First year coach

Question
Me and my wife are first year coaches and are coaching a varsity high school team. I as an assistant the previous two years and did not like the way the former coach did his job. I want am looking for some advice on coaching. I am big on being well conditioned, but am looking for advice on how to run a practice. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Answer
Ryan,

My advice is this.  Conditioning is very important, but if you have the best conditioned team and they cannot pass you are going to have a losing record with a bunch of finely tuned young ladies (or young men).

If you can't pass you can't win, so much of your first few practices should be geared around passing.  There are many  passing drills that incorporate conditioning so I would do these instead of just running and exercise without a ball.  Have the kids get as many touches as possible so you can see who passes well and who needs help.  

You didn't say if this was a girls team or a boys so I will give you some advice on both.  From my experience I have found that girls have more trouble moving to the ball than boys do.  So if you are coaching a girls team you need to do some movement drills like run throughs or pursuit.  Girls also seem to listen more than boys do so teaching them is usually easier.  Boys know everything from birth, so you will have to convince them (usually through conditioning drills)that hitting isn't as important as passing.

Two very good books that will help you teach are.....
The Volleyball Coaching Bible and Steps to Success, Teaching Volleyball.  They have drills, players most common mistakes and their corrections as well as the progression of a player.

If your practice is two hour long this is what my basic high school practice would be like.

0:00 - 0:15 Stretching
0:15 - 0:25 Pepper
0:25 - 0:40 Serve Receive
0:40 - 0:50 Serve to 1, 5 and short
0:50 - 1:05 Hitting lines.  With or without a passer.
1:05 - 1:15 Fun Drill (something to excite them)
1:15 - 1:30 Rotations (either timed or scored)
1:30 - Finish Scrimmage.

After a game you may need to work on one aspect more than another, so key on that.  You may also want to work on offense one day and defense another.

I have many drills but when I type them they don't always make sense so if you want to call me e-mail me at [email protected] and I will give you my number.

Hope this was of some help.
Steve