Coaching

Setter training is one of the most critical aspects of having a great volleyball team. Whether you are a player or a coach, this information will help you improve at this very key position and teach you how to work with setters for maximum effectiveness.

There is a very large difference between someone that can set a volleyball and someone that can run the offense. Your task as a coach is to teach your setter how to run the offense as efficiently as possible. As a setter, your job is to own that responsibility and keep the team flowing. These tips will help setters improve and become all that they can be.

Constant feedback is necessary from all levels. Setters must be great at receiving feedback from hitters and coaches. It is also important for the setter to provide feedback to the passers.

Too frequently, I see coaches and hitters that expect the setter to know where the ball should be and how they are playing. during practice and matches, hitters should provide feedback to the setter as to the last set. Was it too high or too tight to the net? Too wide? The feedback process must be constant in order to achieve optimum results.

In football, there are coaches specifically for the quarterback because of the nature of the position. In volleyball, the setter is your quarterback and there needs to be proper support and training for them. As a coach, you need to spend time with the setter reviewing their performance. Were they quick enough to the pass, even when coming from the back row? What was their side out ratio? How were the sets distributed between hitters?

These types of review sessions after each practice and match will be invaluable for your setter training. As a setter, you need to have this mindset of constant improvement and ability to adapt based on this feedback. If your team and coaches do not do this, take it upon yourself as the leader of the team to ask these questions and let them provide feedback.

Avoid the perfect pass syndrome. I see a lot of teams that suffer from the perfect pass syndrome and it hurts their overall offense.

The perfect pass syndrome is when the pass is perfect, the setter will set the ball to their middle hitter on a quick set. If the pass is less than perfect, the ball is going to the outside hitter.

An offense like this is so predictable and easy for the defense to adjust and get two or even three blockers up. If this is happening, this is not your hitters’ fault. This is an issue with the setter and training is needed.

The setter will be much more deceptive when they learn how to set the middle hitter on a less than perfect pass. In fact, this is one of the skills that defines setter training that was done properly. Being able to distribute the ball from any kind of pass is the mark of an elite setter.

Do drills during practice that will allow the setter to practice setting from less than perfect passes.

Train for the situations. This means you should practice the things that setters find difficult especially at the junior high and high school levels. This would include things like coming from the back row and being in position to set, blocking when they are in the front row, transition from defense to offense, knowing when to set and when to set with the arms (a pass), and setting to the back row attacker.

Many of these situations can be trained and simulated in drills. If you are not working on these tasks during practice, I would recommend adjusting your practice schedule and include many other drills. In fact, you can pick up this ebook with many different drills that teach situational abilities like these.

This is another key part of training your setter. You do not want to have a setter that gets in a match and lacks the ability to handle these situations.

I hope these few points of focus will help you setter training and allow you to reach the highest level of achievement possible.

Volleyball coaching will be a lot easier for you with this section of the website. I wanted to create a section with tips on coaching, sample practice plans, forms, and anything else a coach would need!

A volleyball coach will need to have the right plan in place to train their players, teach them the necessary skills, and prepare them for competition. In order to do that, the coach must have the right mindset, tools, and resources to achieve maximum potential from his or her team.

If you need some new volleyball drills to help you in your practices, then we have the information you are looking for. This section on our website has volleyball drills that you can use for just about any skill you are looking to improve on your team.

There are also forms that you will need for coaching. Depending on the level of coaching you are doing, some of these forms may not be needed. However, I wanted to provide them as a resource anyway. You might need volleyball lineup sheets, volleyball stat sheets, or volleyball score sheets.

If you need a sample practice plan for running a practice, we can provide you with that too. Here are sample volleyball practice plans for your volleyball coaching needs. Feel free to use them as needed and don’t hesitate to modify them based on the needs of your team.

If you are coaching youth volleyball, then you are not only teaching them the fundamentals of the game, but you are also teaching them about life. There is a lot of good that you can do by instilling in your players your passion, drive, and motivation to achieve. These are skills that carry them throughout their life.

