Episodes

Mar 15, 2017

In our interview with Glenn Hoag, he shared a comment from legendary coach Julio Velasco. It was that in order to truly be successful a coach must kill the player inside of him. This episode of the podcast explores that comment and its implications for your mentality as a coach. During the discussion we mention the conversation from the Peggy Martin podcast . That’s the one talking about coaching players as they are. Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 32: Killing the Player Inside appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

Jan 1, 2017

First of all, if you have not already seen our In Memorial post about the passing of Wizard Carl McGown , please check it out. We are making the text of Carl’s interview freely available. Be sure to pass it around to your friends and colleagues. The whole volleyball coaching community should be aware of Carl’s influence and impact on volleyball training and player development. Now back to the podcast. In mid-December, John attended the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) annual convention . He presented a session about the Volleyball Coaching Wizards project, which he talks a bit about in this episode. John also attended a number of other sessions. We will probably talk about some of those in future podcasts, but in this episode the focus is on some stuff USA Men’s National Team coach John Speraw discussed in his presentations. Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 31: Observations from the 2016 AVCA Convention appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

Nov 20, 2016

In his interview, Jan De Brandt shared what he thought of as the three roles of a coach. They are the dictator, the creator, and the observer. In this episode of the podcast, we talk about those different roles and how we take each of them on at different times while working with our teams. During this show we also mention the podcast we did on Craig Marshall’s view of the most important skills of a coach. The topic of post-match team talks came up as well. Jan De Brandt has coached professionally in Italy, Turkey, Spain, Azerbaijan, and Germany, as well has his native Belgium. He is currently the Women’s National Team Coach for Hungary, having also coached Belgium. Among his coaching accomplishments are winning the European Volleyball League, silver medal in the CEV Champions League, bronze in the CEV Cup, plus league and cup titles in Turkey. Jan started his career coaching men, but switched to women after a few year Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 30: The roles of a coach with Jan De Brandt appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

Nov 6, 2016

In this episode we take a look at playing time and the expectations related to them. Vital Heynen provides a starting point for the discussion. He shares his thoughts on keeping a squad – and management – happy. The conversation carries on from there. Vital Heynen is the current head coach at German professional team VfB Friedrichshafen. He led the German Men’s National Team team to bronze at the 2014 World Championships. He has coached at the professional level for a number of years, having won a bunch of silverware during his time in his native Belgium. He has also coached clubs in Poland and Turkey. Vital also had a lengthy career as a player in his own right. Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 29: Playing time and expectations with Vital Heynen appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

Oct 23, 2016

What do you do at the start of a new season? Sometimes you have a lot of returning players and only a few new ones. In other cases you have a lot of turnover, if not a completely new squad. In this episode of the podcast we talk about the things that are important to do at the outset, particularly in the area of leadership. That’s in terms of both it’s identification and recognition. In this episode we reference the interview with Tom Turco , that features in the Volleyball Coaching Wizards book . Friend of the show, Ruben Wolochin is mentioned. He was with us for both Episode 5 and Episode 6 of the podcast. While Sue Gozansky does not get a specific mention, we do talk about some of what we talked about in Episode 1 of the podcast. We also talk about this interview excerpt from John Dunning with respect to team culture. We also mention Kathy DeBoer’s book Gender and Competition . The movie Necessary Roughness is in the discussion as well. Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 28: Starting a new season with your team appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

Oct 9, 2016

The first ever Volleyball Coaching Wizards book was recently released . In this episode of the the podcast we talk about the book, and about the whole Wizards project that has brought about it’s development. Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 27: The first Volleyball Coaching Wizards book appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

Sep 26, 2016

The relationship between player and coach could be the most important aspect of being a successful coach. In this episode of the podcast we explore that idea. It starts off with two excerpts from highly respected German coach and coach educator Athanasios Papageorgiou. They bring up the idea of looking at coaching beyond what you do in practice and how you manage match situations. Athanasios Papageorgiou is probably best known in his native Germany as a coaching educator as he was Head of Coach Education for the German Volleyball Federation from 1986 to 2014. He remains and FIVB Coach Instructor, which he’s been since 1993. Papa, as he’s known, coached professionally from 1986 to 1992, winning a German championship and a German Cup during that time. Since 1983 he has been head coach for the German National Disabled Volleyball Team (standing), and has also coached the beach version since 2006. He taught volleyball at the German Coaches Academy for many years and has authored five books. Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 26: Player-Coach relationships, with Athanasios Papageorgiou appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

Sep 11, 2016

What are the most important skills for a coach? Craig Marshall shares his thoughts in this episode. We start our discussion there, and eventually circle back to end there. In between, though, we wander around through a few other subjects. Hopefully, you’ll find them interesting. :-) Australian coach Craig Marshall is a fixture on the world beach volleyball circuit. He has coached teams on the highly competitive World Tour for nearly two decades, with eight podium finishes and a World Championships medal. He has also coached multiple medal wins on Continental tours, including a historic clean sweep of medals at the 2016 Asian Championships. He coached the Australian men in the 2000, 2004, and 2008 Olympics tournaments, and was on-hand in 2012 as well. Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 25: Important Skills for a Coach, with Craig Marshall appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

