Improving confidence and chemisty: Team Confidence first

One of the questions I receive often from volleyball coaches is:

“What are good techniques or strategies to improve my volleyball teams’ confidence and chemistry?”

Well, I went to Coach Tom Houser for the answer.

Check out Part 1 – Team Confidence (part 2 in a few days)

Dear Training For Volleyball readers:

I got an email from Barry a few weeks ago and it was a question that he said he often receives from coaches. It was, “What are good techniques or strategies to improve my volleyball teams’ confidence and chemistry?”

To me, this should be split into two separate questions.

First, let’s talk about team confidence.

Below is a series of texts between a college volleyball player and me last fall.

Coach Houser, how can I get my team more motivated to win in game 5? I’m just tired of losing like that. We have improved so much this season and we’re starting the second half of our season. We just need to believe we can win.

It’s normally not motivation; it’s often nerves and/or lack of skill that make the difference. Realize that the last 5th game was made intentionally shorter than the other four to make it unpredictable, nerve-wracking and exciting.

I don’t know. We could have won both of our last matches, but I don’t know what happens in the last game. We just get scared of losing or something.

“Scared of losing” is exactly what I was trying to say. It’s typical for a player to be scared of losing. But it’s not normal! It’s a learned behavior. Players are either coached into playing with abandon and with confidence; or, they are coached to be careful, not to mess up, and not to lose. This may have occurred when the player was 14, 16, 18, or 20. But after a player is chastised — and even punished — for making mistakes in pressure situation, it’s really hard to her to shake it.

Well, I know most of it is probably confidence because of our old coach. He would make us think that we couldn’t mess up. We’re just getting so close, but can’t win.

Well ,no team is going to win all their fifth games regardless of what they do. But the team that wins the most fifth games is the team that has the most support from their coaches. Those coaches want the players to play as if the game was the first, second, etc.

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Coaches:

While I was texting her, I looked at the team’s website. They’ve won only 6 of their 18 matches, but the last two have both been 8 – 15 losses in the fifth. So I feel her frustration: Losing and losing, then her team has two matches that they can win, and they fizzle in the 5th.

When my club team began attending tournaments in January, I discovered that some of my players would not aggressively swing at a ball. This wasn’t obvious at practice. It just started occurring when there was a scoreboard, an opponent, i.e. pressure. I knew exactly what was up. My players were scared. They had been taught that mistakes lose games, and if they made mistakes, then they were in trouble, and they were the reason the team lost. I knew that my job was to undo that!

What I’m going to share with you now not only applies to deciding sets; but, it applies to the game in general.

The Game Is Already Hard Enough! This game of volleyball is already mentally challenging to play. The parents even think it’s a game of momentum. Little do they know! Haha Then when coaches punish players for hitting balls out, bench them for missing serves, chastise them for being aced, etc., the game is made even harder!

Yes, I believe that coaches should fuss about mental mistakes. I do. These mistakes include not covering, running the wrong play, not calling the seam, not knowing if the opposing setter is back row or front row, etc.

But for a coach to get angry when his players spike a ball out, or get aced, or miss an occasional serve, I’ve just never understood.

Why Do Volleyball Coaches Get So Upset? I guess volleyball coaches think this game is just like softball or baseball, where each little error is monumental. WRONG. Or maybe they think that since a girl has time to think about the serve, time to think about where to hit that set, time to see the serve coming at her, etc., that the girl shouldn’t make mistakes. WRONG.

Volleyball is more like tennis and basketball. There are going to be a multitude of mistakes. When Andy Roddick plays a tough tennis match, he will make 50 or 60 mistakes. The Boston Celtics will have dozens of mistakes a game. So will volleyball teams.

Does A Volleyball Coach Believe That Fewer Mistakes = Victory? Most volleyball coaches believe that team that makes the fewest mistakes has a better chance of winning. Is that the case? If we’re talking about mental mistakes, that’s probably true. If we’re talking about physical mistakes, I don’t think they’re much of a contributor to losing.

What did I just say? I said the number of physical mistakes a team makes is rarely correlated with losing. OK, physical mistakes may contribute to a middle school loss; but, my assertion is absolutely true on a highly skilled high school or college team. I have seen it over and over again. On Monday a team makes more hitting errors, yet wins. On Wednesday, a team misses more serves, yet wins.

How? It seems counter-intuitive. The fact is that the team that’s the most aggressive will make more mistakes; yet, they will also have many more kills, aces, digs and blocks! And thus will often win. It’s pretty cool.

What Does This Teach Us? As volleyball coaches get more mature, or more experienced — or maybe just wiser, regardless of the age — they learn that to pull on the reins of the thoroughbred will cause it to buck! The coach learns that some 5th games will be lost, and some will be won. But if you make your team scared of making mistakes, and they play carefully, then the team will lose more 5th games than is necessary.

How Does This Affect Our Practices? We must stop punishing and fussing at the players for making physical mistakes. I do the opposite. I create drills that require them to be physically aggressive. For example, I will tell the girls, “You get 1 point for a big swing. You get a double point if it’s a kill.” The players say, “What if we get blocked?” “That’s a point for a big swing.” “What if we hit it out?” “No points.” “Tip?” “No points.” “Setter dump?” “That’s the next drill. Haha” So, with these type of drills, I force aggressiveness rather than punish it. And if a girl is making preventable physical mistakes, she is coached on how to reduce them. But eliminate them completely? Not possible.

You can make aggressiveness a habit with your team. Or you can make your players scared.

And How Should The Coaches Act During Matches? I tell my players to “GO FOR IT!” I tell them to hit the good set, serve where they’re told, step into their seams, and cover like it’s the last time they’re ever going to play the game! We don’t mention mistakes, being careful, etc. And over the past 5 years, my teams have won 73% of the deciding 15-point games! Last week at our region bid tournament, we won 3 of our 4 fifteen point sets. The only one we lost was in pool play to the eventual champion. And the set we won was the only set they lost the entire tournament! I can live with that! 

Finally. Playing scared and careful is not the way you want your team to practice, and that’s not the way they want to play! They want to run like a stallion! So let them. Your better athletes will blossom with this type of coaching. A few of mine did this year. They may get punked right back down this fall; but, for a few months, they could be beasts without the fear of a coach’s wrath.

Tom Houser
Head Coach, 2010 New River Valley 15’s Nationals Coach
2006 and 2009 Junior Nationals Participant
Director, STAR Volleyball Camps (We still have weeks available for summer site camps!)
Author, “I Can’t Wait” Drill Collection and Ebooks
www.coachhouser.com