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.
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