Last day of the convention!
I started the day going back to watch some stuff I missed on Day 3.
Revisiting Feedback: Creating More Effective and Efficient Training Environments
This was Harjiv Singh (who did a Coaching Conversation) and John Speraw returning to the subject they teamed up on for a session in 2019. It ran a full hour. Interestingly, Harjiv mentioned the autonomy stuff Kevin Hambly discussed in his keynote. This is definitely a session I’m likely to re-watch as there’s was some really good stuff. Look for a future blog post.
Session 1 – An Introspective Discussion with America’s Premiere Coaches: Utilizing Their Experiences, Coaches Can Learn and Improve from the Challenges They’ve had to Overcome
This was a panel with John Speraw, Todd Rogers, Hugh McCutcheon, and Beth Launiere, as well as Mark Fishman from Beach Nation as the moderator. The topics varied fairly widely, but covered things like communication, leadership, and training approach. It ended up running 55 minutes, so about 10 minutes longer than most.
Session 2 – The Importance of Non-Scored, Non-Competitive Repetitions in Training
Giovanni Guidetti did this presentation. He’s currently head coach for Turkey and the Turkish pro club Vakifbank. Essentially, Giovanni took us through the sort of things he does in the first 45 minutes of practice before moving on to scored 6v6 play. There was a mixture of what you’d probably call simple drills and variations of quick entry 3s, 4s, 5s, and 6s game-like exercises.
John Speraw Keynote
John’s talk was 25 minutes and had the title A Reflection – My Best Coached Seasons All Had One Common Theme. Basically, he talked about having a specific focal point each season for his best seasons – different for each one.
Session 3 – Learning Lab
I did my only Learning Lab in this time slot. It was for Guidetti’s earlier presentation. Essentially, it was an open Q&A done via a Zoom Meeting. Much of it focused on what Giovanni talked about in his session, though there were a few that went in other directions. It ran 45 minutes.
Session 4 – Talent Identification in the Recruiting Process: Short Term Impact vs. Long Term Potential
Peter Vint, who did the talk about the changes to the USAV youth pipeline system on Day 2, did this presentation. Some of it overlapped with the one he did earlier that I attended. A big feature of this session was how little common physical assessment metrics correlate to actual performance. Interestingly, at the end of the presentation he shared a chart of cognitive biases from which he highlighted ones that can influence recruiting and assessment ratings.
Final Session
AVCA Executive Director wrapped the event up with a 15 minute look back on 2020, and discussion of what’s to come.
Recap live stream
I did one last live stream for the event in the evening. Ruth Nelson was back for a 3rd time. I also had two first time coaches from outside the US and Sue Webber from the NCSA, who provided them the scholarship they used to take part.
https://www.facebook.com/518013944941963/videos/1657244187816151/
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