5 TEA CHING THE G AME keys to better communication with your coach Laura Kuhn
Associate head coach, University of Kansas women’s team
My advice to any player on how to communicate with their coach is to start by being coachable. A player’s attitude and body language are all part of com- munication. That means listening with intent, training with intent, competing to win on a daily basis. Good commu- nication between coaches and players is imperative and needs to be direct. Coaches can help the communication process by letting players know exactly what they expect of them. Giving and receiving energy/information is a two-way street. If you’re a player, ask questions and have conversations with your coaches away from the gym. Earn respect by training hard and being a great teammate every day.
Kathy DeBoer Executive director, American Volleyball Coaches Association
At the AVCA, we spend a lot of time assisting coaches with ways to communicate with players. The fundamental principle is: Talk their lan- guage! There’s no reason players can’t turn that strategy around to improve communication with their coaches. The first step is to figure out what your coach is like. Are they an
introvert or an extrovert? Do they love statistics and technical analysis, or do they spend more time on culture and chemistry? Do they change things as soon as there is a problem, or are they consistent and steady in their approach? Do they know your brothers’ and sisters’ names or mostly focus on your kills per set and arm-swing issues? Knowing what’s important to your coach and how they process information is key to having a successful conversation. If your coach’s style is the opposite of yours, this is much harder because to succeed you have to adapt your approach. You may need to be stoic when you usually demonstrate emotion. You may need to be analyti- cal when it’s more comfortable for you to speak from your heart. With coaches, we find that those who are adaptable and can bring out the best in different kinds of players are very successful. By the way, flex- ibility as a communicator is a great life skill beyond volleyball, so practicing it early will serve you well in your relationships and career.
Foluke Akinradewo
USA middle, two-time Olympic medalist, four-time AVCA All-American at Stanford “When I communicate with coaches, I first like to tell them what my
thoughts are on a certain subject, and then I’ll ask how they see it. By doing that, it opens a good line of communication for them to give their feedback. And it allows them to realize that you’re serious about wanting to get better at whatever skill you’re asking about or whatever problem you’re trying to solve.
20 | VOLLEYBALLUSA • Digital Issue at
usavolleyball.org/mag
Michael Gervais
Sport psychologist, works with U.S. Women’s National Team as well as beach Olympians Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross
One of the foundations for great communication is to agree on a
shared vision and to have clarity on how each of you will respond when the going gets tough. For the first step, it’s up to coaches to generate a clear vision of what’s possible for athletes. Then they can communicate and adjust that vision with the athlete based on the flow of the conversa- tion. Once that’s in place, the foundation for communication (and the relationship) is well on its way to becoming shared vision. Communica- tion from that point is about feedback and adjustments aimed at properly paced progression toward potential. The next phase of communication is marked by trust-testing. Both coaches and players will have their antenna up to see if the other person is trustworthy and reliable. This is measured during times of stress, tension, pressure, mistakes and loss. Great coaches establish communication stan- dards and strategies well before the team encounters stressful situations. Good opportunities to build relationships and insights come after training sessions or competitions. Two simple questions help focus discussions on progression rather than on what’s not working. They are: ‘What went well?’ and ‘What do you want to work on?’
Steve Walker Head beach volleyball coach, University of Arizona
As a coaching staff, we spend an abundant amount of time building or enriching our relationships with the players. And one of the many reasons we do that is so we can prompt truthful responses when we ask them direct questions on the court. (Questions might be about what they saw or how they felt in a particular scenario.) Nowadays, so much of coach-player relationship building takes place in the recruiting process, but I’ve often felt that student-athletes are so measured (and almost choreographed) in their responses throughout this process that the actual relationship building begins on day one of freshman year. In short, the student-athlete needs to be honest about what they are
seeing or how they’re feeling on the court and convey that message to the staff, not the message they think we want to hear. We’ve found that will happen if and when the player feels secure with the staff and can speak truthfully, without judgment.
ILLUSTRATION: FIVB
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