportunities for their team. Again I’m not stating that every system fits every team, and player but I think it’s time we work to not short change ourselves by antiquated gender assigning of skills.
It doesn’t just have to be about the Bic or the slide. It can be any and all topics; triple blocking, float serving, jump serving, the hybrid, offside defender under, offside defender wide, 5-1’s, 6-2’s, the list can go on. I think that if you open your mind to all possibilities and find what fits you, and your athletes, without creating mental barriers you could unlock even greater potential to your team.
I think more than ever as ALL athletes in our game are getting bigger, faster, stronger, and have WAY more access to film and matches we should take it upon ourselves to push them and ourselves as coaches to the next level. Not limiting their abilities by what gender they play. I have spent most of my career coaching on the men’s side, and during my time on the women’s side I heard often in recruit meetings that people would often try to talk recruits out of playing for me because I was a men’s coach.
My answer to them was I am a volleyball coach, anyone can play my systems, they just might take a little longer to get comfortable with. I left my 4.5 years at my women’s program with the most wins in school history, and a very exciting offensive team to watch. I found my team learned to love the offensive differences, and I loved working with athletes so focused on the technical side of the game.
They proved they could be successful utilizing another type of system, and play the game a little differently than others. I now see some of those same players coaching their teams, and it is great to see some of those things making their way onto their courts as well.
My parting thought is I ask you all to view yourself as a volleyball coach, not a women’s coach, not a men’s coach, but a volleyball coach. Collaborate, ask questions, try something new, FAIL (it’s OK, the best learning happens that way). For those of you fortunate enough to have the opposite gender where you coach, talk. REALLY talk, ask questions, look for the “why” and be open.
I have had some great conversations during my time at Concordia University Wisconsin with our former women’s coach, and I look forward to those same talks with our new women’s coach when the time comes.
And remember it’s VOLLEYBALL.
Curtis Madson is the Metro Milwaukee Rep on the Badger Region Board of Directors. Email him at curtis.madson@cuw.edu.