I hope these coaching resources will be a great help to you as a coach.

I love to get inside the mind of a great volleyball coach. This interview will show you how they think, and give you some great advice about how to make the team, how to train, and how to get noticed by college scouts. Tom Houser is a volleyball coach in Virginia and has been coaching since 1985. He has a tremendous winning record, and has produced a long line of collegiate players and others who went on to coach volleyball. I am honored to present this interview.
What is your passion/motivation to be a volleyball coach?

Tom Houser: I used to be motivated by the competition. Now, it’s just so much fun. Coaching is like being an artist. If you work hard at it, do the right things, are careful, etc., you can create something beautiful. Will it always be a masterpiece? Of course not. But I intend for them all of my teams to be masterpieces. And, then, sometimes, the coach and team together can create a once-in-lifetime priceless memory.

When one season is over, I can’t wait for the next.

Many of our readers are looking for advice on how to make their school volleyball team. What advice would you give them from a volleyball coach’s point-of-view?

Tom Houser: Making the volleyball team has 8 parts.

I) Love for the game is something coaches would like to see, but for middle school teams (and many JV teams), this quality hasn’t developed in the kids yet. If an experienced player is trying out and she exudes “I LOVE THIS GAME, and I’ll do anything for the team,” then she is more likely to make the team than the girl who thinks “Yeah, I like this, but I’m not really excited by it.” The 2nd girl is more likely to quit, have a bad attitude, want to miss practices, etc. and coaches KNOW that!

II) Coachability is important at all levels: middle, JV, high, college. I coached the conference player of the year one season. Two years later she was history. Attitude, attitude, attitude. At my camps, I now tell the story of “Attitude Setter.” Many coaches are willing to lose more games in order to protect their team from the un-coachable brats.

III) Skilled Players are nice to have!! In fact, skill is the most important factor in winning many sports! It’s often more important than height, strength, athleticism, etc. For example, a team of 5’6″ 180 pound greatly skilled volleyball players will have winning seasons in most high school conferences. And they will routinely beat the taller, stronger, more athletic teams. Now, let’s talk about a few things you didn’t mention.

IV) Playing Experience! If a volleyball coach knows that a girl has played a number of years, especially if she’s played travel, then she stands out like a shining star. Not only is this girl usually highly skilled for her age, but she has taken the extra time (and a PILE of her parent’s money) to improve her game. Kids who have a lot of playing experience create championship teams, and those kids are extremely hard to cut.

V) Athleticism! On our travel team last year, we kept a girl who wasn’t very skilled, tall or experienced. But we thought she was freakishly athletic. So we took a chance on her. I know that it doesn’t seem fair, but when a coach figures a player can do something better after one month than another can after 3 years, the volleyball coach may keep the new girl. Gosh, if she stays with the program just 2 or 3 months, what incredible plays will we see?

VI) Loyalty and Teamness! This is a hard one for the volleyball coach to judge. But you may want to consider coming to tryouts wearing something that’s in team colors. I’ve known some girls to bring goodie bags to tryouts, or invite the team to her house after practice, or have her parents bring a cooler of PowerAdes. I know that this appears as though you’re sucking up; but, to me it appears as though you really really want to make the team.

VII) Energy! A girl who comes to tryouts awake, alert and ready to go always gets my attention. Some people call kids like this obnoxious. But I call them energetic and a joy to coach. A girl who’s complaining and whining gets my attention too: “I don’t think I want 3 months of this chic.”

VIII) Effort. I’ll tell my girls, “If you don’t make the play in practice, you won’t make it in a game either.” I guess what I could say at tryouts is, “If you don’t attempt to make the play this week, I may not be seeing you next week.” So give it all you’ve got. If you go for it, you’ve got nothing to lose. But if you save your effort for later, you may not make the team.

These steps will also help you stand out from the crowd at tryouts!