Aug 28, 2016

We’re back! After a busy Summer full of volleyball, work, and book development, we’re back with a new episode of the podcast. The 2016 Olympics have just ended, so we decided to focus this show’s discussion on that tournament. By the way, we had one current Wizard coaching in Rio. Giovanni Guidetti lead his Netherlands team to a strong 4th place finish, which surprised many. By the way, John’s discussion of making subs when losing big in a set can be found here. Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 24: 2016 Olympics Review appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

Jun 26, 2016

What are the qualities and characteristics of a good assistant coach? In this episode of the Volleyball Coaching Wizards Podcast we get the views from long-time NCAA Division I assistant John Corbelli and share our own perspectives from both sides. John Corbelli is one of the most respected trainers of volleyball players around. This is perhaps no surprise given that he assistant for the USA Women’s National Team under legendary coach Arie Sellinger during the 1984 Olympics. John is probably best known for being the lead assistant to his wife Laurie at Texas A&M where the two have spent more than 20 years together. During that time they’ve won nearly 500 matches, made almost 20 trips to the NCAA tournament (including 2 Final Fours), and have had players earn 30 All-American selections. Fellow Wizards Vital Heynen , Bill Neville , and Jim Stone were mentioned in this episode. Vital was featured in Episode 2 and Bill was part of Episode 16 . Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 23: The qualities of a good assistant coach with John Corbelli appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

Jun 12, 2016

In baseball, managers use pitch counts to help them make decisions on when they might need to replace their pitchers. Could we do something similar in volleyball? That’s the subject of this episode of the Volleyball Coaching Wizards Podcast. Ryan Mitchell has been a head coach at a three different high schools in the greater Dallas area, as well as having coached at the Juniors level for three of the area’s clubs. At the high school level, Ryan won five straight Texas titles, earning himself six Coach of the Year selections in the state. He was also selected National High School Coach of the Year by the NFHS. At the club levels his teams have earned national qualification nearly every year. Fellow Wizards Ismo Peltoarvo and Redbad Strikwerda were mentioned in this episode. Redbad was featured in Episode 7 of the podcast. Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 22: Jump Counts with Ryan Mitchell appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

May 29, 2016

Player psychology is an important consideration for coaches at all levels, and in all sports. How much does it factor into how you put together your practice plans and how your address developmental needs in training with your team? Probably not enough. In this episode of the podcast, Anders Kristiansson starts off the conversation with some observations from his interview on the importance of keeping the psychological aspect in mind when developing training plans and talking with players. Anders Kristiansson , who currently coaches in Japan, is a coach who influenced other top coaches. He coached teams to 26 combined men’s and women’s championships in his native Sweden, then went on to win 15 titles in Belgium and 3 more in Greece. His teams played in four CEV Champions League Final 4s and twice reached the final. Anders also coached the Swedish national team during its strongest period of international performance. He lead the team to a silver medal at the 1989 European Championships, the nation’s best ever tournament finish. This is the second time Anders has been featured in the podcast. You can hear his thoughts on keeping things simple from Episode 11 . Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 21: The psychology of training with Anders Kristiansson appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

May 15, 2016

Playing 6 v 6 games in practice is something we all do. It’s a fundamental part of preparing our teams to play in competitive matches. The question is how best to make those games as productive as possible, especially when it comes to how we split out the players. In this episode of the podcast we have a discussion about that, starting with comments from Arnie Ball about having A-team vs. B-team scrimmages. Arnie Ball spent more than 30 years coaching the men’s team at IPFW where he won over 500 matches, reached the NCAA Final 4 six times, and was a national runner-up. He also won over 200 matches as the IPFW women’s team coach in the first few years of his tenure there. Arnie was named conference Coach of the Year three times and the 2007 AVCA National Coach of the Year. He has worked in the USA national program in a number of different coach roles and is a member of the AVCA Hall of Fame. Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 20: Training A side vs B side with Arnie Ball appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

May 1, 2016

This episode of the podcast actually takes a different course than most in that it features a question submitted by a listener. He basically asked the question how as coaches we can avoid having all the responsibility (blame) dumped on us when the team doesn’t perform as expected – whatever that might mean. It’s a really interesting thing to think and talk about. Mark’s blog post with the quotes from NBA coach Gregg Popovich mentioned in the conversation can be found here . John’s blog post on the subject of proving ourselves as coaches . We also mentioned the episode with Tom Turco about post-match talks . Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! As this episode proves, we actually do pay attention to them and you might even make your way into the show. If nothing else, you let us know people actually listen. :-) The post Podcast Episode 19: Avoiding being the scapegoat for losing as a coach appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

