Volleyball Observation

For this assignment I observed a 5th/6th grade volleyball team. Volleyball has a lot of team comradery, so they’re almost always cheering, whether that’s after an ACE or just a point in general. I chose to observe the same grade as I coach, but chose a different sport so I could see what the differences were in the environment and how the girls interacted with each other in this particular sport. First I’ll talk about how the players’ behavior was managed throughout the practice. The coach interacted very well with the players; she was constantly teaching and instructing on certain details of every drill. When a girl didn’t get the drill or couldn’t master the technique, she calmly would stop and help her and make the rest of the team listen so they didn’t miss the full instruction. The coach seemed to be positive most of the time, unless a girl was talking while she was instructing, then I could see the frustration in her tone as she talked to the team. Other than that, the positivity throughout the team was pretty good. However, even though the coach was positive as she critiqued the girls, I didn’t see the same

I think the coach was very effective in her communicating skills; she interacted with the girls and was constantly preaching how the girls should be picking each other up and being a team, which is very important. Even though I think she was a good communicator when it came to technique and drills, I think she didn’t handle confrontation as well as she should of. When a girl rolled her eyes or talked back when she was trying to instruct, the coach seemed to just let it go or she would say a rude comment back to the athlete. If I were her I would let her know that’s not appropriate and if it continued to happen I would take her aside to talk to her. Sometimes as a coach I make girls run if they don’t behave, they might not enjoy it but it teaches them to listen instead of misbehave when they should be