This is an entry in my volleyball coaching log for 2016-17.
This was the final week we could do physical activity with the team. After finishing our five weeks of the non-traditional season, we were back to 8 hours. That mainly meant the players finishing up their strength and conditioning work. This was in the form of testing.
Strength & Conditioning final testing
On Monday they did standing vertical jump reach, and then shifted over to doing power cleans. Interestingly, gains on jump reach were limited. Our strength coach attributed that to how they were looking up while jumping. He thought that limited their reach. On the plus side, though, it looked like basically all the players made personal bests on the power cleans. It was fun to watch the players surprise themselves (at times) and cheer each other on.
On Wednesday they did more jump testing. This time it was broad jump. They then shifted to back squats max testing. I believe our top lifter – a Junior middle – did 250lbs. Thursday morning they wrapped up the testing with approach jumps.
Final practice
Our last practice of the 2016-17 year was 100% games. We had a recruit to mix in to make it 10 players. It started with Brazilian 2-ball volley tennis. After that, we played about 8 minutes of Winners back row 3s. From there we transitioned to narrow court Speedball 3s (fixed setters, teams of 2). Then it was on to 5 v 5. First was alternating 5-point games of 3-up/2-back and 2-up/3-back. We finished with a straight game to 25. Interestingly, both teams opted to play 2-up/3-back.
The whole session was about 90 minutes. Intensity was at a pretty good level. There might have been some lapses in focus, as you’d expect this point in the cycle, but generally the level of play was pretty high.
Administration
The players also had some administrative work to do on the week. All returning players had to complete some online paperwork and have exit physicals. We also had to hand out sheets for them to fill out related to random drug testing. The players must provide the Training staff with their Summer whereabouts. This is so testers can find them, if selected. It’s a pretty intense thing. If a player isn’t where they reported, and thus miss a test, that counts as a fail and means the loss of a year of eligibility. I don’t know what the odds are of volleyball players getting selected for testing (probably low), but the loss of eligibility is a big motivator. On top of that, there was another form related to doing workouts on campus over the Summer.
Of course we continue to work on fund raising and organization for the Argentina trip. We’re down to one more possible team addition for 2017 from a transfer perspective. So that’s still a work in progress. We’ve made our first couple of offers to 2018 recruits and no doubt more will shortly follow.
Radio interview
Late on Friday one of our Sports Information guys came into the office and told me I’d be doing a radio interview on Saturday morning. It was for the local ESPN Radio affiliate in Wichita Falls. This was something that came about after an article about the trip was posted on the MSU website. They do an MSU sports update. My interview was on the back of that.
It wasn’t my first interview, though I hadn’t done one in a while. It went pretty well, I think. We talked about the motivation for the trip and why we opted for Argentina. Of course we also pitched the sponsorship and fund-raising needs.
Free Clinic
On Sunday we ran the first of three free clinics for area kids grades 3 to 6. This is part of the outreach project our Graduate Assistant is doing to fulfill his CAP III requirements. He went around to all the area elementary schools and gave out flyers. We ended up with 35+ kids, which was a bit more than he actually anticipated. 🙂
We’re hoping these kids will eventually take part in our paid clinics and camps, and become part of our Ponies in Training program (our mascot is a Mustang).
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