Volleyball Tryouts: Essential Skills for Beginners (Low Experience)

Question
What skills do you need to know for volleyball tryouts if you have little experience but not too much? I can make underhand serves over the net but not over hand serves. I can set pretty well, and bump/pass pretty well, but what other skills do i need to know?

Answer
Good evening and welcome to www.allexperts.com.  

I write a lot of articles for coaches.  Below you will read an email from a coach, then you will see me answering it.  I think if you read it over closely (and share it with your parents), you will get a picture of what you need to work on.  

If you need to ask more questions, please press follow up, or email me at coachhouser@yahoo.com (with your parent's permission!).  

Also, would your family do me a favor, and visit us at www.coachhouser.com?  I think you guys will love the smiling faces!!  

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Coach Houser:
I'm 24 years old, I抳e been playing volleyball for a good while, but I抦 new at coaching.  So I抳e volunteered to be the head coach of a 7th grade team.  This is the first year of the 7th grade team at my school, and the only experience the girls have is a 3-day summer camp that some of them participated in last summer.  What is your advice on how to start?  

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Hello Coach!
My first piece of advice:  Teach them the fundamentals of the game.  

a) Passing:  still & early platform, thumbs together, no pray, no poke, no swing.  
b) Underhand serving:  no toss, backswing/step/hit, low back, frozen left hand.
c) Overhand serving:  toss/step/hit, no twist, no tilt, toss in front the hitting shoulder
d) Setting:  Make a decision, hands up early & still.
e) Spiking:  If you can teach for girls a three step approach that they can perform on command, then you should get a plaque.  If they can do it in a game situation, they deserve one!  Haha.

Second Thing:  Implement a very simple offense & defense. How about a 6-6 offense........whoever is in the middle front is the setter.  Or if you have 2 setters (and enough practice time!) you can teach them a 4-2 where the setter is the MB!  Whoa, that抯 fun!!  You can serve receive with 3 or 4 or 5, but make sure you practice it & practice it so that the girls can implement it and they won抰 be embarrassed or confused in public.  

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I hope you have a great summer!
Coach Houser