USA Women' s Volleyball is Backwards

[Murina]

ruffda said:

This is ridiculous and I will argue it until I am blue in the face. You do NOT need to change the rules for ALL USA VB players to find the 20-30 candidates for the National Team. Nor should you.

The only place 20-30 candidates have built a successful national team is Ekaterineburg, Russia under Karpol. It was under VERY specialized circumstances and I would venture to guess the real number of candidates was more like 200-250.

This keeps getting repeated, but I have yet to hear anyone actually present an argument that actually supports this theory. Simply put, the USA players in JOs, high school and college don't have the practice time to perfect the skills they _are_ required to have, let alone added skills. One could argue that changing the rules will make them _less_ talented, not more.

You are not accepting the arguement that is being presented. As is pointed out later in this thread, kids in junior high and high school are practicing as much as their european counterparts - and the americans are playing exponentially more matches. American kids just aren't playing the same game - it's like the difference between volleyball and beach volleyball. The name volleyball is in both, and there is a net with lines, but the conditions each is played under create different games.

Sorry, but this drives me crazy. Ogonna's problem isn't/wasn't the rules or her coaches.

We agree on part of this. It wasn't her coaches being bad or not trying to teach her to pass. Some people just aren't capable of the fine eye-hand co-ordination required to receive serve. If she had lived in a country that played under 6 sub rules she would have taken a different career path though. I can see a couple of obvious lines: 1. play a position that doesn't require her to receive serve. Maybe middle or opposite in a conventional system. Maybe the left in an unconventional system (like Karpol's for example). 2. her career stalls before national team because she can't handle the back row requirements of the sport.

An interesting comparison to Nnamani in europe is Elena Godina - a 6'5" wing spiker who plays for the russian nt. She is a marginal at best receiver and defender, but at one time was a devestating attacker and blocker. She grew up under Karpol and was trained to be a lefts side attacker who did not have receiving responsibility. In the back row she played zone 1 in Karpol's man-up defensive system. She was tremendous in this role in this system. When she left Karpol and had to play in conventional systems, she is a player who's best position is opposite, but she really isn't a great attacker from zone 2... Some teams have had her try to play a conventional passing outsider hitter, but only with marginal success.

Even with her faults Godina is substantially better at everything than Nnamani or any of the USA outside hitters - at least the last time I saw Nnamani play (Olympics?). Part of that is training time to be sure. It's possible that Godina's career could have stalled pre-NT level anywhere except Karpol's special circumstance. In the USA Godina would never have played back row at all - someone else would have done that for her. She may have become an all-american MVP attacker who would join the national team without ever having had to play back row and would be Ty or Wilkins.

Finally, every discussion we have on this board about National Team candidates ALWAYS focuses on offensive stars. The all-around player -- and they do exist -- is almost never mentioned. Why are Haneef, Nnamani, Fawcett, Hodge the ones being promoted? How is this the fault of the rules?

I posted this above:

I think Pingle and the USA coaches understand and accept something that most of this board doesn't get: as things stand now, the USA NT will NEVER outskill anyone. The best chance the USA has is to be skilled enough, and more physical than everyone else. This leads to chosing players like Hodge, Fawcett, Akinradewo, Okogbaa etc. as the future of the NT. USA won't (NOT "can't") develop the skilled players so get the most amazing physical talent you can find.

The USAV seems to have adopted the philosophy that the level of athlete they need to attack and block usually won't be playing back row full time except in the national team. If you don't have the combination of skill, experience and athleticsm the next best choice is take inexperienced athleticsm and hope you can raise the skill level while at the top. Under the circumstances, it is the most attractive option available.

The non-college kids who went to the NBA is a similar parallel. Few became even decent NBA players until 3-4 years into their NBA careers. LaBron is the outlier - Kwame Brown is far more representative of the group. For the ones who really turned out well, it took a few years to develop their skills. Garnett and J. O'Neal were the exceptions who were able to develop their skills in an arena where they had little chance for success right away.

College basketball players are a much better bet for NBA success because they were able to develop their skills in an arena where they could be somewhat to very successful. If Fawcett, Hodge, Okogbaa etc. don't spend most of their college and club careers as primary passers, they will be like non-college NBA players when they join the national team.

[Murina]

gorf said:

The USAV rules for AA / Open competition have used the same substitution rules as the international rules for as long as I've been paying attenton to them since the mid-1980s.

