The following is from a great Blog from Mike MacKay of Canada
I had a coach send me a comment about how, in general, coaches in the game of volleyball spend more time on skill development at the developmental stages than basketball coaches. I tend to agree with this statement, but I would argue that the nature of the game is the reason why, not that volleyball coaches are better trained than basketball coaches.
In volleyball you cannot dominate a game with strategies and tactics if the players cannot serve, receive, set and hit the ball. No matter what strategy you use these skills must be mastered by more than one player because no one player can do it all in a given rally. If players cannot serve, bump and set you cannot play. In basketball teams often get by with only one or two players dominating the ball. The coach can then create elaborate strategies to make sure these players are the ones executing the skills. Since basketball as a sport is easier to play on your own and gym space is limited many youth coaches assume that players practice their skills on their own. The limited gym time is used for strategies. This is a false assumption. The number one thing that needs to happen in our country to improve player development is individualized development.
This involves players:
• Practicing skills on their own;
• Practicing with a dedicated coach who can teach the fundamentals;
• Practicing or playing in small groups to work on principles of play;
• Individually working on fitness and conditioning.
We have lost this from our Canadian basketball system. The coach should not be the reason why a player cannot play at the next stage of development. Currently this happens when coaches turn players off the sport or do not assist the player in improving his/her skills. A parent would never accept a teacher in school who did not improve the child’s academic ability over the course of the semester. Can you imagine the math teacher saying to a parent; “We don’t let Johnny do multiplication because he hurts the class average”. But we allow a coach to say; “We don’t let Johnny dribble because he hurts the teams chances to win”. This focus on team success over individual development must change if we are ever going to change the level of play in our country.
I believe one of the main reasons for the loss of individual development is the loss of the teacher /coach. This is not people who are employed as teachers, but coaches who understand how to teach and is willing to do individualized workouts. If the coach is not willing or able to do this how can we expect the players to develop this culture of wanting to improve. We need coaches who can teach the game.