You have a long history of having players that went on to play collegiate volleyball and also became volleyball coaches. What can players do to increase their chances of being recruited for college?

Tom Houser: Here is my advice to parents.

1. The parents will have to search the websites of the colleges, finding which schools offer what their daughter wants to study, which are the right size, etc. This is the “college matching” process. If you pay the recruiters to do it, it’ll be just like an Eharmony thing! Ha Ha, you know, that website that finds a soulmate for you? I’m sure the recruiters will give you a 100-item questionnaire and they’ll find her best matches. The questions will ask about her preferences in college size, ratio of men to women, distance from home, what she wants to study, college atmosphere (rural, urban, etc.), her GPA, class rank, SAT scores, and on and on and on.

If the parents are going to do this process themselves, they have to be ready for the daughter to complain about the school colors, the long-sleeve jerseys, the size of the gym, etc. When I’m helping players, I respond to these whines with, “You know, you’ll be spending 95% of your time in class, in your dorm room, in the library, or laying under a tree. How really important are the school colors?”

2. A skills tape will have to be made. Maybe the girl’s school coach or club volleyball coach can do it. The parents may have to hire someone. Copies will have to be made and it will need to be to be sent to every volleyball coach of every college that the girl is considering. I sell DVD’s on www.coachhouser.com. Let me know if you want a copy of my stepdaughter’s skills tape. When she was a sophomore, I did it. When she was a junior, her mom decided to go pro. Ha ha, I can send you a copy of both.

3. A letter will have to accompany the tape, but that’s the easiest part of the process. The letter will include every bit of info that the parents can imagine a college volleyball coach would want to know. If anyone would like to see the letter that I included with my stepdaughter’s video, I can attach it to an email. Let me know at coachhouser@yahoo.com

4. The girl should contact the volleyball coach from each school about once every 10 days. This is how a girl lets the college coach know that is really, really interested. Sure, if the girl is 6’3”, the coach may contact her, but this is not typical. The vast majority of volleyball families have to promote their own. If parents wait for the coaches to contact them, their daughter’s future in college volleyball is apt to disappear while they are waiting.

5. The player needs to visit all the schools that she remains interested in. All of us have known players who have enrolled in a school, then regretted their decision after just a few weeks of classes. This can be avoided. In fact, I think it’s inexcusable.

6. The girl will want to see the volleyball team play. She and her family should tell the volleyball coach ahead of time that they will be coming. This will allow the volleyball coach to budget time to talk to them. The coach may even want the girl to meet the team, eat a meal with the team, stay overnight with some team members, etc.

A lot of players are looking for volleyball camps to improve their skills. What camps do you recommend?

Tom Houser: Warning #1: A slick brochure means nothing. I used to try to put out a nice one, but it was not worth the time.

Warning #2: If the camp director’s college teams have been successful, that means very little also. There is only a slight correlation between a winning coach and a positive camp experience for your players! Successful coaches don’t necessarily direct good camps any more than successful players make good coaches. Heck, the coach with the great record could be an incredible recruiter. So how does that make him/her a great camp director?

Warning #3: Don’t push a camp onto your players because that’s where you went to school or because you just saw them win the D1 National Championship on TV last month. Try to pick a camp that’s good for your team! There must be a better reason to support your camp choice than, “I went to school there. Trust me!”
But here’s a list of how to pick a camp that’s appropriate for your players.

Summer Camp Rule #1: Cost

This must be our #1 criteria in selecting a camp. Don’t select one that makes the parents gasp. OK, sure, I know you often get what you pay for. But, that’s not always the case. And as I wrote in an article a few years ago, (a) you can find cheaper camps that are very high quality and (b) would you rather go to the cheaper camp? Or not go to one at all?

Before you require the parents to fork out $1000 for two out-of-state university camps, would you rather 40% of your players stay home? Or would rather make a less expensive choice and have 90% participation?