Why are collegiate rules different?

Probably to level the playing field somewhat between the "haves" and the "have nots" since not many teams in the country can get the same level of recruits on a steady basis as say Stanford (and some of the other commonly highly ranked teams.)

Frankly, how many truly all around players are on even the "elite" teams these days?

It would be interesting to see the average number of subs each team uses per game.

How many 12 year olds are "natural passers"?

It seems to me even in some of the youngest age groups there are a plethora of coaches / programs that are more about winning than about player development.

The only thing I take issue with in this post is the last statement above.

I don't think coaches playing to win is so much of a problem - this is true of coaches all over. I suspect even coaches of kids teams in the orient are more towards this end of the spectrum than we imagine... To me the question is which game are you trying to win? Volleyball or United States volleyball? When coaches are trying to win at volleyball (the 6 sub version) their choices on team composition, training, lineups etc. are all different. Maybe this is a better way to put my arguement in (R)uffda! and my disagreement...

Unless there is a trend for development more volleyball athletes into all around players at younger ages it isn't likely to happen very often by the time they make it to collegiate teams and waiting until getting to the national team to begin thinking about becoming an all around player would seem to be somewhat futile.

[Murina]

foreignball said:

I totally agree with the above, however I do not see it happening anytime soon. ....

If we look at the problem from a little bit different angle, say from a business prospective we will see that neither the “company” management nor the consumer has any interest of changing the product. Why I use the word “business”? The game of vball is profession for many people who get paid for being involved in it (all coaches at different levels, NCAA players who receive the equivalent of college education costs, refs, medical/technical personnel, etc). Some other people buy the product – all people who pay admission fee, all parents who pay for their daughters to play in Jr clubs. As long as there are people who produce product and some others who buy it – it is a business, even though there is no vball pro-league in the US. Who are the management? All full time employed NCAA coaches and administrative personnel who are the decision makers (at least for the team that they are responsible for). I’ve already said who the consumer is. We can make a better and more detailed description but I do not think it is necessary for the purpose. As in other businesses some parties are more active while some others are more passive. In our case the active ones are the coaches and the parents so I’ll try to take a look from their point of view. Coaches keep their jobs more or less depending on their team records so they have to be able to field teams that win. Having in mind all restrictions that they have to comply with (they have a limited # of ‘ships, limited practice time, limited # of competition days, limited ^%$^%*….) it turns out they practically do not have time to develop player’s skills. On the other hand all parents who take the burden of permanently increasing club fees, travel expenses, etc. have great interest of paying less.
So the current rules suit perfectly the 2 major parties involved in the business of vball:
It is much more difficult and takes much more time to develop all around players. More time means higher # of practices which = to higher club fees. Fewer # of subs means less
girls playing which = less income for the clubs. We can also add the fact that at the moment players who are good in 1 or 2 aspects of the game still have pretty good chance to get a full ride while with international rules in service it will be greatly reduced. From the coaches stand point less subs means they have to spend a lot of time to develop basic skills starting very often from a scratch. In other words they wouldn’t be able to utilize some players for 1 may be 2 seasons so basically they would end up giving a 4 year (in some places 4.5 and even 5) full rides versus 2-3 years of service in return.
To sum all this up: As long as the people involved in the business are happy with the product we can’t expect any changes soon…..

Amen!

[Murina]

I do think just about anyone can learn to pass adequately. Almost ALL the Cuban players don't look like natural passers to me, but they have had to do it long enough (and in game situations) that they can do it adequately.

Any young outside hitter, playing under FIVB rules, KNOWS that she must pass decently or she will not be able to see ANY playing time. Wouldn't her motivation and dedication to passing and defense change?

I'm not sure cuban player development is a very good parallel to USA player development. The end result the USA seems to be trying to achieve does have some parallels with what Cuba is doing though.

You say the coach has to make choices. If the RULES were different he/she might finally be motivated to make the right choices with player development.

Maybe a better way to say this is the coach would be motivated to make different choices with player development. Right depends on your point of view... I contend that under the current system in the USA the coaches are making the right choices. Those choices just don't work for building a national team (which isn't the goal for high school, club or college coaches).

[Murina]

gorf said:

Does changing the rules for all NCAA (DI, DII, DII) teams really going to do anything reagarding developing more all around volleyball players?

