After the strange energy and lack of teamwork/bickering amongst the girls last night I was left feeling inexperienced and unsure of how to move forward. It was such a contrast from two weeks previous when we won every game and the girls appeared to be working well as a team. I wonder if missing a week of practices and games due to snow made us a bit rusty.
Last night after the game I reflected on how I can approach these issues and use leadership to bring the girls together. I thought back on my own experience and then I reached out to an experienced volleyball coaching friend. Additionally, I researched online to source more ideas. I found this great website which helped: https://www.livestrong.com/article/448790-volleyball-team-bonding-ideas/
This morning I sat down with the girls in a circle. I talked to them about my concerns from the night before and asked them to share any of their own thoughts and feelings. The team captain made a comment that she felt they need to be more positive and support each other as well as my decisions as the coach. This sparked some conversation and many other girls shared their own thoughts. It was very productive. After the discussion and airing of grievances I did the following activities:
- Gave each girl a piece of paper to write their name and goals for the rest of the season
- Girls shared their goals with teammates
- Passed around the papers and had the girls write a compliment for each teammate
- Read the compliments
- Partnered each team member with someone they don’t normally work with or who they struggle to get along with
- Partners created a team-building activity to share with the group
- Shared/ participated in the aforementioned activities
I witnessed a change in the girls this morning. It was amazing to watch them work together and create meaningful activities. One partnership created an activity where everyone had to call the ball loudly before they passed it each time. Another group had partners ask each other questions about their interests every time they passed the ball and the other person responded before they returned the ball; this promoted relationship building between the girls. There were many excellent activities and the team loved it!
Each week I am learning something new. I love coaching, and I am learning that there are many resources I can turn to in order to improve my ability to coach.
Ps I practiced some audio editing on garageband and created this short audio track for fun. It’s about coaching:
Coach Marnie's Corner 