Reprimanding Volleyball Players for Breaking Rules or Nonperformance

Do You Have Players Bricking It?

What do you do when someone comes late to practice? What if during conditioning exercises a player only does 8 push-ups when you asked the group to do 10 pushups? What if during wind sprints the player fails to cross the designated lines or for the last few feet when finishes, stops early and walks the last two steps across the finish line?

Many coaches tend create an immediate punishment, such as the offending player running laps at the point in time, or after practice.

What if the player habitually breaks rules on fails to conform. The rest of the group after a while just knows that Tami is always late or Van just likes to see how far he can push the coach without getting in trouble. For the most part the rest of the team knows it is between the player and the coach.

Hey It’s a Team Thing.

There was a commercial with Mia Hamm and some of the Women US Olympic soccer team going with a teammate to the dentist office. The dentist comes out of the back with one of the American players, announcing grimly that she needs two fillings. Four other players in the lobby, including Hamm and Brianna Scurry, stand up one at a time, courageously stating, “Then I will have two fillings.”

It was a team thing. Sometimes players have to learn it is a team thing.

The most common example I see is when a volleyball hits the ground that shouldn’t have. Many coaches will make ALL the players do lines, or push-ups or just hit the ground and get up.

Real Effectiveness: Team Pressure

One way to exert more conformance pressure on the offending athlete is to get the team involved, whether they like it or not, and have them put pressure on the player.

My favorite way to do this is, for example, if one player, Tami, always walks across the finish line when doing lines, I ask her to sit down on the finish line and get real comfortable. I then tell the OTHER girls they are going to run lines, so Tami can see what it looks like to finish completely. Then the rest of the team runs a double set of lines as Tami sits and watches.

Both Tami and her teammates are annoyed with me and each other, but it gets the point across; and I have little problem with compliance after that.

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