By Jim Catalano
Jim Catalano is an Associate Editor at Coaching Management.
Coaching Management, 9.3, April 2001, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/cm/cm0903/crosscourt.htm
In an age of increasing sport specialization, it’s no secret that many high school volleyball programs have taken a hit from other sports—especially girls’ basketball. With the advent of the WNBA, the gold-medal success of the USA Women’s National Teams at recent Olympics, and nationally televised NCAA women’s games, basketball has never been more popular, and girls who want to succeed in the sport often look to play it year-round.
“I had a really nice volleyball program when I first started here, then I took five years off and basketball took over,” says Julie Williams, Head Coach at Corvallis (Ore.) High School. “So now I’m trying to rebuild. It used to be I was trying to convince my players not to do club volleyball, and to play basketball instead. But now the shoe’s on the other foot and I’m really chasing around trying to get kids from basketball to buy into volleyball.”
While playing both sports is impossible in those states or regions where basketball and volleyball share the same season, the majority of the country’s high schools can accommodate crossover. And mining that lode of potential athletes can only benefit your program.
After all, many basketball skills translate well to volleyball: leaping ability, agility, eye-hand coordination. “I look for basketball players with all-around athletic ability and foot speed, even if they might be shorter,” Williams says. “Because if they’re fast, then I figure they can probably jump high as well.
“Often basketball players make good blockers, because their visual timing is keen,” Williams continues. “But I’ve had basketball players become setters, rightsides, and outsides—it all depends on the athletes themselves.”
Hoopsters can also bring valuable non-physical skills to volleyball teams. “We had one girl who picked up volleyball later in high school after playing basketball for years,” says Liz Ellisor, Head Coach at Dayton (Texas) High School. “She wasn’t the most skilled, but she was a leader. Just having her on the team and the court was a real asset to us. And the fact that she was an athlete who played basketball helped her to get accepted right away by the other players.”
A good basketball player can also add some competitive fire to your team. “A girl who’s a good basketball player is going to be fairly competitive to begin with,” says Sharon Zavala, Head Coach at Central Catholic High School in Grand Island, Neb. “Competing is competing.”
“My basketball-playing volleyball players are usually tenacious about finding a way to win,” Williams agrees. “They won’t necessarily use the prettiest volleyball method, but they’ll find a way to win, which I like a lot.”
Adds Cynthia Brown, Head Coach at William Fleming High School in Roanoke, Va.: “I’ve had several players who have come to me with little or no skill, but because they’ve been competitive and wanted to excel, they’ve always done well.”
Making the Pitch
So, high school basketball is a hotbed of underdeveloped volleyball talent. But after you’ve identified potential crossover players, what’s the best way to get them to come out for the sport? The trick, coaches say, is in how you ask them.
“I explain to my kids that they should never put all their eggs in one basket,” says Brown, who also coaches the girls’ basketball team at William Fleming, “and encourage them to do more than one sport. I tell them, ‘You’re an athlete—period. Just try volleyball, and you never know what will work out for you in the next couple of years.’”
“They may love basketball, but they have to think about which sport is the most competitive,” she continues. “Pursuing volleyball might give them a chance to get an athletic opportunity that they wouldn’t get otherwise.”
Coaches can also tout volleyball’s ability to develop a player’s all-around athleticism. For example, Williams promotes the fact that volleyball training can improve basketball skills. “We tell them we can help them build explosive power and get them to jump higher,” she says.
“I talk to the players about how one sport complements the other sport in terms of quickness and being able to move,” adds Brown.
Williams also likes to emphasize that playing volleyball can be a nice change of pace. She sells the game on its team-oriented nature. “I think kids in general really like the cooperative aspect of volleyball,” she says. “How players work together determines the outcome a lot more than in basketball, where a couple of fine athletes can wreak havoc on an opposing team.”
Joining Forces
Establishing a good relationship with the school’s girls’ basketball coach is another important step in recruiting and keeping hoops players, volleyball coaches say. At Dayton High School, Ellisor works with Head Basketball Coach Suzanne Bagwell to further both programs. “We do have some kids who play one sport,” Ellisor says, “but the majority play both, and it would be detrimental to my program and to the basketball program if we didn’t try to work together.”
To facilitate the cooperation, there are several things a volleyball coach can do, starting with sending players over to the basketball program. This, coaches say, helps set a tone of support for multisport participation throughout the department.
