Your own peril...

The want and/or need for robust coaching education has been waning for years.

COVID saw many coaches retreat into their laptops and phones for drills and practice plans.

One club director told us, "Maybe everybody thinks they know everything already."

While you may have chuckled at that last remark, she may not be wrong.

Social media is littered (specifically chosen word) with subscribers who are experts. They will give their opinions on a bread recipe, the current political situation in Thailand and dating advice to Taylor Swift because they know everything.

Chances are if they were tested on any of these subjects they would struggle to score in single digits but there is no one/nothing pushing back. There is no accountability.

Look at this series of setting drills posted some months back.

Newer coaches, bored coaches and coaches that don't have a basis on which they coach might look at these videos and tell themselves they have found the way to train their setters.

The presentation is good and the drills look productive to the uninformed eye so why not use these to progress your young setters.

Georgia Head Coach Tom Black who has a storied coaching history explains his frustration with this kind of thinking in the video below:

"The stuff I'm seeing on social media, just empirically scientifically it's wrong."

If you aren't sure why the setting drills above don't meet a criteria for proper skill acquisition, then you have some work to do.

One of the great  things about the volleyball community is that knowledgeable coaches are willing to help.  The game, and maybe life, has taught them the value of humility and never thinking or assuming they know everything. In fact, find a coach who will admit to you they are always learning and don't know much, and buy them a cup of coffee and just listen. Those are the coaches of value.

Continue your coaching journey through the Instagram and TikTok's at your own peril. You will get lapped by better coaches. But until we embrace the idea of structured learning for coaches WITH someone to push back, debate and scrutinize you, Black is right. 

To make a difference, you have to be the difference.