This post is coming on a Friday of a Tuesday through Saturday AVCA convention. I decided to write this here to implore all coaches of every level of Volleyball to join the AVCA while this convention is still fresh in my mind. It is imperative for us to help one another improve the value of the sport. With so many coaches as a sounding board for ideas, there is no reason to remain lone soldiers in the battle for young people’s attention in the sporting world and our own quest for knowledge.
The AVCA membership fees include access to presentations from past conventions on their website, a library of videos and books for purchase at low cost, and many email newsletters, mailings and magazines to help you become a better coach. Above and beyond that, it allows you access to the AVCA convention. Which I am currently attending.
On Tuesday night, I arrived in Tampa Bay. Wednesday, I got the chance to watch Texas, Minnesota, Penn State, and Hawaii practice for the final four matches. I was able to see how the best coaches run their practices and keep their teams focused. Honestly, I felt like my money was well spent, just on that. I didn’t know a single coach at that point, but everywhere I looked, coaches were smiling with me and talking about my program with me and vice-versa and offering help whenever possible. I owe a lot to many college and high school coaches for their discussion with me and comparisons about what was going on on the court. Later that evening, there was a welcome mixer. Tons of coaches talking volleyball and many having some drinks and gambling with fake money and just loving all of the shop talk and fun. At this point, I saw many Wisconsin coaches there; UW school system, high school and some club coaches.
On Thursday, the seminars began at 8am. There are so many seminars to choose from, you have to decide what you need to work on, not who you want to learn from. For instance, as an indoor coach, I do not need to learn how to train a defensive player in the sand court from Karch Kiraly, but I do need to learn something from a Div II coach who is giving a class on Defensive Eye Sequencing. After an entire day of this, I have tons of notes and feel ready to lead my team to a tournament win. Then, the Volleyball Marketplace opens at 2:30pm.
The Volleyball Marketplace is full of vendors that want to have your ear, everything from Mizuno to Mikasa, from Solospike to Sports Imports. Vendors large and small want to meet with you. I can’t tell you how many vendors I spoke to that I got some great information from. Of course, there are some vendors outside my scope of responsibility; like Recruiting companies, and the AVP booth. But I can still talk to them to learn more about what I might need to do should I have the opportunity to take on a college job someday. Then, the semifinal matches were underway. I got great seats behind the endline (the coaches preferred spots anyway) and I was able to see everything I saw in the previous days practices come to fruition on the court on Live TV.
On Friday morning, AVCA meetings were on the agenda; High School coaches, club coaches, NAIA coaches, Div I, Div II, Div III, AAU Beach coaches, Mens coaches, etc. we all had our own meetings. The AVCA had their annual meeting where we got the run-down on what has happened in 2009 and what is on the agenda for 2010. We also heard from the outgoing, incoming presidents and the Executive Director – Kathy DeBoer.
In the Mens coaches meeting. I had the opportunity to discuss the future of boys/mens volleyball with John Speraw from UC-Irvine, Al Scates from UCLA, Charlie Wade from Hawaii, Marv Dunphy from Pepperdine, Bill Ferguson from USC , an d several other DI, DII, DIII, and NAIA coaches. Even Doug Beal made an appearance for a 10 mins or so. All in all, about 20 coaches were in the room. The best part of this was that I was treated as an equal even though I was only 1 of 3 high school boys coaches in the room and there were so many legends and elite coaches there. A lot of discussion was made about helping boys volleyball grow and become more relevant. I was also able to hear a little bit about how these coaches felt about the current rules. I also spoke to John Speraw afterwards about a future player he’ll be having next year from my home state of Wisconsin.
At this point, I have done a lot of sitting around and taking ntoes and it’s exhausting, but I know that this will help me become a better coach and if I can take one thing and apply it to both my club team and my high school program, then this convention is well worth it.
If you are a volleyball coach and are not a member of the AVCA, what are you waiting for? I was excited to learn from the USA Volleyball CAP program. This has, by far, blown that experience out of the water. I even watched the semifinal matches with John Kessel and Stu Sherman. Two of the eight CAP coaches that I earned my CAP certifications from. I was in awe of them 2 years ago when I attended my first CAP course. Now they are treating me like an equal as we watch the matches in excitement. You don’t have to go to a convention to see the value of this membership because all of the presentations given during this convention will be available on the AVCA website in a few weeks. You won’t get the experience of talking to coaches during breakouts, you’ll still learn a ton more than you know now.
This whole experience is a very intimidating one still, but as John Wooden has said, “Don’t ever act like you are better than anyone, but understand that you are just as good as everyone else.” I read that quote on the plane on the way to Tampa and it has helped me out of my shell and not feels so intimidated that I’m too afraid to ask questions or discuss my philosophy with anyone. I came here knowing no one, but I now have many coaching friends in all levels of the game that I can learn from. That is priceless.
