The Art of Subbing

This is the text of an email that I sent to my team this last season. I always thought it would make a good blog post. 

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Hello Team Flare,

Apologies in advance for the length of this message. Please read to the very end as I am sharing some information about the Lethbridge tournament.

I thought we had a great tournament over the weekend. We faced some tough competition that put our team under a lot of stress, forcing them to make in-game decisions that weren’t easy at times. They worked through it and came out with some very valuable experience that will benefit them in the future. As a coaching staff, we were walking a line between providing development opportunities for the athletes and providing a winning experience for both the athletes and the parents. Given the results, I’m hoping that this last tournament can serve as a confidence builder for the team.

I always strive to communicate as openly as possible with you about the team and your daughters. I know as well as all of you the emotions of a volleyball parent watching from the bleachers. I understand perfectly the roller-coaster of emotions you go through. I understand the critical thoughts regarding the coach, officials, and opponents and I always want to give you an opportunity to discuss any concerns you may have. I appreciate you letting the coaches and team have their space during a tournament and waiting 24 hours after a tournament to discuss your concerns. I will ALWAYS make myself available after practices to discuss any issues you have. You can also let our team manager know that you would like to speak with me about something and she can help arrange for a meeting.

One of the most difficult parts of the game of volleyball is the substitution. I can’t speak for other coaches, but for me, substitutions are probably the hardest part of the game. The Mathes family isn’t blessed with an abundance of athletic ability (with the exception of my wife.) In the limited amount of organized sports that I participated in as a child and teenager, I often observed the game from the bench. My daughters, who absolutely love volleyball, have spent more time watching the game from the bench than the court (even with having a parent as a coach!). As a result, I’ve spent many nights after a game or tournament, consoling them through their tears as they wonder why they weren’t good enough to play much or at all. I remember in our first and second year of Sparks, having a discussion at the beginning of each season with my oldest daughters coach. I wanted him to know that as club president, I would honor and respect his decisions about McKinley’s playing time and never question him about it. That being said, I would come home after many tournaments, cursing him in private for having my daughter sitting on the bench. When your daughter isn’t playing as much as the other players, it’s very easy to stop being supportive of the team and I was as guilty of that as anyone. Because those emotions are so close to the surface for me, I am very sensitive of that on any team I coach.

So, as we now transition from our practice-focused part of the season to our competition-focused part, the most frequently asked question by both parents and athletes is “Why?” Sometimes we are asking why the athletes performed lower than their ability. Sometimes we ask why an official made the judgment call they did. But most often we want to know why the coach made a certain playing decision. I would like to walk you through my thought process when it comes to why a decision is made to substitute a player in a competitive match. I can’t say this is how all coaches approach substitutions, but hopefully it will help you understand me better.

I see substitution as an art, not a science. There are no hard and fast rules about how I choose when to substitute. Other coaches may set a hard cap on what they consider mistakes. Once an athlete makes “X” amount of mistakes, a player is substituted. I don’t agree with this, mostly because it means the coach is coaching through fear and punishment and that isn’t an approach I believe in. When we have athletes afraid to give their best effort because they are afraid of getting subbed off the court, we end up with mediocre volleyball and we don’t give the athletes the best opportunities to improve. The athlete ends up playing “safe” and never learns from the experience of “going for it” in a critical moment of the game. They will never feel the elation of being successful after “going for it” and getting a positive outcome.

In the art of substitution, it is helpful to know the various reasons a coach will consider subbing. These are my reasons (in no particular order):

• The first is because a player is performing poorly and having a negative impact on the game.

• The second is because a player is performing poorly, it is upsetting them, and they need some time out to collect their thoughts.
• The third is because the player has a bad attitude and is either affecting the focus of their teammates or is in danger of being sanctioned by the official.
• The fourth is because the coach feels a need to change the on-court chemistry to hopefully provide a momentum change.
• The fifth is because the coach may be out of time-outs and wants to slow down the game and provide a break in momentum.
• The sixth is because the coach needs a role-player on the court to assist in a specific context (defensively strong player in the back court, great blocker at the net, strong server, etc).
• The seventh is because the coach may see a need to have a specific match up with a player on the other side of the net.
• The eighth reason is because the coach may want to give a player on the bench some experience.
• The ninth reason is because I may want to rest a player so they will have more energy for later on in the day.