Summer Camp Rule #2: Age Appropriate

Sure, you can persuade your 14’s to play 16’s. But will the camp work with your youngest? Very very few 12 year olds will be comfortable shoved into a 14’s division. Your elementary and early middle school girls must have their own division, or they will be miserable, and their parents’ money will be wasted.

Is it too far away from home for your youngest? Most 14’s can stay 100 or 200 miles from home, but many of the younger ones are not mature enough yet. (And their parents may not allow it!) So, for your 12’s and 13’s, a local day camp is probably adequate. In other words, I would take very few of my girls out of town until they reached about 13, or maybe 14.

Summer Camp Rule #3: The Reputation

A camp’s reputation is what makes some camps ridiculously popular, and what shuts other camps down: The recommendations of those who have been there should help you decide which camps to attend.

And by picking a camp that your players will really enjoy, you will earn the accolades of your players and parents!
Talk to as many coaches as you can about the camps your considering. Here is a list of questions that I would ask.

• Did your players like the food? Was there enough selection?Were your players busy?
• Or did they have 6 hours of day with nothing to do? Were they challenged?
• Did the girls feel safe? Was there adequate supervision?
• Were the camp directors knowledgeable? Or were many of them 19, 20, 21 year-olds just “putting in their time”?
• Were the accommodations adequate? (In 1999, I took my girls to a camp where the high temp was 100 degrees ever day and there were no air conditioned rooms and only 1 air conditioned gym. They were so happy to leave, and they begged me never to take them back.)
• Were the campers treated well? Were they complimented and made to feel special? Or did the directors lose patience with the kids?
• Was the camp run well? Or were the directors wasting time trying to figure out what to do next? Did the girls spend half of their day in a dorm room?
• Do you think the camp is a good value? Or does it appear to be a cash-cow for the directors?

Summer Camp Rule #4: Skill Appropriate

Does the camp have a division that meets the needs of your oldest? Don’t take your girls — who have been playing club ball since the 7th grade — to a camp where they are the only advanced players in attendance. They’ll want to bolt after the 1st day, and I wouldn’t blame them.

Summer Camp Rule #5: Coach To Player Ratio.

A low coach-camper ratio is over-rated. That’s why it is 5th.

All camp brochures rave about their low coach-camper ratio. But just because a camp has one volleyball coach for every 5 campers, that doesn’t mean those coaches are teaching the campers anything! In fact, the “coaches” are often nothing but the women who play volleyball at the college. And some of them are no more teachers of the game, than am 6’10”. They’re just because they’re forced to by the head volleyball coach, or because they’re earning $8 an hour.
On the other hand, many girls have been to “specialty” camps where there are 20 setters per 1 coach. Don’t send your players to that either. That’s why “Rule #3” is so vital!

Summer Camp Rule #6: Location.

In 1996, I took my players to a one-day clinic at a college in an inner-city. They stared in amazement at the scenery. In that one day, we saw students who were high on drugs, students that had dog collars tattooed around the necks, students with dozens of piercings (this was 1996, not 2006), and students with their growling Rottweilers on leashes. I vowed never to take my small town kids back there again.

Finally. It’s time for all you coaches to make your decisions about summer camps. Don’t let your kids down! Don’t let the parents down! Do your homework. Do more homework than is necessary. Then, if the camp doesn’t work out, you want to be able to say, “I asked the camp directors about this, and they assured me it wouldn’t be like this. We aren’t going back.”

You don’t want to have to say, “Oh, man, that didn’t work out. Let’s try another one next year.”

What has been your most memorable moment as a volleyball coach?

Tom Houser: There are dozens. I remember visiting a college for the first time when one of my players was on the college roster. I remember the day that same woman said, “I want to be your JV coach next year.” I remember being snowed in, we all had to stay in a motel in Gretna Virginia. The memories are limitless.

The best ones: When our team was successful against teams where we were ridiculous underdogs. In 2005, my club team was the 15’s B team. At our first tournament, who was on our 2nd court? Our club’s A team. We beat them in three. Unbelievable. The stories like that still make me smile.

