“Seek opportunities to show you care. The smallest gestures often make the biggest difference.”
John Wooden

Thursday, November 30, 2017

Badgers volleyball: Sydney Hilley soaks up leadership lessons from Lauren Carlini, Haleigh Nelson

By Dennis Punzel
November 30, 2017
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Haleigh Nelson and Lauren Carlini (M.P. King/State Journal)
WWLD?
WWND?
Translation: What would Lauren do? What would Nelly do?
The questions arose a couple weeks ago as University of Wisconsin volleyball coach Kelly Sheffield and his freshman setter Sydney Hilley were watching a video of former UW quarterback Russell Wilson, who was miked up as he talked with his Seattle Seahawks teammates.
Hilley pondered what it would be like if she could’ve listened in like that to her predecessor at setter, Lauren Carlini, or former middle blocker Haleigh Nelson as they talked to their teammates. How did those two celebrated leaders inspire their teammates? What did they say in pressure situations? How did they say it?
Only way to find out is to ask. So the next day they called Carlini in Scandicci, Italy, where she is playing her first season of professional volleyball and the two setters discussed their craft for more than an hour on FaceTime.
The next day Hilley called Nelson in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she is attending grad school and playing beach volleyball for LSU.
“Every minute of it Syd was soaking up knowledge,” said Sheffield, whose main job was to hold the phone during the Carlini conversation. “Learning takes place when there’s a need to know, and Syd needs to know. That’s why she’s the player she is right now. And even more exciting, why she’s going to continue to get better.
“She wants to max out and you’ve got to be willing to put yourself out there if you’re wanting to be great at something. That requires searching out information, searching out people that have been where you want to go.”
Sheffield said that Hilley has been able to put the advice she got to immediate use and teammates have noted a difference in her communication during recent matches. That progression could play a role as the Badgers (20-9) begin NCAA tournament play Friday against in-state rival Marquette (22-9) in Ames, Iowa.
Hilley said she had different goals in each conversation, although communication was a common theme in each.
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Sunday, November 26, 2017

Here’s the Strategy Elite Athletes Follow to Perform at the Highest Level

By Ryan Holiday
November 22, 2017

This piece is an adaption from The Obstacle Is The Way.
This article was originally published 12/17/15.
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Mia Fradenburg (http://goheels.com/)

When coach Shaka Smart was interviewed after his team beat North Carolina in a surprise upset last week, what did he say? He didn’t focus on the buzzer beater. Or the strategy. He said his team won because “they followed the process.
Tony Wroten, a guard for the 76ers, got the same advice from his coaches. “They tell us every game, every day, ‘trust the process.’” John Fox, the coach trying to turn around the Chicago Bears, asked his team the same thing.
But what the hell is it? What is the process?
It can be traced to Nick Saban, the famous coach of LSU and Alabama — perhaps the most dominant dynasty in the history of college football. But he got it from a psychiatry professor named Lionel Rosen during his time at Michigan State.
Rosen’s big insight was this: sports — especially football — are complex. Nobody has enough brainpower or motivation to consistently manage all the variables going on in the course of a season, let alone a game. They think they do — but realistically, they don’t.
There are too many plays, too many players, too many statistics, counter moves, unpredictables, distractions. Over the course of a long playoff season, this adds up into a cognitively impossible load. Meanwhile, as Monte Burke writes in his book Saban, Rosen discovered that the average play in football lasts just seven seconds. Seven seconds — that’s very manageable.
So he posed a question: What if a team concentrated only on what they could manage? What if they took things step by step — not focusing on anything but what was right in front of them and on doing it well?
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Wednesday, November 15, 2017

The One Question All Coaches Should Ask Their Athletes

By John O'Sullivan
November 8, 2017
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Bill Ferguson, Wake Forest Volleyball Coach 
Coaches, imagine if there was a way to gain insight, understanding, and connection with your athletes by asking a simple question? There is. let me explain how.
A few years back, I coached a talented, yet underperforming sixteen-year-old girl I will call Maddy. She was incredibly inconsistent in her play and often looked very depressed. She was definitely lacking in confidence. Her friends told me she was unsure whether to continue playing or not. After trying multiple ways to help her play the way I believed she was capable of, I called her in for a meeting.

I spent the first 30 minutes of our time together offering my thoughts and suggestions, but as I rambled on and on I could tell she was simply tuning out. Here I was, the highly experienced coach, offering my years of wisdom, and she wasn’t listening.
“Maddy, if you don’t start taking my advice, I can’t really help you. I don’t know what else to say,” I shrugged.
“It’s all good stuff coach, but none of that stuff helps me with my problem,” she replied.
“Really?” I exclaimed. “Then perhaps you better tell me what the problem really is, because I clearly am not helping right now.” I waited for her answer.
‘It’s my Dad,” she said. “Whenever you play me on his side of the field, he is constantly telling me what to do, where to be, when to be there, and I can hear him and see him getting angrier and angrier with me. I think I play a lot better when I play on the side where the teams sit, and away from the parents. At least that way I can’t hear him.”
I thought about it for a second, and she was right. She did seem to play better on the team side of the field. I could honor this request, without affecting the team much. “I can help with that Maddy, no problem at all. Why didn’t you ever say something about that before? I can certainly help you with your position, and more importantly, I can go and speak to your Dad. Why did you wait until now to tell me?”
“Because you never asked,” she said stone faced.
My heart sank. She was right. All season long, I watched this girl struggle with her play and her confidence, and all I did was get upset and frustrated with her. I tried to solve the problem, without ever knowing the problem. All I had to do was ask one simple question, but I never did.
“What is one thing you wish your coaches knew that would help us coach you better?”
It is the question that changes everything. Not only for the athletes but for us coaches too.
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