There may be others, but this pretty much covers most of the cases I can think of.

There are also reasons not to substitute. These are my reasons (again, in no particular order):

• First, the coach may want a certain mix of players to work themselves out of the problems they are in.
• Second, the coach may have more confidence in the players on the court, in a specific context, than any of the potential substitutes.
• Third, the coach may feel that the players on the court have earned playing time through hard work and effort.
• Fourth, the coach may feel that they have a better chance of scoring with a certain player on the court than another, regardless of the mistakes the on-court player might be making.

Often, in choosing candidates for substitution, the coach refers to a mental profile that they have built of the players. This mental profile comes from the experience of watching the player in practices and past competitions. The larger the sample size of data that I have to draw from, the better my mental profile of each player.

This is why I like stats and video recordings of our competitions. It allows me to review the athletes at a time when my emotions aren’t clouding my judgment like they do during a match. The mental profile I build gives me an expectation of how that player will perform in a given context. An important thing to understand is that at this point in the season, this profile largely consists of what we have observed from the player in practice, not how they are performing in the competition. Right now, practice is the most accurate sample of data we have. Up to now, we have had 86 hours of practice time vs. 18 hours of competition.

So, if a player consistently struggles with getting their serve over and in at practice, during competition I may have a lower tolerance for serving errors than another player who is more consistent at practice. If in practice, a player consistently does not jump when they attempt to attack the ball at the net, I will probably consider them less likely to be able to score points in our competitions. If in practice I notice a player bump-setting rather than setting overhand, I don’t expect them to magically change their ways during competition. If in practice, I notice a player who gets upset frequently or has problems concentrating, I feel confident to expect more of the same during high stress situations in competition, and so on and so on…

Armed with the mental profiles of each player, I apply that to the context the game presents and make a judgment call on who to play and for how long. It may seem strange that I might leave a player in the game after they make many mistakes in a row while with other players aren’t afforded that opportunity. The reason most likely is that I believe the team has better odds with a player who has proven in practice that they are capable of consistently performing at a certain level.

As a parent, it is easy to disagree with a coach’s decision to substitute a player. If you find this is a source of frustration for you and your daughter, I suggest the following. Keep with you a notepad that you can journal the instances where you disagree. Record the match, score at substitution, and who was subbed for who. Make a short note as to why you disagreed with my decision and also include a short note as to what you would have done differently. If you are willing to do that, I would be happy to discuss that decision with you. I may even learn something from your observations that will make me a better coach.

So, how can a player improve the mental profile I have of them? The answer consists of two parts. The first is to work hard in practice and come with the correct mental attitude and focus. The second, and probably most important, is to be coachable.

What does it mean to be coachable? It doesn’t just mean to be nice to the coach or always say yes. My definition involves the player attempting to follow the coach’s directions or instructions, even if it leads to temporary failure. For instance, one thing 14U age athletes struggle with is jumping when hitting a volleyball during an attack. It’s probably the hardest thing we ask them to do. And when we say jump, we don’t mean a 1 centimeter hop with their tippy-toes before hitting the ball. We mean a full out effort to jump as high in the air as possible. Athletes who are not accustom to jumping usually give a minimal effort and when they score a point they think they have done enough. As a coach, I see that as an inability to be coachable. What I would like to see is for them to jump as high as they can every time and try to hit the ball, even if they swing and miss. Because eventually, they will learn the timing to hit the ball and when they do, they are going to absolutely crush it!

We have gone over things like this in practice time and time again, and some athletes are more willing to take the risk not being perfect and looking silly when they miss. Those athletes are the ones who end up doing it right. The ones who play safe and do the bare minimum end up plateauing or not advancing as fast as some of the others. And that mindset is something I can’t coach. It has to come from within.

