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It is often the case that we, as coaches (and teachers), either coach to the middle of our squad or focus more attention on the weaker players to try to bring them up to everyone else’s level. From the perspective of maximizing gains, this can make sense. As Wizard Joel Dearing points out, though, we cannot ignore the best players in the team along the way. That is the focus of this episode.

Joel Dearing coached at NCAA Division III Springfield College for 30 years and accumulated over 700 wins. That’s good enough for a Top-10 standing in the record books. He mainly coached the women at Springfield, but also coached the men for seven seasons, and in his last had the team end the year ranked #1. Joel was five times selected AVCA Regional Coach of the Year and coached 10 All-Americans. He is a member of the board at the Volleyball Hall of Fame, a long-time part of the USA Volleyball Coaches Accreditation Program (CAP) cadre, and author of the books Volleyball Fundamentals and The Untold Story of William G. Morgan – Inventor of Volleyball.

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