Keeping an Open Mind with Young Athletes

So as I’ve noted, it’s been thirty years now since I got involved in the crazy sport of volleyball.  On a practical level, it means I’m closer to the end of my coaching career than the start of it–that’s a good thing and bad.  Bad because age hardens our views, makes us less willing to stay open to new ideas–it’s harder to do this with each year that passes.  It’s good though because I have past experience to inform my decisions as a coach (and human being).

To that end, I was thinking back twenty years ago to a time when I was coaching at the high school level.   Starting in 1999, I took over the junior high program and coached that as well.  I did that because of a serious problem–the junior high coaches only played their favorites.  Indeed, one coach referred to the remaining athletes as ‘leftovers’ and called them ‘nicknames’ of what you’d find in the back of your refrigerator—unacceptable!!  You can guess what that meant for the number of kids coming out for the HS team…none of those bench kids showed; why bother–if you don’t play in 8th grade, what are the chances you’ll get playing time in HS, right?

I don’t blame 13-14 yr olds for that attitude.  They were told they were spares, treated that way.  There was a different issue though–I coached at a small school which offered four different girls sports in the fall (which was too many, but not my call) and that meant good athletes went their own ways to pursue their favorite among those four (as they should!).

So…that meant when the freshmen showed up for practice in August, 1998, there were only five entering freshmen (one of those had to stop playing after a horrible car crash in the winter of 98-99 that she miraculously survived).  None were setters.  The starting setter had decided to go out for tennis and the backup didn’t want to play, having got into less than ten sets total in 8th grade.  Uh-oh.  That was a problem because we’d had one setter graduate and the other was a junior.  One setter to handle everything.  Can’t do that.

So I went to one of the sophomores who was quick and had good hands, “Hey, I want you to set this year.”

The response, “I’ll quit before I set.  I’d rather die than be a setter.”  (She’d gone to a junior high where the coach was a yeller and the tantrum target was inevitably the setter.)

In my mind I was thinking about everyone else that was a junior or a soph.  Remember, there were no setters in the freshmen class.  A couple days into two-a-days and I had *no* other setter.  Our fresh-soph and/or JV were going to be a train-wreck.  That’s when one of those freshmen came up to me, “Hey, um, Jim, um, could I, um, could I, um, like, um, try and set?”

This was a kid who didn’t play much in 8th grade–she was considered the 5th outside hitter, so she only went in if the first two backups sucked.  She had a couple things going in her favor though.  First, her sister was a sophomore and a ferocious competitor–so if Kate was half that, I’d be happy.  Second, she worked hard non-stop (again, just like her sister).  Third, I didn’t have anyone else.

That last was the key.  I didn’t have an open mind and if anyone else had wanted to be a setter, I would’ve chosen ‘anyone else’.  There’s the lesson.  Be open to possibilities, to work ethic and character.  Be open to possibilities.  Don’t look with what I call ‘today’s eyes’–what you see right in front of you; instead, look with ‘tomorrow’s eyes’–picture the future, how the person can develop physically and mentally.  That’s especially important when you are thinking about developmental teams.  Don’t worry about the scoreboard.  Worry about the improvement.

So off we went with Kate setting our fresh-soph matches and our JV matches.  Initially, her hands were crap and she got called a lot (because this was the era where everything was called rather than today where nothing is), but she worked hard and by the end of that freshman season, she was on the varsity roster for Regionals.

Her sophomore year, she earned a place on the varsity, started as part of a 6-2 until the other setter was injured, and then ran a 5-1 for the next 2.5 years, leading the school to  the two best years (still) in school history.  She did this through hard work, but also her leadership–she was kind to everyone, supportive of players on the bench because she’d been there herself.  At one point she had career records in the state for assists in a set and match and was top 5 for her career.  She went on to play for a top juco then walked onto an NCAA D1 program…having never been a benchwarmer until high school started.

Keep. Your. Mind. Open.

Kate offered me another lesson in terms of coaching young people.  After her freshman year, we had a talk about her setting, why she didn’t want to keep being a hitter.  I asked her why she came out for volleyball even though she’d been on the bench in junior high.  She was open and candid in a way that disappears by the time a kid hits college.

She said it was because her sister told her I made sure everyone got opportunities to play, that I didn’t care about 8th grade or last year because that was the past (true enough) so she figured if she worked hard, she’d get a chance.  She also made the astute observation that with so few girls choosing volleyball, she’d have good odds of getting playing time no matter what.  As for the setting–why the change?  She said part of it was about playing time and knowing that would get her more of it, but really, it was more that she liked the thought of being in control, getting to make the decisions–because she felt she did that sort of thing well under pressure.

So there ya go…I get credit for a brilliant decision in converting the kid to a setter, but really…I lucked into it out of desperation.  Don’t be me.  Keep your mind open to all the possibilities offered by your players.  You may be surprised in a way that blows your mind.