Thinking Volleyball Mike Hebert Human Kinetics Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hebert, Mike, 1944- Thinking volleyball / Mike Hebert. pages cm Includes index. 1. Volleyball. I. Title. GV1015.3H43 2013 796.325--dc23 2013023996 ISBN-10: 1-4504-4262-5 (print) ISBN-13: 978-1-4504-4262-6 (print) Copyright © 2014 by Mike Hebert All rights reserved. Except for use in a review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerog- raphy, photocopying, and recording, and in any information storage and retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher. Acquisitions Editor: Justin Klug; Developmental Editor: Cynthia McEntire; Assistant Editor: Elizabeth Evans; Copyeditor: Mary Rivers; Indexer: Katy Balcer; Permissions Manager: Martha Gullo; Graphic Designer: Nancy Rasmus; Graphic Artist: Julie L. Denzer; Cover Designer: Keith Blomberg; Photograph (cover): AP Photo/Jeff Roberson; Photographs (interior): © Human Kinetics, unless otherwise noted; Photo Asset Manager: Laura Fitch; Photo Production Manager: Jason Allen; Art Manager: Kelly Hendren; Associate Art Manager: Alan L. Wilborn; Illustrations: © Human Kinetics; Printer: Versa Press Human Kinetics books are available at special discounts for bulk purchase. Special editions or book excerpts can also be created to specification. For details, contact the Special Sales Manager at Human Kinetics. Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper in this book is certified under a sustainable forestry program. Human Kinetics Website: www.HumanKinetics.com United States: Human Kinetics Australia: Human Kinetics P.O. Box 5076 57A Price Avenue Champaign, IL 61825-5076 Lower Mitcham, South Australia 5062 800-747-4457 08 8372 0999 e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] Canada: Human Kinetics New Zealand: Human Kinetics 475 Devonshire Road Unit 100 P.O. Box 80 Windsor, ON N8Y 2L5 Torrens Park, South Australia 5062 800-465-7301 (in Canada only) 0800 222 062 e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] Europe: Human Kinetics 107 Bradford Road Stanningley Leeds LS28 6AT, United Kingdom +44 (0) 113 255 5665 e-mail: [email protected] E5861 I dedicate this book to all of the athletes who played for me. This includes club, college, and U.S. teams. You are the young people who motivated me to stay with it. I extend my thanks to every one of you. It was a great run! CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Introduction ix Key to Diagrams xii CHAPTER 1 Learning and Decision Making 1 CHAPTER 2 Structuring and Running the Program 25 CHAPTER 3 Embracing a Playing Style 59 CHAPTER 4 Honing Vital Skills 79 CHAPTER 5 Thinking About Team Defense 97 iv CHAPTER 6 Drawing a Blueprint for Offense 121 CHAPTER 7 Promoting a Positive Gym Culture 143 CHAPTER 8 Strengthening Team Trust 173 CHAPTER 9 Coaching the Match 203 CHAPTER 10 Thinking Outside the Box 231 Index 255 About the Author 265 v This page intentionally left blank. AcKNOWLEDGMENTS Aside from the editing staff at Human Kinetics, only a few people read pas- sages from this book before publication. I asked former U.S. national team coach and current University of Minnesota head coach Hugh McCutcheon and current U.S. women’s head coach Karch Kiraly to give it a test run. I also asked my good friend Jay Van Vark and my longtime mentor Dennis (Aame) Amundson to do the same. And finally, I leaned heavily on my wife, Sherry. Many, many times I would hand her a stack of manuscript pages and beg her to tell me if any of it made any sense. She always presented a meaningful response, delivered while cooking dinner, feeding the cats, tending to her gardens, or perhaps while lost in a book of her own. Thank you, Sherry, for your love and patience. I’d like to add a shout-out to all the guys on the first tee at San Diego’s Coronado Golf Course for tolerating my lack of game and making me feel like San Diego is now my home. And let me hear an amen for my beautiful daughters, Becky and Hillary, and my grandsons, Mateo (who at age three could identify almost any airplane that ever flew and is planning to be an astronaut by the time he starts kindergarten), Farris (who has appeared as Jimi Hendrix for the past two Halloweens and badly wants to be a motorcycle daredevil), and Aliya (who arrived already poised to create her own future). vii This page intentionally left blank. INTRODUCTION I think I first questioned the status quo in the early 1950s