Apr 17, 2016

One of the struggles we can face as coaches is having to work with players who have motivations different than our own. In some cases it’s because they are different types of players than we were. In other cases it’s because they are in the sport for different reasons. In this episode of the podcast we start with Peggy Martin sharing her experience of learning to coach players as they are, not as we wished they were. Peggy Martin has over 40 years of college coaching experience, primarily at the NCAA Division II level. She’s accumulated more than 1200 career victories and has won more than 20 league titles. Her Central Missouri teams made 25 straight trips to the NCAA tournament, reaching six Elite 8s and a national championship match. Peggy has been named Coach of the Year 22 times, including earning NCAA Division II National Coach of the Year honors in 1987. She is a member of the AVCA Hall of Fame. A little discussion of blocked vs. random training came into this discussion, following on the subject of Episode 17 . Vital Heynen’s interview came up again in terms of having a coaching style contrary to his prior experience of coaching as a player. Along the same lines, Stelio DeRocco came up in terms of having prior playing experience being useful in understanding player motivation. We also referenced the characteristics of a great setter episode with respect to showing a lack of doubt to the team. Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 18: Coaching the players as they are with Peggy Martin appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

Apr 3, 2016

The benefits to be had from incorporating more random or distributed (game-like) training in your practices as opposed to the old-school block style of training (basic repetitive skill execution) are often discussed in coaching circles these days. In this episode of the podcast Tom Tait, who knows a thing or two about skill acquisition, talks about how you can still do skill coaching in a game-like environment and how we need to allow our players to develop their athleticism in that way. Tom Tait is basically the father of Penn State Volleyball. He was the first coach for both the men’s and women’s teams, having handed the latter off to Russ Rose. He developed the men’s program into a consistent NCAA championship contender before eventually also handing that off. Since then he’s been focused on coaching education, working with the US national team program, and continuing his work as a professor at Penn State. In the discussion a graph is mentioned which shows why random training is superior to the block alternative, based on scientific research. Here it is: This was presented at the USA Volleyball High Performance Coaches Clinic in 2015. John was there and shared what was discussed in Going beyond maximizing reps . We also referenced the desirability of being as efficient as possible in our practice planning and implementation. That was talked about in the Jan De Brandt episode . Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 17: Better results from random training with Tom Tait appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

Mar 20, 2016

When it comes to the history of the game, few can beat Bill Neville’s experience and knowledge. In this episode of the podcast he shares his favorite setter of all time, Katsutoshi Nekoda , and what characteristics made him so good. Nekoda was the setter of the Japanese team which in the 1960s revolutionized the sport by introducing multi-tempo sets. Bill Neville has been a fixture for USA Volleyball for decades. He was on the coaching staff when the men won Olympic gold in 1984, has been Technical Director, and National Commissioner of Coaching Education. In the latter role he lead the development of the Coaches Accreditation Program (CAP). Bill coached the Canadian national team in the 1976 Olympics, and also spent over 15 years coaching NCAA Division I women’s volleyball. He authored the book Coaching Volleyball Successfully . Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 16: The characteristics of great setters with Bill Neville appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

Mar 6, 2016

It is often the case that we, as coaches (and teachers), either coach to the middle of our squad or focus more attention on the weaker players to try to bring them up to everyone else’s level. From the perspective of maximizing gains, this can make sense. As Wizard Joel Dearing points out, though, we cannot ignore the best players in the team along the way. That is the focus of this episode. Joel Dearing coached at NCAA Division III Springfield College for 30 years and accumulated over 700 wins. That’s good enough for a Top-10 standing in the record books. He mainly coached the women at Springfield, but also coached the men for seven seasons, and in his last had the team end the year ranked #1. Joel was five times selected AVCA Regional Coach of the Year and coached 10 All-Americans. He is a member of the board at the Volleyball Hall of Fame, a long-time part of the USA Volleyball Coaches Accreditation Program (CAP) cadre, and author of the books Volleyball Fundamentals and The Untold Story of William G. Morgan – Inventor of Volleyball . Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 15: Coaching your best players with Joel Dearing appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

Feb 21, 2016

Pre- and post-match team talks have long been the subject of interest and attention, both by those involved in them (players and coaches) and those observing from outside. In this episode our conversation focuses on post-match talks, especially following a loss. It begin with the thoughts of Wizard Tom Turco. Tom Turco has won 17 state high school championships in Massachusetts, where he has coached for over 30 years. His teams won a record 110 straight matches between 2003 and 2007. Tom was selected as the AVCA National Coach of the Year in 2008 and the NHSCA National Volleyball Coach of the Year in 2012. Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 14: Talking to the team after the match with Tom Turco appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .

Feb 7, 2016

In volleyball, as in life, it is often beneficial to break things down in to smaller, more manageable chunks. Mike Lingenfelter talked about this in his Wizards interview, sharing his “High 5” concept of providing his team with five progressive objectives for each set. That idea is the focus of this episode of the podcast. Mike Lingenfelter is the co-director of the Munciana Juniors volleyball club and coach of its 18s Samurai team. After his own playing career, he started his coaching at the college level, but eventually found his niche in the juniors age group where his teams have won four national championships, were national runner-ups an additional four times, and earned three third place finishes. His high school teams won three Indiana state championships and he was selected Indiana state high school Coach of the Year three times. Mike is a regular coaching presenter and clinician. Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome ! The post Podcast Episode 13: Breaking the game in to parts, with Mike Lingenfelter appeared first on Volleyball Coaching Wizards .