Skip navigation

Category Archives: Critical Thinking

Remembering The Past, Embracing The Present, Looking To The Future!

 Here we are finally at the end of the first year and this year has brought so much to the table.  Obviously the big elephant in the room is Covid and the effects it has had on sport, businesses, peoples health and livelihood.  As many who have followed my journey so far have come to notice that many of my blogs have been about situations that have happened due to Covid and the struggles on making changes on the fly.  For the honor and respect of one of my coaches I do want to throw a special prayer to one of my coaches in my club that has past away due to this.  Alan was a great man and a great coach who truly coached unselfishly and for the right reasons.  Ace will truly miss him and our thoughts and prayers go out to his family.

Over this past year taking the HPCTL at UBC I got to jump in to an incredible group of coaches in a wide variety of sports. The coaches are at the top of the food chain within their respective sports and this would be the first time I travelled outside my comfort zone of volleyball to work with and learn from other professionals.  Not only was this intimidating on a coaching front but intimidating on an academic front, seeing I have not written a paper in 17 years.   Jumping into this world was something I was not going to shy away from even with a family tragedy that happened 5 days prior to the start of the course.

I came here to learn from the best, be taught by the best, and embrace new ways on maximizing my athletes performance.  This course has not disappointed.  Even though Covid has thrown a kink into all sports seasons I have changed my perspectives on the What, How, Why due to this course.  Coming from a place where I don’t believe I am overly challenged, I have found myself being complacent in my habits and/or trying to spread myself too thin.

Through this journey, I have found myself changing the ways I think.  Someone who never really leaned on statistics, or studies.  Now I see myself looking at research papers way more. while also looking at different training methods.  Even though I have not had a “normal” year to try these things on court, the silver lining of Covid is that I have had more time to do research for future programs/teams.

Starting off this schooling I had 4 goals that I discussed between David Hill and my mentor Ryan Hofer (Trinity Western Women’s Volleyball Head Coach)

  1. Incorporate more research based information to help YTP.  Improve on workload management for athletes and incorporate into the YTP.
  2. Learn from other sports who teach at a HP level (Olympic and Pro)
  3. Add and contribute to my network for long term and a lifetime of continuous learning.  Using this network to throw ideas off of.  Learn from there success and or mistakes. (Vice versa)
  4. Position myself to be a strong if not top candidate for a USPORT head coaching position or a post-secondary coaching position down south.

Following up on this year I feel I have been able to reflect on this years goals that were set fourth in June of 2020.  Some of these things are still works in progress and will be a continuous work in progress as I travel down my coaching career.

1.

Through the various courses taken in year 1, I have had a chance to really dive into the YTP.  This was an extensive outlook not only to a specific team within the ACE program but also a look at the program as a hole.  Looking at different aspects of the program/team, I have had a chance to explore a variety of changes that will be put in place for next club season. Some changes include adding dryland and mental training to the high performance program.  Our coaching education will be something put at the top of the priority list to ensure proper mentorship for new coaches looking to give back to the volleyball community.

 2/3.

Through the program this year I have had made connections with national and pro level coaches in a variety of sports including soccer, downhill skiing, soccer, and baseball.  Through these relationships that have been gained through this first of the course will provide great long-term learning for my future career in volleyball.  Even though much was learned from the professor’s during the various courses, one of the biggest learning points was listening to the questions asked by other coaches in other sports.  This opened up my mind to other perspectives, and ways of thinking by learning from other coaches situations.  During the time of this course I created Volleyball Coaches of Canada.  This platform has brought all coaches in Canada to a central location to discuss current issues while educating each other within the sport.  I have also pursued other groups such as “COACH+ Coffee Club” which has nothing to do with “volleyball” to pursue learning experiences from other coaches in sport.  Moving forward I want to be able to create relationships with coaches in other sports that I can phone up and pick their brain once in a while on new coaching techniques.

4.

Over the past 20 years there has been a transition in what a professional coach is.  If you asked a random person many would go straight to NHL or NBA coach being a professional coach.  Like most things Canada normally is 5-10 years behind the USA standards.  Club level sports has taken a huge step towards being more structured rather than mom and pop one off sports teams.  Don’t get me wrong they do exist still but parents are now steered more to programs that have proven track records and long term sustainability.  This is a double edged sword because with that comes higher prices to play sport.   Again a rabbit hole for another day.  What I will say is with higher fees, higher expectations, comes more education.  Standards for coaches to coach is going up every year.  More coaches are looking to pursue coaching as a career and not at the NHL or NBA levels.  Taking this course I aspire to be educated and learn ways of maximizing athlete performance.  With taking this course I also hope to put myself in the top 3% moving forward on applying for a U-Sport or NCAA job.  Even though at this time I don’t know what my future holds I hope that pursuing excellence will open doors for me in the future either at the University or National level.

I want to thank all the teachers for being such amazing facilitators.    I want to thank all my fellow students for pushing my boundaries and providing opportunities to learn throughout all the courses. Thanks to Ryan Hofer my mentor.  Ryan I have known for 20 years and its weird how the world has ways of bringing people back together. Thank you to my family, this year has had some of the lowest of lows with my father passing away, but also has had some of the highest highs, with my first daughter being born.

Now I look to the future.  I am going to pursue the next 2 years with an open mind and challenge myself to continuously pursue excellence.  Here is to the past year and looking forward to my final 2 years of the masters program.

