Girls Place, Inc. Volleyball
Tips for successful coaching
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Find an assistant to help coach. 10-12 girls are too many players for one person to
manage well and having an assistant coach (or more) is incredibly valuable. There must
be an age difference of at least 3-4 years between the players and the coach, but high
school age girls can be excellent assistant coaches, especially with the younger players.
Having a coach you can count on is a life-saver if you are sick or can’t make a practice or
game.
Allow your assistant coaches some real coaching responsibility, don’t just make them
ball shaggers. As the season progresses, let your assistant coach make the line-up, call
substitutions, be responsible for time-outs, and for time-out speeches. Let them design
your practice and talk to the players. When ready, let them be the head coach for a
match. Just make sure they are ready for the responsibility. Then cheer their success.
Meet with parents at the 1st or 2nd practice - Be prepared to answer questions. Use the
Welcome Sheet that describes the partnership and expectations for coaches, players, and
parents. Parents, especially the Grizzly Moms, can make or break your season. The key
is communication. Parents expect the world for the child and often wear rose-colored
glasses regarding their child. Be fair and be prepared to explain your actions. And
remember, you are a beacon of righteousness to many parents so be cognizant of what
you say and what you wear around these girls. And keep your private life private. Don’t
share Facebook and other social media with parents or players. What you do and say in
your own life is your business, but at the Girls Place your actions are very public, so use
good judgment around these impressionable girls.
Find a Team Mom or Dad to organize snacks. Ask that each parent be responsible to
bring drinks and a snack for all players (and coaches) to one game per season. If you
don’t get a parent to do it, you will end up having to do it yourself. Parents can be
incredibly helpful, but you need to foster that relationship.
Stay in touch with parents. Write a team email once a week to tell everyone about
practice and the game schedule for the upcoming week. It doesn’t take much time and
this is a good time to comment on team progress, individual highlights, and a great way
to keep parents in the loop. Make sure you have all parents email addresses. Ask that
parents inform you if their daughter cannot make a game or practice.
Have a team get-together early in the season. Ask the Team Mom to organize it. It can
be as simple as a frozen popsicle party outside right after practice, or Pizza, or an ice
cream party. The parents will do the work, and team-building is a key to success. Allow
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the girls to pick a team name. Allow the players to pick All-Stars at the end of the
season. For fun, let players pick a number and then help pick drills for your practice.
Come early to practice if you can. Meeting with players before practice, outside, just
passing the volleyball in a circle is a great way for the girls to get to know each other and
laugh. It will get to a point where they don’t even need you there, they will just know to
meet and pass the ball if they come to practice early. It is a good time to stretch and be
ready to start practice when the practice hour begins.
Try to nip mean or catty behavior in the bud. It is difficult to know what kind of negative
history some players may have with one another, but mean, nasty behavior can ruin a
team and take the fun out of coaching. On the up side, girls that seem to have nothing in
common may find common interests and become good friends.
Talk to players individually, but never in private. Make sure other players, and/or parents
can always see you to make sure there are never allegations against you of any
wrongdoing or improper behavior with the girls.
Understand that you are coaching female athletes. An incredibly successful University of
North Carolina soccer coach commented on the difference between coaching boys and
girls. To paraphrase, he stated, “If you criticize a locker room full of boys, every boy in
that locker room thinks you are talking about someone other than him. But if you criticize
a locker room full of girls, every girl in that room thinks you are talking about her.” And
while no generality is 100%, the idea is that general criticism just does not work for girls/
female athletes. While we, as coaches, do need to critique and comment on technique,
we need to be careful to avoid general criticism.
Ask that all players do homework volleyball drills. It doesn’t have to mean lots of work
for you as a coach and doesn’t mean they need homework all the time, just ask them to
pass the ball to themselves and count how many consecutive times they can pass the ball.
Or practice 100 service tosses trying to land the ball on a piece of notebook paper. The
more times they touch the ball, the better they will become as a volleyball player, and the
more they will help your team. Two hours a week is not much time for teaching these
girls to become volleyball players, so they need to practice on their own.