Do we try to get FIVB rules introduced to all high schools around the country as well?

Do we try to get the USAV rules for club teams changed to match the FIVB rules for all ages and levels of play?


Teaching the skills of volleyball are independent of the rules sets used at each of those levels and teaching those skills is easier when the players are younger than when they're older.


As for Ogonna in specific - she's a world class athlete - if she and her collegiate coaches had wanted her to be a solid back row player on serve receive she would have achieved that.

If you believe the research I've been reading re: motor development, skill at one thing doesn't always begat skill at another. According to what I've been reading it's entirely possible that Nnamani could be a skilled attacker, but not be disposed to be a good receiver. Actually I'd argue that Nnamani isn't all that skilled an attacker - she's just more physical than most. Sisam loves to point out (correctly) that in '04 Brazil erased Nnamani after about 5 swings. Nnamani hits high and hard. At the time of the '04 Olympics she didn't always hit it where she wanted and didn't have much range.

[Murina]

overandunder said:

The real problem is systemic and can't be reduced to one or two single issues. But here goes anyway:

The real problem is america's ideological and poorly formulated love of fairness, which promotes the ridiculous fantasy that we can somehow all get academic degrees and be successful entrepreneurs.

In this country Lebron James generates a maximum media saturation whirlwind of controversy by wanting to go pro before graduating high school. How dare he not get a high school diploma! It is essential to society that he read and analyze "Canterbury Tales" before he goes on to earn a quarter BILLION dollars in NBA contracts and endorsement deals in the first seven years of his career.

The USA does not have a teen-to-adult life skills tracking system like almost every other nation. The majority of students attend cookie cutter public schools at equivalent locations, under equivalent curricula, with equivalent standards. Then they are all sent to university or junior college to get a degree in something or other so that they can Be Someone. We have this bizarre and misplaced sense of equality that states every individual is as smart or "good" as everyone else, and that everyone should have the same opportunity to attend university and major in economics or pre-med.

Sorry but life isn't fair and we're not all the same and the overwhelming majority of people have barely average skills -- that's what "average" means. A small number of people are good at one thing. A smaller number are good at several things. A smaller number are really really good at one thing. And an extremely small handful are really really good at several things.

Look at Gymnastics and Figure Skating. USA athletes are fixtures on the Olympic medal stand. Why?

Because the girls are eating, sleeping, and breathing the techniques from age 5 while being homeschooled. Their Olympic/pro careers are basically over at 18, so they can still chase fulfill the American Dream of getting a college degree and Being Someone (because we all implicitly understand that auto mechanics aren't Someones).

Most other countries have a history in which skilled trades developed through tribal, caste, or guild systems, and they are more open to the idea that group separations are an inevitable result of actual variation among the population. But Americans are so sensitive about invalidating someone's individual free expression that we have a hard time saying, "Look, Brittanee Ballbanger is sixteen years old and while maybe she's smart enough to get through med school and maybe she could develop her talents as a singer, the thing she is already 'really really good' at volleyball, and it's time for her to pick a future and start down that path so she can get the most development possible. If she wants to be an Olympic/pro volleyball player she doesn't need an undergrad degree to do it, so we can reduce her remaining two high school years to the basics needed to function in society and start her on a daily workout schedule and occasional training with/against the extended NT depth chart. And if she has the work ethic to go back for a college degree at the age of 30 when her volleyball career declines, more power to her."

The success of our JNT and YNT programs proves that we have the athletes to win, but we spend the next five years hobbling them.

Choose ye, America:

A) The 4pm network TV Public Service Announcement mantra that "knowledge is power" and all kids "don't be a fool, stay in school".

-OR-

B) "My National Team Volleyball Player Beat Up Your Honor Student"

Not sure I'm on board with all of this, but it does seem to be the way to win Olympic gold and silver. Training full time from fairly young ages does seem to describe China and Cuba. Training a lot from a young age describes Russia under Karpol, but his kids do go to school and get university degrees... I'm not sure about Brazil. Italy seems closer to USA at least until the mid to late teens.

[Murina]

backwoods said:

And don't blame college & club. It's not their place to do the job of the USAV. Put the blame where it belongs. Maybe then some heads would roll. They sure could use it.

