The 2016 edition of the AVCA Convention is in Columbus, OH. This was the scene when I arrived on Tuesday.
First snow seen after leaving Sweden!
Day 1 of the convention was mainly pre-convention programming. Not surprising, the focus was the 2016 Olympics. It was a 2-part set-up. The morning session (about 2.5 hours) was on-court stuff. The afternoon session was basically a review of the Games. The presenters for the sessions were USA Men’s coach John Speraw, USA Women’s assistant Tom Black, and Netherlands Women’s coach Giovanni Guidetti. Due to travel considerations, though, they ran Guidetti’s portion on Friday afternoon.
The on-court session was the usual mix of games and drills. Speraw talked quite a bit about small-side games and over-the-net pepper variations. The afternoon session I found more interesting and meaty. Black focused on technical and tactical stuff. Speraw went more into organizational and managerial things. He said some really interesting things about team chemistry, and I think some will be in a Volleyball Coaching Wizards podcast.
The first official session for all attendees was presented by Sue Enquist. That was in the late afternoon. Sue won 11 national championships as the head coach of the UCLA softball team, though she is retired now. She focused on coach relationships with players.
Thursday was the first full day of the convention proper, and was also the NCAA Division I semifinals. I presented on Friday. Saturday was the last day of the convention, and the Final was that night. I did not buy match tickets this time. Instead, I planned to watch on TV. I wanted to boost ESPN viewership. 🙂
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