Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing ..read more

What My Sled Dogs Taught Me About Planning for the Unknown The New York Times | Resilience | by Blair Braverman | September 23, 2020 Working with them in the wilderness means negotiating countless shifting variables. Sounds a lot like the world we’re living in. I used to be a dedicated planner. I knew what I’d do every day, weeks in advance. Having a plan made me feel confident and safe. And then I got into long-distance dog sledding, and I discovered that the only thing worse than not having a plan was the stress of having one and constantly breaking it. Working with dogs in the wilderness me ..read more

Sure do miss this guy’s volleyball email updates. So much knowledge of our game, especially the history ..read more

This is a follow-up conversation to the No Penalty, No Sprints, Championship Season blog post: http://coachrey.com/blog/featured/the-no-penalty-championship-season/ At the AVCA and beyond, there have been a lot of questions on how do we hold athletes accountable. This video discusses that topic and goes way off into the world we live in today. Positive Coaching – Accountability and beyond ..read more

Flag Volleyball, not quite as cool as the newest forms of volleyball like Spikeball ESPN Summer Spike 2018 or Crossnet the four square of volleyball. Crossnet the Four Square for Volleyball Actually, is not even a new volleyball type game. I’m sorry to say, this post is not quite as exciting; in fact, it’s boring. It’s not a combination of Flag Football and Volleyball which would allow you to tackle your opponent while the ball is in flight. Flags for volleyball are more for tournament directors, but it will affect us all at club volleyball tournaments. How many times do we go up to a court ..read more

The three ultimate compliments a coach can receive are: When a former student-athlete that played under you, wants her daughter to play for you. (I’m not quite old enough for this one yet, but know a few coaches that have had this happen to them. I just won’t mention who they are because they are still in disbelief this is happening to them :)) When a former student-athlete writes you after their playing career has finished, and they realize and appreciate the positive impact you made on their life. The best ones are when they are candid about what knuckleheads they were in school and how mu ..read more

Move over football, baseball, basketball and hockey – it’s volleyball’s time. If it weren’t for one of my feeds displaying the teams in the Superbowl this weekend, I wouldn’t have had a clue who was playing. I really have little interest in football anymore. This coming from a fan that could name all the players of the great Pittsburgh Steelers teams of late ’70s and the ’85 Superbowl Shuffle Bears. Seems as if I’m not the only one: NBC Sports NFL Attendance Hits a 15-Year Low. I did watch the Clemson – LSU National Championship Football Game as I have hope for college football. But yet anothe ..read more

Coaching is a challenging profession. It is cutthroat, extremely competitive, and extraordinarily time-demanding. Time-demands in and around the team, the office, demands for appearances (on campus, off campus, speeches, press, etc.), on the road for matches and recruiting. Don’t forget the student-athlete calls at all hours of the day, recruiting calls, club and high school coaches calls, etc. Yes, we signed up for it; yes, we love what we do; but its a strain on the family. I am fortunate to have a wife that played collegiate volleyball to have somewhat of an understanding of all the work d ..read more

This season, Winthrop Volleyball found a good bit of success, an undefeated conference season (16 – 0) and a 22 – 4 overall record. All this success happened through hard work, but without a single physical penalty in the gym. No sprints were run, no stairs, no stadium steps, no push-ups, no sit-ups, etc. Part of my coaching philosophy is Positive Leads to Positive. If we recognize all the positive happenings on the court and encourage them, the culture develops into a will to win (not a fear to lose). It took a long time for me to build-up to a no physical penalty gym. Seeds were planted alo ..read more

The literally thousands of posts, comments, tweets, etc. about Mike has been positively overwhelming. The lives Mike touched are obvious and I have really enjoyed reading how deeply and personally impactful Mike was on so many levels. Mike connected with people in his own special way. He had so many witty stories, analogies, and metaphors that he used during practices, team meetings, discussions, etc. that in the moment, he would often lose us. But Mike always knew exactly where he was going. After many years, his unique tangential lessons became apparent. Through everyone’s words, I hope it ..read more