Training Philosphy | EliteWest Volleyball

TRAINING PHILOSOPHY

Coaching

Our personal values and priorities in life is the foundation of how we coach. Elite West will play an extremely important role in the volleyball career of these players as they transition to postsecondary teams. Our coaching staff firmly believes that our priority is TOTALLY about the development of the players for this next stage. It is NOT about winning, making the all-star team, elevating the social status of parents, nor increasing the reputation of the coaches or organization. We endeavour to create an atmosphere for elite young men to grow and enjoy the highest competitive level of volleyball. We will strive to develop each boy individually and we will give him a chance to learn and play this game to the best of his ability. Being the best in any walk of life isn’t about being the most talented; it’s about adopting the mental framework and practice habits that best fosters each individual's personal growth. The heart of our goals is to be a positive impact on our players. As coaches we will build a long-term development plan for our team and for each athlete. This will be directly tied into team success and lead to individual development.

CORE OBJECTIVES

INDIVIDUAL TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT

We will build the technical skills of our players and advance them to higher levels of execution. ‘Deliberate Practice’ requires that we identify certain sharply defined elements of performance that need to be improved, and then work intently on them.

INDIVIDUAL TACTICAL DEVELOPMENT

We must advance the tactical intelligence (volleyball IQ) of our players so that they are able to fully utilize the technical skill that they develop. We believe that this game becomes more mental than physical as players advance in their career, and we will relentlessly address this area of growth.

TEAM CULTURE DEVELOPMENT

The more we coach, the more we are convinced that the team’s culture is not the most important thing, it’s the only thing. We will work hard to get our boys ‘to buy into’ our team culture and culture will grow as we all adhere to player-centered standards. We believe that our culture must begin with a vision that our players and coaches establish together, and this will grow with each season.

Culture

We take great pride in our team culture, defined by Accountability, Competition, Respect, Discipline, Trust and Sacrifice. We win as a team, and we develop as a team. Together we are stronger than we are apart.

We stress accountability on every contact. We allow you to make mistakes because errors are a key part of development. But we will work with you to correct those mistakes, and continue in your development. This concept extends to playing time as well. All playing time is earned. The only guaranteed playing time is one point per tournament. Any playing time after that is earned in practice.
Part of the idea of earning everything with nothing given to you, is competition. We compete in practice everyday, and players can play their way up, and down the depth chart on a daily and weekly basis. This completion has been the key to our success and our players’ development and their success once they leave our program. There is a competitive component to all of our drills and training, and we will teach athletes to compete with themselves as well.
We have a team first philosophy that stresses personal sacrifice for team success, and ask the question “How have you given to your teammates today?”. We believe if you give to your teammates while expecting nothing in return it builds a powerful bond that breeds trust, and makes us stronger. It is not about the ME, it is about the WE.
We strive to earn respect from our players as coaches, by building trust with them, striving to connect with them, and building a plan for them. We then expect they will return that respect to their teammates, and create and environment where we have enough trust to allow our teammates to hold us accountable.
We build a plan for our athletes, and a program that will help them achieve their goals and continue their development, building the framework for them to be successful players and consequently, successful young men. Our investment in our athletes, our commitment to them, and that plan for them, builds trust, and this trust allows them to buy into the process, and focus on execution, which will get them to where they want to go.

Playing time

We will strive to give every athlete a chance to be a starter.

Each player will earn every minute of playing time they get. We do not guarantee equal playing time. We thrive on a culture of accountability and reward. They will know that if they play, it will be because they earned it & no one gave it to them.

Development occurs in practice and playing time is earned in practice. Each and every practice a player misses gives someone else the opportunity to improve and take his position, so it is in the player's best interest to not miss practice sessions.

Part of our core values are accountability, discipline, commitment and sacrifice for your teammates with a focus on the “WE” first before the “ME”. This extends to our practices as well, with structure, planning, focus, intensity and competition.

We strive for our teams to be competitive. We will aim to play our entire roster in round robin matches, and when we to tournament playoffs we will put in the players that will give our team the best opportunity to be successful.

Throughout the season, there is a chance that players may be playing a position that they don't necessarily like, but we will do so as the team's needs evolve.

Coaches will meet with players after matches to evaluate the team's performance.

If you have questions for coaching staff, we would ask that you observe the “24-hour rule”, and that you only approach the coach only after a 24-hour wait period to allow for reflection and calm.

International
Travel

Part of our program is to expose our athletes to unique competitive volleyball experiences. We will aim to travel internationally twice during each cycle. As an example, we have traveled to Cuba with our teams multiple times in past years. The environment in Cuba from a training and competition standpoint is unparalleled, as we train with the coach from the Havana Provincial Sport School and its athletes. The players will have a chance to experience a new training environment and an opportunity to connect with athletes from a different culture.

Postsecondary
Focus

A large part of our focus is preparing our athletes to move on to compete at a post secondary level. We are very proud of our record of producing post secondary athletes, and can confidently say no club in the country puts as much time and effort into helping their athletes find a post secondary program that fits their needs. 100% of our graduates since 2008 have received a post secondary scholarship offer. We prepare our players for the recruitment process, and use our relationships with all of the post secondary programs in the country to facilitate finding each of our athletes a place that fits for them. If our athlete has a goal of playing post secondary, we do absolutely everything possible to provide that opportunity for him. Our record in this regard speaks for itself.