The Cross Over Movement Blog

I frequently mention playing to win, but training to improve. Many coaches practice to win the next game (Peak by Friday) rather to develop their players’ skills.

Within the playing to win framework, coaches at a developmental level must remain consistent. While the object of a game is to win, winning cannot replace development.

This week, we had a volleyball game and were down 2 games to 1. This year, we have won one match, which is one more than the school won last season. The goal, as stated in the pre-season, was to develop players’ fundamentals. In the junior varsity games, where I act as the Head Coach, I honestly do not look at the scoreboard; it is not important to me and I think it inhibits the players from learning to play properly because they watch the scoreboard, get nervous and stop trusting their volleyball skills.

In game four this week, with the score tight late in the game, the Head Coach told the girls to bump the ball over the net and send it deep, rather than passing the ball for a set and a spike. Rather than play the right way and play to win, he hoped the opponent would make the mistakes and lose. We lost.

Worse than the loss, in my mind, is the conflicting message. Just bumping the ball over the net is not “real” volleyball: that’s “junior high volleyball,” as I tell the high school kids, though I know that is an insult to junior high school kids elsewhere who play better fundamental volleyball than our players and league.

If the season is about development and teaching fundamentals, how can you ignore your philosophy just because a game is tight? What does that teach a player? Do things the right way unless you cannot succeed and then get it done by whatever means necessary: Is that the message we want sports to send?

I know this is a basketball board, and I am sure there are hundreds of parallels. Maybe the coach preaches team ball all season long, but in the close game in the play-offs, the coach tells four players to get out of the way and allows his star to go 1v5 over and over.

To use the term popularized by Larry Brown, if you’re trying to teach players the “right way to play the game,” you cannot show the lack of confidence in your players to play the right way. It’s a mixed message and will hurt a coach’s credibility and the players’ confidence. If development is the goal, you play the game to win, but not to the exclusion of development.