Required volleyball reading?

Back in September of 2013 the last of my series of college program training visits was at UCLA. Interestingly, when I got to the gym ahead of their training session I found them reviewing/discussing of the book Crucial Conversations. Then assistant coach Stein Metzger told me they wanted to improve on the communication front. They felt it was a problem with the team the prior year. I haven’t read the book before myself, but it’s a best seller so clearly quite a few others have done. Might just give it a look to see what’s what.

After UCLA I had just about a week left in the States. I didn’t have any more visits scheduled. I wasn’t done with the volleyball before I headed back for England, though. The University of Wisconsin played at Pepperdine. Pepperdine is a beautiful campus (located in Malibu), so went. I happened to also know the Wisconsin coach from my days at Brown. He coached at Albany then and they came to one of our tournaments. I posted here about something I saw there.

I also went to the famous Manhattan Beach. I heard about a fantastic little Mexican food joint there. Oh, and it has a reputation for some pretty good beach volleyball action too. 🙂

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John Forman

John is currently the Strategic Manager for Talent (oversees the national teams) and Indoor Performance Director for Volleyball England. His 20+ years of volleyball coaching experience includes all three NCAA divisions, plus Junior College, in the US; university and club teams in the UK; professional coaching in Sweden; and both coaching and club management at the Juniors level. He's also been a visiting coach at national team, professional club, and juniors programs in several countries.

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