Here is part two. If you missed part one and the introduction to this mess, it is the post below this one.
Part II
There have been many coaches in my life that have influenced me and taught me many things. I will forever state that my coaching staff as a high school player was the best in the state in any classification. I also feel like that staff could make a college program a national contender if they ever chose to. As a young coach you take every ounce of information given to you. You beg, borrow, and even steal ideas, quotes, concepts, philosophies, and plays. Amongst the jewels that I have accrued one that came from a high school volleyball coach stands towards the top. Now I know that half of you reading this are going to be indignant when I say that but let me elaborate before you judge too harshly. For those of you who don’t know, I spent two years coaching freshman volleyball. There was a lot of growth within that time and I did learn a lot about kids and about different coaching styles, but I’ll forever recall a moment at the Lamar Community Center in Lamar, CO. This was the first time I’d been back to Lamar since I was a freshman playing high school ball. The gym has an old feel, but a storied feel, and the house is always packed with a bunch of savage fans (Lamar’s mascot is the savages). Lamar had a very talented volleyball team and was ranked in the top ten at the time. There aren’t a lot of scenes from the game I can replay to be honest. If I remember we lost in a tough 4, but even that is unclear. The moment that keeps coming back to me though came after Lamar’s middle hitter received a beautiful set but terribly botched the hit. What should’ve been a powerful swing to the back line ended up blooping weakly to the middle of the floor. The intriguing part of it all was that the ball hit the floor and still scored the point. And while most teams would be raving and cheering about the point scored, I looked over to the bench and Lamar’s coach was all over that middle hitter about hitting technique and perfection. Despite the score, it wasn't good enough because it wasn't done right. From then on I knew that simply getting the job done wasn’t near enough, it truly was all about perfection, or at least doing things right every time.
One of the more intriguing parts about coaching college was learning a system offense. Coach Dittman is very committed to his offensive and defensive systems, and rightfully so looking at his track record. The beauty of the college set up is that you can literally spend all of practice perfecting the system. With the ability to have individual workouts each week, players can learn fundamental skills during those times, so team offense and defense can be the focus throughout practice. So much of coaching high school was spent coaching fundamental skills that full court offense was, at least for me, kept secondary.
Now the beauty of coaching so many fundamentals in high school is that it prepared me for coaching our JV program here at Hastings. Hastings offers a developmental, or a jv program that gives players the opportunity to actually play games while practicing day in and day out as opposed to redshirting. It also allows those kids who are on the brink, or who have a high ceiling but need work to develop. We have 21 players on our jv, so we split them up into two separate teams, one being coached by me, and the other coached by the other assistant, Carrie Larson. Now understand the reasoning behind so many athletes on the jv. The president of the university mandated to all coaches that if an athlete is interested in competing we have to give them the opportunity; all of our athletic programs offer a jv because of this. I have mixed feelings about the developmental program. It definitely makes for a long day as we have 6 am practice Monday/Tues/Fri, and 6 pm practice Tues/Thurs. This lends to a 12 hour day when you tack on individual workouts, classes, office work, and of course varsity practice. The plus side of coaching is that I get my fix of being a head coach, I learn the system, and I get to run my own individual workouts. This also allows me to learn every aspect of the college coaching world. Yet I am concerned about how it affects the culture of the program. With so many players, does it turn off some talented recruits? Also, if any of those jv kids are receiving scholarship money, even in the slightest amounts, is it taking away from money that could sway potential recruits? I’m also curious to find out how many of our jv kids do truly develop into varsity caliber players. With that do we really have a competitive culture of winning? I'll find out in time I'm sure. Either way I’m investing everything I have into both teams. We are going to have to be a very defensive minded team at both levels, which has been a trademark of my Rye teams so I feel well equipped for that. We have a scrimmage for the varsity this Friday against some top junior college teams, and then a tournament in Midland at the beginning of November for our jv so we’ll find out where we really stand after that!
Till Next Time,
- Coach Kyle
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