Tag: USA Volleyball

Get Your Coaches a Concussion Clipboard

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Can you remember the facts about the seriousness of a concussion?  Can you recognize the signs of a concussion? What you need is a concussion clipboard.

Concussions are a serious matter. The Sports Concussion Institute provided the following statistics on their website (April 2014)http://www.concussiontreatment.com/concussionfacts.html#sfaq9)

• CDC estimates reveal that 1.6 million to 3.8 million concussions occur each year.
• 5-10% of athletes will experience a concussion in any given sport season.
• Fewer than 10% of sport related concussions involve a loss of consciousness (e.g., blacking out, seeing stars, etc.).
• Football is the most common sport with concussion risk for males (75% chance for concussion).
• Soccer is the most common sport with concussion risk for females (50% chance for concussion).
• 78% of concussions occur during games (as opposed to practices).
• Some studies suggest that females are twice as likely to sustain a concussion as males.
• Headache (85%) and dizziness (70-80%) are most commonly reported symptoms immediately following concussions for injured athletes.
• Estimated 47% of athletes do not report feeling any symptoms after a concussive blow.
• A professional football player will receive an estimated 900 to 1500 blows to the head during a season.
• Impact speed of a professional boxers punch: 20 mph.
• Impact speed of a football player tackling a stationary player: 25 mph.
• Impact speed of a soccer ball being headed by a player: 70 mph.
At the 2014 USAV High Performance tryouts evaluators with provided clipboards that contained tips for understanding and dealing with concussions. (See picture below).

Is your school’s booster club or parent-teacher organization looking for away to help make the school a safer place? Have you considered following the lead of the USAV by providing all coaches with a concussion clipboard that has the school logo and information about concussions?

In fact, it would be wise to provide all teachers with such a clipboard. You never know when a youngster might fall out of a swing on the playground or an exuberant tuba player might inadvertently hit an innocent trumpeter in the head.

Play it safe.

USA Volleyball concussion clipboard
USA Volleyball concussion clipboard

USA Volleyball Coaching Fundamentals Apply to All Sports

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The USA Volleyball certification program for coaches begins with IMPACT, a mandatory course for many club and school coaches.  At a high level the program covers: sports medicine/risk management, ethics, coaching philosophy, motor skill development, drill development, and parents.

The second phase in the certification process, the Coaching Accreditation Program (CAP), is more extensive.  The CAP I course is based on the book, Coaching Volleyball – Building a Winning Team. The course focuses on basic skills (forearm pass, overhead pass, serving, spiking, serve receive, blocking, individual defense), developing offensive and defensive systems, game-like drills, putting together practices, strategies and tactics, and coaching philosophies.

Highlights from a recent CAP certification held in Durango, Colorado follow:

The game teaches the game.  Skills are transferred best in game-like situations.

  • Never be a child’s last coach. Give them a love of the game.
  • Principles matter more than methods.
  • A good coach will tell his/her players, “Your job is to show up with a smile on your face. My jobs are to send you away with one.”
  • The pleasure of competition should always exceed the pressure of competition.
  • Effective coaches will tell their players what they want to see them doing, not what they did wrong.
  • Teach the whole rather than the part, for example teach the full spike rather than breaking it down in parts.
  • The power of story is an effective way to teach – guide your players’ discovery through story.
  • If punishment worked, prisoners would be angels.
  • A team’s practice must be deliberate and focused.
  •  Kids don’t know how much the coach knows about volleyball until they know how much the coach cares about them.
  • Specificity is a key in motor learning. Give students specific cues such as “Good job reaching for the ball.” This is more helpful than being a cheerleader and saying, “Good shot.”
  • There is a greater transfer in skill from random training rather than block training.
  • “Streaks Happen.” 50% of the time an athlete performs above their average and the other 50% of the time they perform below their average.

Every coach has a different philosophy and approach to helping their athletes learn. Philosophies may vary, but quality programs will be based on the above mentioned fundamentals.

 

Colorado Crossroads – Girls’ Sports Impact the Colorado Economy

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One of Colorado’s top sporting events does not include the Broncos, Rockies, Nuggets, or other professional athletes. Instead it is an event that spans nine days and involves about 12,000 middle school and high school girls competing for slots in the USA Volleyball Girls’ Nationals.

This year the Colorado Crossroads was held March 2-4 and 8-10 at the Colorado Convention Center.  A few key facts about the event are listed below.
• The tournament started in 1985 and is one of nine national qualifiers.
•It has grown from 100 teams to over 1,200 teams.
• The first weekend featured team play in the 16, 17, and 18 year-old divisions.  Just under 6,000 players competed on 651 teams.
• The second weekend play was held for 12, 13, 14, 15 year-old divisions.  About 5,500 players represented 594 teams.
• A total 41 of teams in the various age brackets qualified for Nationals in Dallas.
• Nearly 167,000 people visited Denver because of the event.
• Seventy percent of the participants are from out-of-state.
• The caliber of play at Crossroads attracted 292 college scouts from 44 states registered to attend the event.
• The event is played on 88  courts. Players compete in pool play the first two days of the event. A single elimination tournament rounds out play on the final day.
• This year, the Convention and Visitors Bureau’s economic impact model, provided by the Destination Marketing Association International showed that the 2013 event was worth about $26 million to the Denver economy. Tournament directors believe this is a conservative estimate.

In addition, there are many intangible benefits associated with the event. It promotes the value of physical activity for young women. As well, it showcases Colorado’s active lifestyle and demonstrates  the state is a wonderful place to live, work, and play.