NOTEBOOK
Volleyblog Stuff happens: Learn to love it
Looking for a volleyball camp this summer?
It’s easy. Just check out Pages 55-57 of this issue of Volleyball USA for the Volleyball Camp Guide or go to
volleyballcampguide.com for a complete list of the summer’s best camps. It’s easy as a couple of clicks to register before the rush.
n preparation for coaching the U.S. Women’s National Volleyball Team for the upcom- ing quadrennial, one of my early tasks was making an adversity list. My goal was to create an easy-to-follow guide of things that can go wrong for a volleyball player during a typical day.
I
In 15 minutes, I had about 30 examples, and many of them had nothing to do with volleyball. Here are a few that I came up with:
• My iPod battery runs out
so I can’t play my normal pre- match music mix.
• Flat tire on the way to the match or practice. • A key player on the team gets injured. • The ref makes a bad call. One of my goals for 2013 is to prepare the team for as many speed bumps as pos-
sible, both in volleyball and in life. I’m going to call it “Adversity School.” Its mission will be to condition ourselves – players and coaches alike – to handle adversity so it doesn’t detract from what we’re trying to accomplish on the court. The fi rst thing that I’d like everybody to real- ize, to accept, and, even better, to embrace is that there will be adversity. It’s part of sports – and part of life. No situation is ever perfect. And just as you and your teammates are facing adversity, so too is the other team, so you’re not alone. The trick is to handle it better than they do. Once you accept the inevitability of less- than-ideal surroundings, the next step is fi guring out how to deal with them. My plan for the U.S. Women is to help athletes go beyond just dealing with it. I’d like us to embrace adversity so we view it as a welcome challenge rather than a burden, and also as a chance to learn and get bet- ter. If we can develop a mindset where we enjoy headwinds, we’re likely to have more success. A key strategy for dealing with adversity is focusing on controlling what you can control and not worrying about what you can’t control. One of my favorite memories from my playing career was when our U.S. Men won the gold medal at the 1985 FIVB World Cup, a tournament that no U.S. team had ever won. It was a year after we won the gold at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, but since those Games were boycotted, we very much wanted to compete in - and maybe win - a
20 | VOLLEYBALLUSA 18 | VOLLEYBALLUSA
full-fi eld tournament. But to get to that tourna- ment, we had to beat Cuba in the fi nals of our NORCECA zone qualifi er. Our starting setter, Dusty Dvorak, wasn’t at that tournament because of a death in his family, and our second setter, Jeff Stork, got severely dehydrated during the fi nal against Cuba and had to take himself out and receive IV fl uids.
At that point, we were up 2-1 in games, but it was early in the fourth, and we had no setter. Our coach, Marv Dunphy, said, “Karch, you’re setting.” I hadn’t set since my college days at UCLA, and we were in a completely screwed up rotation because our setter (me) was in an outside hitter position. It would have been easy for us to fall apart, or at least to panic. But we didn’t. In fact, we relished the challenge and fi gured out a way
to make it work. We went on to beat Cuba 15-10 in that game and book ourselves a ticket to the World Cup, where we won. Had we not faced down adversity, we
wouldn’t even have gotten an opportunity to play in that World Cup, and that would have been a bitter disappointment for a team intent on prov- ing to everybody that we were indeed the world’s best.
Another key to battling adversity is simply breaking down each challenge into tiny seg- ments. If your team is behind in a match, that’s in the past. There’s nothing you can do about the score, so there’s no point in worrying about it. If negative thoughts begin to creep in, redirect them and focus on what’s next. Simple stuff. “See the server’s hand.” “Great fi rst step.” Zeroing in on what you will need to do to perform well on the next play is a great way to stay positive and defl ect adversity. The fi nal point I’d like to make is that there are no guarantees. You might be a great player who handles adversity well, and your team might be great, and your teammates might be good at handling adversity, and you might be extremely well prepared – and you still might lose. It hap- pens. But by focusing on what’s most important and welcoming each challenge, you’ll increase the odds that things will go right. And doing that will put you in a position to win a lot of points, a lot of sets and a lot of matches.
volleyballcampguide.com
PHOTO: DON LIEBIG
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72