I can’t wait to try to do it all again!

You also offer several ebooks on coaching and volleyball drills on your website. How will these ebooks help other coaches?

Tom Houser: These books are not only x’s and o’s. They will help volleyball coaches with their own personal issues. Some coaches need to hear, “YOU ARE IN CHARGE!” and some need to hear. “No, there is not a 17 year-old who has more attitude than you do. Yes, you can allow it, but you don’t have to.” So, a lot of the articles in the ebooks will have coaches saying, “OK, we can implement this!” But there’s a lot of information that will have a volleyball coach smiling and saying, “Oh yeah!” He’s right. I can do that and I will!”

I am thankful that volleyball coach Tom Houser took time to do this interview for us. Please check out his website at www.coachhouser.com for more information from a great volleyball coach.

Teaching volleyball fundamentals is one of the most important aspects of being a coach. Many coaches are worried about running complicated plays or other aspects of volleyball that are not that important. You will help your team the most when your emphasis is placed on the basic skills of your players.

As you are teaching the sport to your team, you have the responsibility to teach them the fundamentals. As your team’s skills improve in passing, hitting, setting, blocking, serving, and playing defense, your team will win more frequently and enjoy greater success.

Teaching proper volleyball techniques is what you should place your emphasis on during practices. Use the link above to learn more about the proper form to be teaching to your players.

Practice is also the best time to work on your team’s offense. Make sure that your starting rotations get the opportunity to play together during practice so that they will know what to do during matches.

Volleyball drills during practice should have the emphasis on developing their skills so that they can perform those skills during a game. Never select a drill just to pass time at the practice. You will have the greatest results if you select volleyball drills to develop weak areas for your players.

It is the volleyball fundamentals that will make the biggest difference in your players. In fact, if you watch the people that play volleyball at college, their fundamentals are well honed. That is why they are receiving a volleyball scholarship.

The whole point is that you always want to get back to the basics when training your team. The basics are what matter the most!

Where to go next?

Vertical Jump – Learn how to increase your vertical for maximum results!

Volleyball Scholarships – This page outlines the information needed to obtain a volleyball scholarship.

Barry Lovelace Interview – Learn how to train for volleyball and get specific results from this awesome personal trainer.

Teaching volleyball skills can be a daunting task. It seems like the task gets even more difficult if you are teaching younger kids. So, how do you go about this endeavor?

That is the purpose of this section of the web site. I want to make teaching volleyball skills easy for you, the coach. Volleyball coaching jobs at any level require you to be proficient at teaching skills to your players.

Use these sections to help you learn how to teach the various skills that will teach the children the volleyball fundamentals of passing the ball, how to set, how to rotate, serving the ball, and approaching the net to hit the ball. Depending on the age of the children, they may not yet be able to hit the ball, but learning the footwork will help them as they grow and can jump higher.

When progress is tracked and reported, progress improves. That is why I created a page on how to simply keep volleyball statistics. Check it out.

Here is the most important part of teaching others to gain volleyball skills: Watching is not the same as touching. I have seen some coaches over the years that demonstrate with one player, or they have the kids play 6 on 6 volleyball. This teaching method does not help and will not prepare the children to play.

When I think about how I learned to become proficient at volleyball, I learned by playing two on two volleyball. When you are playing in smaller groups, there are more opportunities to touch the ball, to make plays, and learn the various skills needed to be successful.

When you are teaching these skills to the kids, you must take a similar approach. In order for them to learn the skills, you must teach them how to do the individual skills, and then give them the opportunity to use them in a game situation. This is true for any age people that you are teaching.

Use these ideas to help you with your teaching.

How to coach volleyball is another important topic. I outline how to know what to teach the various age groups you might be coaching.

If you like this page, you will also benefit from the page on volleyball practice plans where you can get free downloads of sample practice plans.