Help them enjoy the game. A good coaching mantra is… Patience (lord knows you will
need it with some girls), Passion (bring it and you will see that it is contagious), &
Praise (everyone enjoys hearing when they do something well, but young athletes need
to hear when they do something well). All girls are capable of becoming volleyball
players. You can help them reach their potential. It isn’t about obtaining college
volleyball scholarships, it is about teaching them the game so they can play it and enjoy
the game for the rest of their lives, and at each age level we should be preparing them for
the next level.
Prepare all players to be ready to serve game 3 with the scored tied at 15-15, but don’t
put beginning players in that position until you believe they are ready to succeed. We
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can help protect girls to a certain point, but at some point they need to be on that line with
the game tied.
Be a good sport in winning and losing. You are the example. Do not criticize the line
judges and up/down refs. Remember, your opposing coach is also a volunteer. If you
feel there was a rules infraction, ask your team captain to discuss the infraction with the
referees.
It is OK to get excited for your team, but not OK to rub it in the face of your opponent. A
lot of what we teach is about bringing a high level of energy to the game. Be a good
example. Tell opposing players when they played well. Compliment players when they
play well.
Ask for help when you need it. Go to Francisco Oquendo’s Skills Clinics for coaching
ideas. Ask other coaches. Watch YouTube videos about volleyball skills. It is
impossible to fully master this game as a coach, but we need to teach proper basics. You,
as a coach, should always be learning. – If you need help with parents, ask Taryn. She is
your ally.
Consider Awards at the end of the season. It is easy to print out awards for Most
Improved Passer, Hustle, Best Service Run, etc. so that every player gets an award. You
can probably give the list to a parent who could make cool awards. Again, enlist the help
of parents. They have skills and are often very happy to help.
If you lose games or get eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, remind the players
to give thanks that they are physically able to play a difficult game. Have faith that they
will improve and that the time with you was well spent. You are a volunteer and you
may get more out of this coaching experience than the players. Make the most of your
experience, and remember these Tips are just being offered as possible options. Enjoy
what you do and you will find that your players will enjoy the experience too!!
The following is a season-starting Welcome Letter to parents that you could use, or not use, or
modify if you like…
Welcome volleyball players and parents!!
The Girls Place volleyball season should be fun. Our hope is that every girl on this team has a great time
playing volleyball and improves her skills all season long. Those are our basic goals. For the girls to have
fun and improve their volleyball skills.
Players can help in the following ways:
1) Be at practice each week and be on time (usually 10-20 minutes prior to our 7:30 start). Make sure
school work is done so you can focus on volleyball at practice and at the games.
2) Bring a good attitude and positive energy to all practices and games. Be ready to work. Volleyball is a
“tough-chick” game. You need to be tough to play it. No whining.
3) Be 30 minutes early for each game to warm up with the team. Please do not be late!
4) Practice volleyball on your own time. Jumping rope will improve foot speed and general quickness.
Bumping, setting, hitting the ball with a friend, sibling or parent will help develop passing skills. The
more times you touch a volleyball, the more your skills will improve.
5) Have fun.
Parents can help in the following ways:
1) Please try to taxi your daughter around so she is ten minutes early to practice and 30 minutes early to
games. Please let us know if there is a conflict, or if your daughter can’t make a practice or game. Please
keep sick players at home.
2) Toss a ball to your daughter as often as you can to help develop her passing skills.
3) Call, text, or email us if you see any problem that we might be missing, especially injuries or conflicts
with other players or coaches.
4) Be patient and allow the girls to have fun. Sometimes skills develop quickly, other times they take
time. Please allow us coaches to do our job.
5) Make sure your daughter is rested before games.
6) Please sign up to bring snacks/drinks to one game.
Coaches will help in the following ways1) We will be at all practices and games barring emergencies. Our coaching staff will hope to bring
Passion, Patience, & Praise as a guiding philosophy, which is consistent with the mission at Girls Place.
2) We will try to have multiple coaches help with this team so we will be able to break practices into
smaller groups, allowing more attention for each player, and more touches with the volleyball.
3) We coaches will treat your daughters fairly and with respect, and we will expect players to return that
respect to our coaching staff. If there is ever need for disciplinary action, we promise we will fully explain
the reason for the action.
4) We will be accessible for questions.
Thanks!! We look forward to a very exciting season!!