In the spirit of a classic John Kessel article titled “Kessel’s Handy Guide to Ruining a Player“, I’ve decided to write about some things I’ve noticed that high school coaches can do to help run a volleyball, or any sport for that matter, program into the ground. With these tried and true methods, you will succeed in devaluing your program and the benefits of playing the sport to potential student athletes.
1. Don’t run summer activities. Your players want to enjoy their summer, not spend it in a gym. This means open gyms, camps, feeder program clinics, etc. After all, you have better things to do too, it’s summer for crying out loud! Players will learn all they need to learn in the preseason practices. The younger kids will learn what they need to learn from playing their season.
2. Be a Buddy. Your players don’t want an adult mentor and they hate rules. What they truly want is another buddy to emulate. No one wants people to hate them. If the coolest player likes you and you hang out with them, then everyone else will too.
3. Don’t even touch personal conflicts. You have to remain neutral and never get involved. These things take care of themselves, especially with girls. Usually a verbal fight gets resolved with no hard feelings anyway.
4. Show the players your skills. The players need to know that you’re awesome. Show them by serving hard at them, then laugh when they can’t pass your wicked serves. Spike at them hard and they’ll respect your abilities. Plus, if they can pass your serves and hits they can do it in a game.
5. Only use the weight room to kill time. High School kids aren’t fully developed anyway and working out can stunt growth. There is no proof that a weight room can make your players better, right?
6. During matches, dispute all the bad calls and scream to show your dominance. Referees are supposed to be perfect and you must hold them to a higher standard. Plus, you need to show your players that you can push anyone around when neccesary.
7. Don’t talk to the team parents. They can learn everything they need to know from their kids who play for you. Did the parents try out for the team? I don’t think so…
8. Practices are a chance for the team to bond. So let the players talk to each other about their day and have lots of fun. This will give you the opportunity to work with your setters during practice too.
9. Make it a point to show up a little late to about half of the practices. Don’t make arrangements with your assistants either. This serves two purposes; it shows the players that your life doesn’t revolve around them, and it gives you a chance to see how the older players lead the team in your absence. You must punish players that show up late though. After all, you paid your dues and they haven’t.
10. Do everything your coaches did for you. Everything you need to learn about volleyball coaching you learned from your coaches that you had in high school and college. There is no reason to continually educate yourself, you know how to coach just fine. Don’t listen to your players either, you’ve been playing volleyball longer than they’ve been alive.
There are a lot more, but if you start with these methods you too can go from first to worst in just a few short years and quite possibly end the program altogether in the process. Always remember, your ego is more important than the team’s success or failure.
Awesome, huh?
