Coaching Volleyball

I came across the following question on a Facebook group.

During a match which coach makes players better? The one quietly sitting on the bench or the one standing at the 3 metre line constantly talking to players?

This is a subject one can approach from a couple of different perspectives.

What do great coaches do?

There were a lot of different responses. At one point someone asked for the names of great mainstream sports who just sat quietly and didn’t spend the game talking to their team. For me, that one was easy. Just look at many of the top soccer managers. A lot of them speak relatively little to their teams during play.

That said, I think it’s hard to compare coaching across sports in this way. Football coaches call plays for their teams. Baseball managers do the same. That necessarily means constant talk with the players. More continuous action sports like soccer and hockey are different. The coach can’t tell players what to do at every point – assuming players even hear what the coach is saying.

Other sports aside, my automatic answer to a question like this one for volleyball is Russ Rose. He’s a clear Hall of Fame coach who sits pretty quietly on the bench making his notes.

Make them better

The question above has an interesting wording to it – “makes players better”. If you interpret that to mean long-term player development, then the answer is clear. The less you as the coach talk, the more the players have to figure things out for themselves. That is good for their growth and education. Alexis at Coaches Corner wrote about this. It also relates to what I discussed in The more you talk, the less they train.

Obviously, I’m not suggesting you don’t say anything. Guidance and feedback are critical to development. What we can’t do, though, is always give the players the solution to the situations they face. First, there are way too many possible situations to do that. Second, the solution we come up with might not, in fact, be the best one for that player. Finally, when players come up with their own solutions they are much more likely to be retained.

Further, if we’re telling the players what to do all the time they don’t develop the ability to work together to solve problems. They don’t learn to communicate properly and don’t trust either themselves or each other to do what needs to be done in the situation.

Performance on the day

Having said the above, sometimes the coach’s focus is optimizing performance in the moment. I would still argue that for the most part we have to let players do things for themselves, but here there is certainly more room to provide information and direction. You may spot a way to more effectively attack the other team, or defend against their best hitter, for example. These are things you clearly should communicate to the team.

I am definitely not a fan of providing a lot of technical information during play. After all, this isn’t where you should be teaching them skills. The occasional reminder by way of a specific cue is fine, but anything beyond that is likely to distract them from simply playing the game. Feedback at this stage should be much more tactical than technical.

Then there’s the question of cheer-leading. For some teams, and in some situations, this is and important job for the coach. Some of the great coaches I’ve interview for Volleyball Coaching Wizards have talked about how they didn’t normally do much, but sometimes it was what that team needed in that moment.

What about …?

The other thing I thought of when I saw this question is what about the coach who stands, but isn’t constantly talking to the players? You see quite a few coaches like this. I count myself as one of them, as I’ve written about before. I stand for a couple of reasons. One of them is to have a better angle on the action so I can gather more, better information. I guess that’s kind of a hybrid thing. 🙂

What is a pin hitter in volleyball? This is something wondered by a visitor to the blog. It’s a term readers may have seen me use in places like my coaching log. So what does it mean?

First, we need an equipment terminology explanation. In volleyball, people sometimes refer to the two antennae attached to the net as pins. For example, someone might say, “Set it to the pin.” By that they mean set out to the antenna.

See where this is going?

Pin hitters are thus the attackers who generally hit wide sets out toward the antenna. I don’t know when the term came into common use, but it’s been out there for a while now. Some people use the term specifically to refer to outside hitters – those who attack in Position 4. Really, though, the term applies to both left side and right side attackers.

Now, just because someone is a pin hitter it does not mean they only attack wide sets. There is absolutely no reason a pin hitter cannot hit balls out of the middle of the court. For example, they could come inside to hit a 2 ball. They can also attack the ball out of the back row. That is a regular feature of men’s volleyball, and is becoming more a part of women’s volleyball as well.

The term pin hitter in volleyball does not put an attacker in a box. Rather, it is mainly a reference to a player’s position on the court. The pin hitters are the players whose front row position is closer to the antenna. This is obviously in contrast to the middle hitter, who generally plays in the central part of the court. They sometimes hit balls near the pin (slide attack), but are still middle players.

I hope that helps clear things up for you. If you have any questions about it, definitely let me know.

What does out of system mean in volleyball? This is likely something most regular readers of this blog know, but not everyone else does. Someone came here with exactly that question in mind, so let me provide an explanation.

In volleyball, a team is fully in-system when the serve receive pass or dig is good enough that the setter has all of their attacking options available. From a statistical perspective, that means a 3-pass in the 0-3 scale (or a ++ in the ++/+/-/0 system described in this post). In other words, the setter can set left, right, or quick to the middle.

You could also say a team is in-system with a slightly lower quality pass or dig. It’s not as good as on a perfect pass, but the setter still has multiple options.

By contrast, a team is considered out-of-system when they pass or dig poorly. This generally leads to the setter having only one setting option. If the first ball is poor enough, someone other than the setter must take the second contact.

There is also the case where the setter plays the first ball. Regardless of how well they dig the ball, the fact that someone else then takes the second contact means the team is out-of-system.

So basically, out-of-system means either the setter cannot play the second ball or only has a single setting option.

Why is this important?

Because it is very likely that the team’s offense is less effective when out-of-system. The sets are not as accurate or consistent. They offense does not run as quickly, and as a result there is usually at least a double block facing the hitter. That is why one of the strategies you will see is to intentionally attack the other team’s setter. That automatically puts them out-of-system, making a good return attack less likely.

Hope that makes things clear. Let me know if you have any questions.