In memory of Alan Samchek

 

 

Decisions Decisions

Any coach can agree that their mind is going a million miles a minute at all times. Processing what is happening and then processing what may or may not happen.   A coach needs to analyze all these thoughts and make decisions within a split second.   From the outside, people may look at coaching on a very simplistic level, WIN.  Mainstream media promotes this simplistic view.  If we look at any major league sport, if the team is unsuccessful then the coaches head will roll.  Rarely does the media look further into the overall situations.  One could ask, when top performers who get paid substantially more then the coach have a lack of performance, why don’t they get a pay cut or get turfed.  Within the culture of coaching, every decision made by the coach could be their final decision within that role.   So, lets dive deeper into decision making within the coaching role at the amateur level.

 

Like any athlete aspiring to make the “big show”, there are many coaches coming onto the scene that are hoping to learn, educate and be continuously challenged within their coaching career.  Coaching over the past 19 years, I have been fortunate to coach many levels and age categories within the sport of volleyball.   Through these years, I have had made many decisions in a wide variety of scenarios.  The decisions are not just in the moment during a key play, but also decisions made for the longevity and growth of the team or program.   So, to grow as a coach its important to reflect and think about these decisions for learning opportunities. Let’s turn back time and look at some scenarios in my time as a coach.

 

Back in 2004, I sat down with a gentleman named, Shane Donen.  He is the founder and current club Director at Seaside Volleyball Club (Seaside) in White Rock, BC.  After I completed one year coaching at another local club, I approached Shane to coach at Seaside.  Shane told me I was not head coach worthy but that I could be an assistant Coach.  I was too young and not experienced enough.  What?  My ego just took a devastating blow.  How dare this guy tell me I am not experienced enough.  I am a current college player and already have been head coaching for 3 years.  So as any young and dumb 19-year-old, I laughed and started my own club.  Now this decision in that moment seemed like the right thing to do.   The Club I started, Heat Volleyball Club, would go on to run for 6 years and provide opportunities for many athletes who went on to play post secondary or to even coach.  This was great to help grow the game.  Now older and I guess more wiser, I look back at that decision and wish I took Shane up on his offer to be an assistant Coach.  To be able to sit in the second chair and learn from someone else would have been an amazing experience.  Shane, is now a very good friend of mine and still someone that I look up to for advice within coaching today.  Shane, still runs one of the best clubs in BC and people are fortunate to be coached by him and/or his wife.

 

Seeing that I am on the young and dumb timeline of my coaching career, I might as well continue down this path for another decision (or non decision) during my coaching career.  During the years of running Heat Volleyball Club, a coach named Ryan Hofer crossed my path at multiple times to provide advice.  Thinking I knew everything, this advice fell onto my deaf ears.  Again 15 years later, Ryan Hofer (another good friend of mine) is my mentor while I complete my Masters at UBC.  Ryan, is one of the most genuine and down to earth individuals I have ever met in the volleyball coaching world.  As one of the most successful coaches in U-sport, Ryan is extremely humble and open about how the show is run within the Trinity Western University Women’s volleyball program.  Ryan is a wealth of knowledge and I always reach out to him regarding anything and everything volleyball.

 

Now let’s take a look at some decisions that are in the moment.  In 2018, the first super nationals were held in Edmonton, Alberta.   My U18 team is playing in the Div 1 tier 3 semi finals vs the Fraser Valley Volleyball Club U18 team.   We won the first set by two points, lose the second set in two points and now we are neck and neck going through the final set.   As any coach would do, my mind shifts to a million miles an hour thought process.  Trying to think of and do anything to put the team in the best situation to be successful.   Thoughts and decisions are now more critical than ever.  Timeout now or wait?  If I wait too long, will it be the point of no return?  To sub or not to sub?  If I sub and that player serves into the net, which then leads to us losing the game, how will that player take it?  How will her teammates take it, the assistant coach and/or the parents?  So, we sit at 13/13. Teams must win by two.   Winner moves on to the medal round and the losing team packs their bags and go home.  All the timeouts for both teams have been used and now I have a player walking up to the back line to serve who has missed her last attempt.   No time to ask my assistant for advice, I look down the bench and call on my strongest server out of the athletes on the bench.  This player is cold, has not played yet at all this game and is thrown into the moment.   She goes in and serves an ace to make it the score 15-14. She then follows that with a strong serve that provides us with a freeball that we were able to put away.    There was no book to read, no podcast to listen to and no second chance.  Sometimes coaching decisions are made on gut feelings and of course how well you know your players. Knowing your players not only based on their ability of skill but how they manage pressure and who they are as a unique individual.   The moment of the team being successful is one that I will never forget.  Luckily one of the parents captured that exact moment on film.  At the end of the day as a coach, it wasn’t about the decision made but to be able to watch the smiles on the athletes faces and to share in that moment is unforgettable. 

 

Even though I have been very fortunate with having success with athletes and teams, there have been many decisions not go in my favor.  Like any human, I now reflect on and wonder “IF” I made a different decision where would I be right now? Possibly not writing this blog…. Of course, none of us can take back time or change the past. Every decision that has been made in coaching and my personal development has led me right here, right now to this very moment.  This is starting to sound like the “Matrix”.

Will you take the red pill or the blue pill?

Spam prevention powered by Akismet