The document provides guidance on key aspects of successful coaching. It discusses coaching as teaching skills and developing performance. A coach must lead their team to a common goal through effective planning, preparation, motivation, and interaction. Additional factors for success include having passion for the sport, a long-term vision, leadership abilities, applying proper teaching methods, and creating a fun environment. It emphasizes surrounding oneself with the right people, prioritizing life goals, continual learning, and maintaining a positive attitude.

1. The basics of coaching

2. Coaching = Teaching
The ability to coach will be directly related to
the coach’s teaching ability – i.e. transferring
information and developing skill levels

3. Leadership – Coach as a Leader
• Ability to lead and direct staff and players to a common goal
• Get people to do what you want them to do

4. To train intensively by
instruction, practice and
demonstration

5. Develop, change and
maintain behaviors

6. Develop terminal levels
of performance that are
measurable, observable
and accountable

7. What does a coach control?
• Practice – planning, preparation and execution
• Physical Training – planning, preparation and execution
• Preparation for Game/Match – oversee every aspect of being prepared for “game time”
• Motivation
- define and crystallize the common goal that we are striving for
- find out what reinforces the team (what moves this group?) and each athlete
- what interaction (“motivator”) triggers the best response from the team and each athlete?
• Coach – Athlete Interactions
- communication – transferring information to players
- athletes’ roles
- individual and team meetings

8. Components of successful coaching
• Having a passion for your sport.
• Have a long term plan (vision) and the ability to implement it (organize).
• Find the way to lead this group - - leadership ability.
• Applying the appropriate teaching method
• Appropriately facilitate your message
• Knowledge of X’s & O’s - - skills (techniques) and strategies (tactics).
• Identifying general “athletic” and “sport specific” talent.
• Inter-relating to the players and staff
• Make if FUN!
• Determine how to motivate each athlete and the team as a whole

9. The sequence/phases of learning volleyball – 1) skill – acquiring
all the skills/techniques needed to become the best volleyball
player; 2) physical – getting yourself in the best possible physical
condition; 3) mental – the psychological side of the game – the
higher the level, the more important this phase becomes. 1) Skill
2) Physical 3) Mental are in rank order of importance
You control both of these. No matter where you are in your skill
development, physical conditioning and/or mental state your
attitude and effort are factors that you alone can control.
These follow from having the appropriate attitude and effort.
They must be first understood and then practiced just as you
would practice any volleyball skill.
What you do in practice relates directly to your match results. You
cannot execute in game conditions what you have not mastered
in a practice/training setting. “Practice does not make perfect –
perfect practice makes perfect.”

10. Common denominators of winning
(successful) teams
• Mutual respect and trust
STAFF – PLAYERS; PLAYERS – PLAYERS; STAFF – STAFF
• Discipline
• Athletic Talent
• Players fit coaching system/system designed for players
• Coaches are good motivators
• “Team” will beat a collection of good individuals

11. What I have learned in my
40+ years of coaching.

12. Surround yourself with the right people
Exceptional people
Players & staff
• Know your strengths, but most importantly your weaknesses then ensure
those around you make your collective staff better
• Delegate
• “Over deliver” on your promises to them
• Create a win-win situation for anyone that you work with

13. Know your priorities in life
• What are the most important things for you – wealth, family, health,
religious beliefs, value system, integrity, friendship, etc.
• Be true to yourself
• Mom – “it goes quickly – everything in moderation – most important thing
in life is your” health
• “One person’s BS is another person’s catechism”
• “The most important things in life are not things”
• Be able to make fun of yourself – laugh often and surround yourself with
others who can laugh with you

14. Develop and establish a clear
philosophy of coaching
• Write it down
• One page
• Review it at the end of each year – modify it as needed
• Make sure that it is easily understandable by your staff, players,
parents, administrators

15. Mentorship
•Find a mentor
•Give back – be a mentor

16. Work ethic – learn how to work
hard & smart
• “This is a great country - - if you work hard anything is possible.
However, always remember you may work hard and you may not get
what you want, but YOU WILL NEVER get what you want if you do not
work hard” (Taras M. Liskevych /my father/)
• “10,000 hours” – quality vs. quantity

17. Learn every day and read as much
as you can
• Enhance your knowledge with something new every year (every day)
• Seek out professional development and networking opportunities
• Keep a list of books to read
¬ both fiction and non-fiction
¬ on coaching
¬ on leadership and motivation
• Learners will not be left behind

18. Positive energy –
glass ½ filled vs. glass ½ empty
Make a conscious choice to be part of the solution,
not the problem

19. Have a basic foundation of
teaching/coaching principles
• The training environment is a key to your success. Practice is
the most important thing that you will do – practice does not make
perfect – perfect practice makes perfect
• Design a system for your players – not fit players into a system
• Do not try to do tactically what you cannot do technically
• Environment shapes the desired outcome/behavior

20. Develop a system to Identify talent
• Physical innate gifts
• Attitude, effort and work ethic
• Energy giver
• Ability to keep plugging away after failing - “The greatest glory in
living lies not in never failing, but in rising every time that we fall”
(Nelson Mandela)
“The most important ingredient of coaching
success is the athletic talent of your team”

21. Market your program
•It is our job as coaches to help expose this great sport
•“Come once and you’ll come back”
•Work to attract fans who are not just player families & friends
and/or former players & coaches

22. Concern yourself with the
things you can control or
change, don’t worry about
things you can’t

23. Take charge of your attitude
– do not let anyone else
choose it for you

24. Success is a journey, not a
destination
The difference between
ordinary and extraordinary
is the little extra

25. “Failure is the opportunity to
begin more intelligently”
Henry Ford

28. Questions?

29. Please visit the website bellow to review this presentation as well as other coaching
and athletic resources I have prepared for you.
Continuing Education
Drills, tactics, techniques, philosophies, fitness tips, nutritional advice, mental training – it’s all
here at TheArtofCoachingVolleyball.com - all taken from the valuable input of numerous
coaches across the country who have mentored players at every level and every age.
www.theartofcoachingvolleyball.com/terry-mvi