With that being said, I would like to inform you of my approach to the upcoming Lethbridge tournament. I am not focused on “Winning” this tournament. I will use this tournament help our team be as aggressive as possible in a competition situation, even if it means losing points or matches. I need all our girls to be able to “go for it!” in a competition scenario. They need to know what that feels like and take risks with that pressure on them. That will be our focus in practice this week.

I will be mixing up the lineups. Players that need practice being aggressive will be given chances to be the ones who get to play both sets in a row. Players who are trying to be aggressive, serving overhand or jump serving, and jumping high when attacking will be successful and get to stay on the court. Any players who start playing safe and worrying about the score will be subbed off so someone more aggressive can have the chance to “go for it”.

And just to make it absolutely clear, at this upcoming tournament, I am not worried about the score or winning at all. Taking this approach will only help us compete at a higher level at our upcoming AVA Premier 2 tournament.

As always, I welcome your input and feedback.

Regards,

Jared Mathes

Calgary Sparks Volleyball Club

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FYI, the Lethbridge tournament was fantastic. You can read about that experience here. In the future, I'll make a blog post about that tournament.

The Coach You Pick

As another volleyball season comes to a close, I always reflect on how my season went, what type of a coach I was, how the players progressed, the relationships I have built over the season with other clubs, teams, athletes, referees, and the general state of the volleyball community that I operate in.

As a club president, I also have the unique opportunity to receive feedback from parents and athletes in our club who were coached by someone other than me.

In the 3 seasons I have been involved in this endeavor, at the end of each season I always come to one realization that I hope parents and athletes will remember come next November.  And that realization is

The coach you pick in November is the same coach you will have in May.

I always find it interesting how at the beginning of the season, many parents are willing to do almost anything to have their child athlete be picked for a team.  And once that happens, they are most grateful for the opportunity their child will have to "Just be on the team".  Our coaches are then praised for their well run practices and the improvement their child athlete is demonstrating.

If a casual observer were to fast forward the season and start watching again in May, they would think they had entered the Bizarro universe.  Attitudes and relationships seem to have done an about face.

Now we have parents arguing with coaches during tournaments, questioning their decisions.  Why was my child athletes not given enough playing time.  Why didn't you keep the better players on the court so we could win the match.  Why do you focus so much on technique (or not focus on it enough).  The list of dissatisfactions could fill libraries.

As I have observed these many seasons and kept a close eye on both the coaching in our club and other teams and clubs, I believe I can safely say that the one thing in club volleyball that is a constant is the coaching.  The variable here are the players and parents.

I think as a club, we need to stress during our tryouts that the players and parents have an obligation to get to know the coach, find out about their coaching philosophy before they agree to be on the team.  And our coaches have a responsibility to make it abundantly clear at their parent meeting and during the season what their approach and philosophy is.

9.2.3.2

Consider this:

9.2 Characteristics Of The Hit 

9.2.3.2 Volleyball Canada, 16U and younger competitions, receiving the serve with an overhand motion using the fingers (volleying/setting the serve) is not permitted, regardless of the quality of the contact.  The first referee will use the "double-contact" signal to indicate this infraction.

In volleyball, the object of the game is to send the ball over the net in order to ground it on the opponent’s court. Sounds simple. So, actions that terminate play are the first to consider when looking at the rules. If the ball lands within the opponent’s court, your team gets a point. If you attempt to do this and the ball lands out of the opponent’s court due to your team’s actions, then they get a point.

Next, in the process of keeping the ball off the ground on your side of the court, if you touch the ball and it is deflected out, then your opponent gets a point because you could not keep the ball in play and direct it over the net and in.

To me, the basics of the ball being "In" and "Out" are simple when determining what terminates play.

The second thing we need to consider is how we keep the competition fair for both teams. We do not want one team getting an unfair advantage over the other when they are playing. For instance, if your team is serving and the ball is served low and about to hit the net, if a teammate pulls the net down to let the ball go over, this would be seen as an unfair advantage and a fault would be called on the serving team.