when I was in third grade at St. Bernardine’s School in San Bernardino, California. My hands were in ready position, and I was about to take a swing at Panfilo Rubio, the younger brother of one of my best friends, Jose Rubio. We were arguing about something and decided to square off against each other out- side on the school handball court. All the action fights took place on the handball court, usually in front of big crowds. The “sissy” fights were in the cafeteria courtyard. I was a certified nerd. I had glasses, braces, and a lunchbox (with ther- mos). In my front shirt pocket, I carried a book of bus tickets to get to and from school. I also went to clarinet lessons on Saturday mornings. What was I doing at the handball court gearing up for a schoolyard fight? Out of the corner of my eye I was watching for one of the sisters (as in Sister Marie; we didn’t call them nuns at St. Bernardine’s) to swoop in and break up the fight before it even started. This was exactly how she had saved my life a few weeks earlier when I somehow got in Danny Winker’s way while he was running the bases during a kickball game at recess. He was the toughest guy in school, and I knew it was only a matter of a few seconds before I was going to get my lights punched out. I had raised my hands to guard my face as Danny ran at me. But just as he was about to unload his notorious straight right hand upon my nose, Sister Marie grabbed him by his hair and pulled him into her classroom. He spent the rest of the day sitting in the principal’s office, growling at everyone who walked by with his standard greeting, “Who are you lookin’ at?” This earlier episode was justice in its purist form, I thought. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Sister Marie showed up just in time to prevent Winker from rearranging my face. And on top of all that, he got suspended for three days. I was beginning to believe that when things threatened to go against me, all I had to do was wait for Sister Marie to appear and put things in order. This is what I had taught myself to expect. She was the personifica- tion of justice at St. Bernardine’s. There was no reason for me to doubt that anything was about to change. I trusted the status quo. Fast-forward to the scene at the handball court. At the very moment I drew my fist back to smack Rubio, I fully expected Sister Marie to appear and stop the fight. But she was a no-show; I was on my own. Rubio blasted me with a left hook that came out of nowhere, and I was down. From then on it was a flurry of fists from Rubio and a weak attempt by me to mount a defensive strategy. The crowd started booing and, one by one, began drifting away. ix x Introduction It was a crushing defeat for little Michael Hebert. My glasses were broken. My shirt was torn. Never mind that the street-savvy Latino kids had added one more notch to their total while the hopelessly nerd-ridden white kids had to suffer another humiliating loss. I could handle all of that. But what really ate at me was that I had allowed myself to trust the system. I really believed that Sister Marie would always be there to fix things. My naiveté was exceeded only by my anger. I could not believe that I had never questioned the legitimacy of my contrived status quo. It was then and there that I promised that I would never let that happen to me again. I would ask questions. I would carry with me a healthy skepticism wherever I went. I would rely on Sister Marie (and all of the future Sister Maries that would make an appearance in my life) only if I had researched and evaluated the situation with a careful eye. I stuck to that promise. I made a series of decisions that surely left friends trying to figure out where I was going in life and why. I turned down a college basketball scholarship to an eastern school and instead I enrolled at BYU for a year even though I wasn’t a Mormon. Next, I transferred to UCSB, joined a fraternity and, in the same year, was both a varsity athlete (volleyball) and a cheerleader (don’t ask). After college I chose the Peace Corps over the military. While in the Peace Corps in Nigeria, I taught my cook–steward how to veer from the local culinary orthodoxy by showing him how make tacos and burritos. Upon my return to the states, I married an African-American woman and earned a PhD in philosophy of education from Indiana University where I participated in an assortment of leftist causes.