Coaching with conflicting philosophies
The situation: You're assisting with a struggling high school volleyball program. The head coach has been there for 30 years with varying levels of success over the years. The full-time JV/Freshman coaches have minimal coaching or volleyball experience and follow the head coach's philosophy and teaching methodology verbatim.
Your background: You've been coaching for under 10 years, but have been working with perennial state championship contending high school programs, top ranked collegiate programs, and international coaching staffs. Your philosophies on how to teach the game from the ground up, as well as general theory, have been built upon a foundation of winning.
The question: How does one go about subtly changing the way things are run for the betterment of the struggling program?
I've been struggling with this one for quite some time and have yet to come to a solid conclusion as to how to tackle the situation. Attempts at being as respectful as possible while providing suggestions on how to tweak practices and teaching methods have been fruitless. I figured that there can be no direct attempts to completely re-vamp the program, as it isn't mine to shape, but was hoping that the head coach would be open to outside influences for the betterment of the program.
It seems that some people, however limited in their knowledge, are simply not open to suggestions and help. It's a shame, really, seeing the players struggle to pick up basic techniques and being forced to focus on the wrong parts of the game.
Rather than focusing on refining passing technique and serve receive, they focus on jump serving (before they can accurately/consistently float serve in-bounds.)
Rather than teaching proper transition and approach footwork, they focus on swinging harder.
Rather than teaching a defensive scheme that works for their level of play, they focus on poor court positioning without any instruction on how to read the setter and hitters.
Rather than allowing players with certain skills to focus on a single position and specialize, they play every spot on the floor (regardless of if they are right or left hand dominant.)
It is aggravating. Especially that last point. This is coming from a coach who says that it is impossible to improve players in a 10 week season. Of course they won't improve if they have to learn how to play every single position. What 6 foot tall lefty wants to have to try and learn playing OH, Opp, Setter and Middle all in one season? Each position has different responsibilities, different instincts need to be taught and learned, and different technique/footwork need to be refined.
This is coming from a coach who refuses to augment the team's schedule to allow for more on-court playing time. The conference limits match-play to 18 matches per season. But that only applies to official 3 out of 5 matches. Augment that with weekend tournament play that doesn't go into the record-books.
This is coming from a coach who spends the first 30 minutes of practice having his players stretch and run, the next 15 minutes talking (while his players cool off completely), then the next 30 minutes serving. Over half of practice is gone before they have a chance to work on any skills that need work.
I'm frustrated, as you can tell.
I miss working with competent coaching staffs.
But I will continue to coach, regardless of the situation.
Not for me, not for the head coach, but for the players who need some direction.
The players who, after years of degradation, need someone to come in with a positive attitude and fresh perspective.
The players who, along with their parents, are asking for the help.
Wish me luck.