Because in the game of volleyball, each player can only contact the ball with one "Hit" (except for blocking), if a player touches the ball twice in succession, this is seen as an unfair advantage and a fault is called. (A "Hit" is characterized as any contact by the player where the ball is hit. It can rebound in any direction - see 9.2.2)

If the ball is contacted for an extended period of time, this is characterized as a "Catch" (9.3.3). This is also seen as an unfair advantage.

I would even classify unsportsmanlike conduct as giving a team an unfair advantage.

So, in summary, play in volleyball is terminated when the ball is sent either "In" or "Out", or when one team commits an action that gives them an unfair advantage...

Except for the Volleyball Canada addendum to rule 9.2.3.2.

Contacting a served ball with an overhand motion using the fingers has nothing to directly do with putting a ball "In" or "Out". Nor does it give one team an unfair advantage over the other.

I cannot figure out any good reason why this is a rule.

There are plenty of bad reasons. Some rationalizations I have heard for this rule are that "We need to teach better forearm passing on serve receive". My argument against that statement would be "Then start teaching better forearm passing on serve receive in you practices". Another rationalization I have heard is that "It protects the fingers of the serve receiver from a hard serve". My argument against that statement would be "Then, why do we allow athletes to receive a hard driven attack / spike with an overhand motion using the fingers?"

It just doesn't make sense, and it confuses developing athletes.

My observation of the quality of volleyball, at least in Alberta, is that we actually play "Bump Ball", especially at the younger age classes. After the serve, we see a lot of Bump, Bump, Bump, on each side of the net rather than, Pass, Set, Attack. We wonder why our setters forearm pass the ball rather than "Volley" it with an overhand motion. I believe part of the reason is because we have introduced a rule to teach a skill, and that one skill is being emphasized in every aspect of the game.

If taking a serve with an overhand motion using the fingers is tactically a bad decision in a certain context, then I would rather the naturally occurring negative consequence of the action be what teaches the skill. By not doing so, we are robbing our athletes of the opportunity to learn a valuable "read and react" skill. And we are also unfairly punishing them when the proper action does call for an overhand pass during a serve receive. They start to develop a pavlovian response to overhand passing the ball on a first contact.

Let's all hope they discard this addendum in the near future. Then maybe we will be able to put the "Volley" back in volleyball, especially at the younger age’s classes.

Ignition

Talent Code author, Dan Coyle, talks about the principle of "Ignition" in his book.  He describes it as a hot, mysterious burst, or an awakening.  A lightning flash of image an emotion.  A set of forces that create our identity.  The moments that lead us to say "That is who I want to be".

Ignition can summarize my experience as a volleyball coach.  My short coaching career has been fueled by many moments of ignition and they have made me what I am today.  And they will continue to change me into what I will eventually become.  I'd like to share some of those with you.

My first Ignition moment came in May of 2010.  It was after my daughter McKinley's 15U volleyball team had just finished competing in the Western Canada Nationals.  After the season was over, her team had a parent and athlete meeting to discuss their plan moving forward.  The club she belonged to had a couple of different teams per age class.  At the meeting, we were told the focus of the club moving forward was to change that approach.  They would be focusing on a single team per age class and giving the extra practice times to those teams.  Their objective was to be more "Elite" and better compete with the other clubs in the Calgary area that were doing the same.  The net result for that club was the elimination of 8 teams for the next season.  This meant that about 96 athletes would have no where to play next season.

Being that my daughters are vertically challenged, we realized this meant they would probably not make a team the following season.  The moment of ignition, or perhaps reverse ignition, came one evening when my wife and I were talking about what we could do to become part of the solution rather than complain about the problem.  We looked into what is involved in starting up a club and decided to go for it.  We made lists of everything we didn't like about the club volleyball atmosphere in Calgary and decided to do the opposite.  The next season, the Calgary Sparks Volleyball Club was born and we were able to field three teams.

