Tag: coaching philosophy

Podcast Episode 15: Coaching your best players with Joel Dearing

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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.

Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome!

Podcast Episode 14: Talking to the team after the match with Tom Turco

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Pre- and post-match team talks have long been the subject of interest and attention, both by those involved in them (players and coaches) and those observing from outside. In this episode our conversation focuses on post-match talks, especially following a loss. It begin with the thoughts of Wizard Tom Turco.

Tom Turco has won 17 state high school championships in Massachusetts, where he has coached for over 30 years. His teams won a record 110 straight matches between 2003 and 2007. Tom was selected as the AVCA National Coach of the Year in 2008 and the NHSCA National Volleyball Coach of the Year in 2012.

Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome!

Podcast Episode 12: Coaching to the performance, with Joel Dearing

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When it comes to your coaching during matches, do you coach based on the score line or based on the performance of the team? Joel Dearing, in his Wizards interview, suggests you should be focused on the team’s performance as the score will then take care of itself. This is the starting point of our discussion in this episode of the podcast.

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.

Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome!

Podcast Episode 9: Practice plan development with Jan De Brandt

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In this episode of the podcast we take a look at the philosophy of developing a good training or practice plan. In his interview, Jan De Brandt expressed his view that coaches should always be looking for ways to reduce the amount of time in training through effective and efficient use of that time.

Jan De Brandt has coached professionally in Italy, Turkey, Spain, Azerbaijan, and Germany, as well has his native Belgium. He is currently the Women’s National Team Coach for Hungary, having also coached Belgium. Among his coaching accomplishments are winning the European Volleyball League, silver medal in the CEV Champions League, bronze in the CEV Cup, plus league and cup titles in Turkey. Jan started his career coaching men, but switched to women after a few years.

Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome!

Podcast Episode 7: Coaching vs Training with Redbad Strikwerda

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Back to our regular programming with this episode!

The thoughts of Redbad Strikwerda feature in this show – in particular, on the subject of whether it is more important to be a good training coach or a good match-day coach. Comments from the likes of Hugh McCutcheon and Vyacheslav Platonov are included in the discussion.

Redbad Strikwerda currently coaches with Landstede Volleybal in the top men’s division of his native Holland. He has won 6 titles, 6 Cups, and 6 Super Cups in Dutch volleyball. He has coached in the CEV Champions League, CEV Cup, and CEV Challenge Cup. He has also coached in the European League and European Championships with the Dutch National Team.

Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome!

Podcast Episode 6: Being a Humble Coach and Coaching Education, Ruben Wolochin

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This episode of the podcasts is a continuation of our discussion from Episode 5 with Ruben Wolochin from German men’s team TV Bühl (then in the 1.Bundesliga, but relegated after Ruben left). We continue to talk about what Ruben saw and heard in the big coaching conference he attended in his native Argentina. The conversation here turns to coaching mentality and coaching education. You will hear the term “humble” used several times!

Feedback, questions, comments, etc. are always welcome!

Mark Lebedew on changing coaching philosophy

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Here’s a clip from Mark Lebedew’s interview in which he talks about how his coaching philosophy has changed over the years. It’s short, but it could make you ask questions of your own philosophy.

This clip is just part of an interview which contains more than 2 hours of insight, experience, and observations from internationally and professionally experienced coach.

Learn more about Mark and how you can access his full interview here.