A big congratulations to GMS Advisory Member John Speraw for winning his third NCAA Championship in six years!  UC Irvine swept USC in three games this past weekend on the Trojans home court.  To read more, click here.

We have had several requests for a blog post that address common volleyball injuries. So I spoke with Blain Empey, an athletic trainer about the most common injuries in volleyball. There are a lot of  injuries on the volleyball court, jammed fingers and twisted ankles. However, those are difficult to predict or prevent. After talking with Blain, we decided that the best blog posts for the readers of the GMS blog would address injuries that are caused by overuse or lack of proper strength training.  We also wanted to address injuries that could be treated through proper preventative and rehabilitative exercises.

Congratulations to Gold Medal Squared Advisory Member John Speraw for being named the MPSF Men’s Volleyball Coach of the Year.  John is in his 10th year at UC Irvine, and will be competing for his 3rd NCAA Championship in six years this weekend in Southern California.

This spring Jason Watson, head coach of the Arizona State Women’s Volleyball team has invited me in to his gym as an assistant coach.  After a much needed three year break from college coaching, I’m excited to be back in the gym.

The other day I was reading an article in a magazine about Helicopter Parenting—the term given to parents who hover over their child’s every move. The author gave 5 suggestions to avoid doing for our children what they can and should do for themselves. We coaches can glean lots of good advice that applies directly to how we teach our players.

Perhaps no other skill in volleyball is taught so differently as setting. I have seen many great setting coaches train their setters in completely dissimilar fashion, and as I look at the skill, and some of the world’s best setters, I wonder if we can distill the skill down to a few simple concepts:

At GMS, we believe that an important variable in improvement is receiving feedback. Occasionally we get some feedback from readers comments, but we also know that there are a lot of people who read without leaving a note. We would like to know what the majority of our blog readers think. In an effort to get better at what we do, we would appreciate your feedback about the GMS blog.

Congratulations to GMS advisory staff member Doug Beal for being one of three formal candidates for the presidency of the FIVB. For the last 35 years Doug has been invaluable to the growth of volleyball both here in the USA and internationally. Thanks for all that you have done and will do in the future for the sport of volleyball!

Tags: Doug Beal,GMS Advisory Staff,USA Volleyball

Another post  from Dr. Steve Bain, who not only knows a lot about neuro-science, but is becoming quite a good volleyball coach as well.  He recently did us the honor of coming to Utah and spending a few days watching practice, talking volleyball, and generally giving us valuable feedback about our coaching as he saw it.  We are currently keeping a cauldron and mix our players in practice every day, and needless to say found the content of this article really encouraging.

How’s your team? Are they happy? Do they feel fresh, mentally and physically, or are they run down?