“I really encourage my players to go out for basketball,” says Williams. “In fact, the last two weeks of our season, I wore a girls’ basketball t-shirt to practice everyday.
“I’d really rather have them play basketball than play club volleyball,” she continues. “My belief is that the two nights a week they might practice for club and the two weekends a month they might have club competition can’t take the place of the daily workouts and competitive situations they could get in basketball. So I continuously encourage my volleyball kids to go out for basketball. And now, the basketball coaches are always trying to encourage their athletes to try volleyball—we think it’s a great transfer of skills.”
Basketball coaches are also more likely to send players your way if they see your reciprocal interest in the welfare of their programs. One way to demonstrate that interest is to ease the burden of overlapping seasons, which can be especially difficult if your state schedules volleyball playoffs the first few weeks of basketball practice.
For example, this season, Ellisor helped the transition by keeping the conditioning needs of the basketball team in mind. “We did a lot more running at the end of practice than previous years,” she says. “The biggest difference between our sports is in basketball, they run up and down the court all the time. But in volleyball, we play on less than half of their court. So when our girls finish their volleyball season, they suck wind the first couple of weeks of basketball practice. But with the extra running this year, the girls went to basketball in better shape—and it didn’t hurt their volleyball, either.”
A Smooth Transition
Once you’ve gotten a basketball player to come out for volleyball practice, where do you start? Most coaches begin with the fundamentals, focusing on movement skills. Williams likes to point out the parallels between the two sports to her players.
“For example, there’s an emphasis on lateral movement in both,” she says. “In volleyball, defensive skills are used slightly lower to the ground than in basketball, but the lateral movement is similar. Your first step when you’re blocking is similar to the first step you take when you’re trying to cut off an offensive basketball player. Following the trajectory of the ball and cutting off angles is common to both sports. And serving is a lot like shooting free throws.”
To ease the transition for new players, Williams also speaks to them in basketball terms. “For blocking, I tell them I want them to guard the person who’s across from them, like in basketball,” she explains. “If they switch, like on a X-ing pattern, they’ll think of it as switching just like they do in basketball. So I try to use the basketball terminology—at least until they get it, and then they become volleyball players.”
Brown focuses less on comparing the two sports and speaks more to their athleticism. “It all begins with the basics,” she says. “We do a lot of footwork drills—many of which are the same as I use in basketball, such as agility drills and anything that makes them move quickly.
“We focus on how to move, how to get into their stance,” she continues. “They need to be able to go to one point, stop and keep their body under control, and still make a play. So we do a lot of quick step drills. Footwork is the key—if they get their lower body to go, the upper body will follow.”
But for Brown, one of the most difficult parts of getting her players to successfully cross over from basketball to volleyball has been cultivating a new attitude in them. “In volleyball, it’s a matter of staying upbeat regardless of what’s going on—and that’s hard, especially when you’re losing,” she says. “It’s a game that changes momentum really quickly if a strong server or strong hitter gets going. In basketball, the team that wins is usually the one that has the least turnovers and can handle pressure. But in volleyball, if you hit one out, you have to believe you can hit the next one in.”
As a solution, Brown tries to keep a positive attitude herself. “You can’t do a lot of yelling or get on players, since it puts them more on the spot than in basketball. Volleyball is much more team-oriented, so if you get on one girl, it’s going to mess up the whole team. Instead, I try to get them to be jovial, energetic, and happy, regardless of whether they’re winning or not. If I don’t, they just get worse.”
Building the Future
Most coaches agree that the best time to sell basketball players—as well as other athletes—on volleyball is when they’re young. “You’ve got to recruit them in the lower grades, because girls’ exposure to volleyball before high school is way less intense than their basketball exposure,” Williams says. “So I try to run clinics for 3rd-8th graders, just to let them experience the sport.
“At the end of every clinic,” she continues, “a couple of kids volunteer to do a D-drill in front of everybody, and they love it. It’s important to get these young girls to understand that the game is way different than the company-picnic style game that they might have played before. I try to show them at an early age that it’s a very competitive sport.”
Using your current players, or even alumnae, as role models for younger students also can be a boon. “I coached my own daughter, who’s now at Wake Forest University on a basketball scholarship and who probably could’ve gotten a Division I volleyball scholarship, instead,” Brown says. “She’s been a good role model for other kids by showing you can excel in two sports. That has motivated many kids—and still works for us today.”