I was so excited to be a volleyball coach.  My daughters loved the game and I have seen them learn many life lessons through participating in the sport.  Never playing competitive volleyball, I decided to start right at the beginning - coaching 13U girls.  Although I had never coached before, I had been observing volleyball and volleyball coaches for 4 years by this time.  The basics didn't look that difficult to teach and I began going through the coaching certification process to prepare myself.  The first year I probably learned more that the team I coached.  But it was a phenomenal experience.  My team (a group who were basically chosen from all those who were cut from other clubs tryouts) ended up winning the Bronze medal at the Provincial finals and finished 3rd out of 21 teams in the province.

My second Ignition moment came during McKinley's 11th grade.  She made the senior volleyball team at Centennial High School and played the position of Libero.  Volleyball, and the skills required to play well, did not come to McKinley easily.  She worked very hard to improve.  As a result she is a phenomenal defensive player.  On the Centennial 2011 team, McKinley had two amazing teammates who forever changed my perception of what a volleyball player can become.  These players were Alexa Gray and Kacey Otto.  Alexa and Kacey have moved on to play for different university teams.  Alexa plays for BYU and Kacey for the University of Alberta.

Through observing them, Alexa and Kacey showed me that by focusing on relentless, aggressive play, players and teams can overcome the ups and downs of a volleyball match, and usually come out ahead.  They showed me how important it was to focus on defense first.  They showed me how important it was to never fear going for the kill, time after time, even when you may have made an error on the previous play.  And probably most important, they showed me how the truly great volleyball players are not overly specialized, but players who are good at all skills and great at a few.

To demonstrate the last point, I was talking to one of the coaches of the team during the season.  We were discussing the setting situation on the team and what the coaches were going to do if their setter was ill, injured, or unable to play for some other reason.  The answer took me by surprise.  The coach told me that the backup plan all along was to move Alexa from being an outside hitter or a middle blocker to setter.  This surprised me because together, Alexa and Kacey probably accounted for 90% of the team's offensive production.  But, Alexa was such a solid all round player that the coaching staff felt no apprehension in moving her to setter, even though she never practiced in that position or played in it.  Additionally, due to a back injury during the club season that followed, Alexa participated by playing Libero because she could not jump and hit.

My eyes were opened.  I realized how much of a disservice we do to our athletes when we force them to specialize at a young age.  If arguably the best youth female volleyball player in the province of Alberta was so good in all positions, that's what I decided I needed to train my team to be.  I wanted my team to be a 7 out of 10 in all positions and then naturally become a 9 or 10 out of 10 in what they showed a natural aptitude for.  I made a list of what made McKinley, Kacey, and Alexa great volleyball players and came up with a profile of the type of player I wanted to coach.  And moving forward, my goal has been to help shape the athletes on my team to become as close to that profile as possible.

My third Ignition moment came when my wife introduced me to John Kessel and his Growing the Game Together blog.  Because I was never a competitive volleyball athlete, I have never had a mental picture of what a volleyball coach should be.  I have no preconceived ideas about what a practice looks like or how a coach should interact with athletes.  As I reflect on that fact, I think it's a good thing.  The more I learn about coaching, I see a lot of coaching styles that rely on "Old School" techniques that follow tradition rather than proven science.  I'm grateful that I don't fall back on those because they were never a part of who I am or was.

When I started reading all of the material that John has produced, it was like I had been lost in a desert without water for years and I had finally stumbled upon the most refreshing oasis in existence.  I simply cannot get enough.  John has helped me build my coaching foundation on sound principles of learning.  I have learned to coach with techniques founded in reality and science, not tradition.  John has introduced me to the wonderful writings of people like Carl McGown, Dan Coyle, Teri Clemens, and many others.  Not only have I benefited from all of the wonderful insight provided by these fantastic people, but so has my team and the club I run.

So, to all those who have directly or indirectly been involved in my evolution from volleyball parent, to coach, to president of a volleyball club, to referee, thank you for all you have done to enrich my life.  Thank you for letting me be a part of parenting and teaching your child.  And thank you for all you have taught me and continue to teach me about volleyball and life.  I hope I can give back in some small way by sharing parts of my journey on this blog.