The VolleyBrains Weekly: You'd better swim!

Or the river will teach you.

January 15, 2023

Welcome to The VolleyBrains Weekly, your weekly mental buffet of coaching goodness. Hoping you'll leave full and satisfied!

Let's get going.

Here's what we've got this week

  • Kelly Sheffield wants you to swim...hard

  • Dani Busboom Kelly's biggest regret

  • Bill Walsh... the G-O-A-T

  • The Hogwarts Express is leaving?

For the smoothest 'viewing' experience press the 'read online' link at the top right of this email. Over there all clips will play in your browser without redirecting.👍

The Colorado River's lessons.

Another week, another Kelly Sheffield feature? Damn straight. 

We asked Coach Sheffield the following: What are some important player qualities that really jump out to you?

This was part of Kelly's answer.

Coach Sheffield's Masterclass can be found over here.

Coach Busboom's one regret

I'm doing this VolleyBrains thing for a while now and I found out this simple rule:

Most senior coaches are really eager to help out, stand by or maybe even mentor junior coaches...they love their sport, and they want it to prosper. They want to see the next generation of coaches do great things.

You just need to ask!

Coach Busboom's Masterclass can be found over here.

We need to talk religion! (Don't unsubscribe just yet) 😅

A volleyball coach I greatly respect wrote me this week:

"Matias, great job with the newsletter. You should write about Bill Walsh. He was...he was just the man. To me, he's the greatest coach in the history of sports. His impact is so immense and it's still felt to this day, and that means something in the most advanced and professional sport in the world. All of that 40+ years after he won his first Super Bowl, that's very special."

So this 'Euro' and non-American Football insider went on a Bill Walsh binge this week. 

And today I want to share these 2 findings. 

We'll surely revisit even more of Bill Walsh's teachings in future editions of The VolleyBrains Weekly

  1. Forget about religion. This is your bible now. 😊

Just before Bill passed away in 2007 he published a book on leadership: The Score Takes Care of Itself.

Bill's big idea was: you don’t win football games by trying to score. You don’t build championship teams by 'just' trying to win.

Instead, he set a standard of performance (listed in the tweet below) and held people to it in the execution of every single play.

He believed that if you had good people, a good culture, and strong guiding principles then the score would take care of itself.

2. 'A Football Life - Bill Walsh' is a must-watch for any coach, in any sport.

The last 10 minutes of that documentary are truly beautiful. (Some laughs, more cries)

Check out this epic 2-minute clip for a little laugh, but remember we're 2023 now. A 1980's 'best practice' isn't a 2023 'best practice'. 😁

Don't get fired now!

A *ahum 'maybe' bootlegged version ahum* of the entire documentary is over here.

No, you don't.

No Harry, no magic here.

Angelo Lorenzetti is the head coach of the illustrious Italian club team of Trentino Volley, one of the absolute global volleyball powerhouses.

This quote from Angelo is how he wants that coaches think about their profession.

Angelo's interview was one of the OG (no video content) VolleyBrains articles. To be found over here.

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What did you think of this edition?

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Serve it to us as hot, as Gordon Ramsey would. 🙃

See you next week!

Have a great one.

Matias