You can say this for college. Club IS the USAV's development arm. Individual clubs under the national governing body is how players are developed in most of the worlds countries. The only major volleyball country that is an exception is Cuba. Even China's young players are developed by the clubs.

High school and NCAA operate in a separate universe from the USAV so it can be argued that they have no stake in developing players for the national team.

[Murina]

gorf said:

What rules are used for USAV club matches now?

It used to be the USAV rules and the subtitution limiations were different for "open" clubs which had limits that are equivalent to the FIVB rules and the non-"open" which were equivalent to being more along the lines of the collegiate substitution rules.

When I look at the USAV rules now the substitution rules appear to be identical to the FIVB fules.

Huh? 12/15/18 subs are in FIVB?

Adding the libero (which in effect increases the number of substitutions) to me is counter intuitive that the rules are the / a cause for coaches not teaching defense to all players equally.

Do you see a decline in the defensive abilities in FIVB matches since the addition of the libero?

If that's the case is it a sign that the FIVB is tending towards requiring fewer all around players?

If that's not the case is it a sign that the rules don't have the impact on training that you believe?

Ok, the trend in FIVB is toward a little more specialization than there was pre-libero. To this point the trend seems to have a ceiling - Acosta liked the libero so much he proposed adding a second libero (why libero and not the USA sub rules escapes me) but he seems to have changed his mind on this.

As it stands in FIVB 3 players must have volleyball skills to play in all 6 rotations. A 4th must also play 6 rotations but has a special skill set (the setter). In USA volleyball (with 15 subs) 2 players have to play 6 rotations (one may be the special position of setter).

As for US collegiate rules:

Is it worth changing the subsitution rules and providing less playing time / playing opportunities for thousands of athletes in order to get a extra relative handful "all around" rounded players to be available for the national team?

This is one of the questions. Another might be: how do we narrow the pool of potential national team players and make them play under the FIVB rule set while the bulk of the nation plays under the liberal sub rules?

I have proposed (in other threads) that JOV "open" competition be played under FIVB rules while "club," high school, and college play as they currently do.

[Murina]

ruffda said:

Well, that's the thing: How many kids can be the primary passer in a match? Two!

In this discussion "primary passers" refer to players who are have receiving responsibility for their team. Many teams use a 3 person alignment in reception - those teams would have 3 "primary passers" in each rotation. In this example there might be 6-10 in each match depending on sub rules...

The current sub rules do not turn everyone into a specialist. For one thing, everyone is _not_ a specialist. For another, it's the time limits, not the rules.

For an otherwise logical, reasonable person I'm amazed you can come to this conclusion. I just don't see how you can look at volleyball in the USA and not see a nation of specialists created by rules that make specialization the best way to team success... I'm at a loss...

[Murina]

gorf said:

International rules do not favor a team full of specialists,

Not "do not favor." FIVB rules do not ALLOW a team full of specialists.

Changing the collegiate, high school, club rules to fit the FIVB rules in terms of substitution may benefit a few players that could eventually / potentially make it to the the US national team while hurting many thousands of other players by resulting in their getting less time to play in matches.


There are a plenty of all around players that have graduated over the past several years, some of which spent time on the various YNT, A2 and other teams related to the US national team yet they're not playing on the US national team now that they've graduated.

Some are playing on the AVP tour (Ross, Burdine, May, Walsh, amongst others) instead of playing for the US national team.

I'm having trouble believing that their reasons for not joining (or staying with) the US national team have anything at all to do with the differences in the collegiate and FIVB substitution rules.

Interesting arguement. May became impatient and uninterested in the system in place in the national team (my take on the situation) and decided to go to the beach only after trying indoor. Walsh physically couldn't handle the indoor game. Not sure Ross's story... She has been in nt camp and is still playing indoors (or was recently). Burdine would have been a very interesting national team player. Was she ever with the national team?

Ok that's 4 players...

[Murina]

vbcoach said:

Playing in a professional league DOES NOT DEVELOP SKILL LEVELS. There is little or no coaching or drills for the skills (serving, setting, defense, blocking & hitting.) Most practices are just scrimmages. Or so I'm told by the many girls that I know who play in these Professional leagues.

I'll take exception to this! Overgeneralization. I can watch the arc of player development and see systemic improvements over the course of a year or several years on many teams.

Of course, I agree, that simply playing in the leagues against good competition is highly valuable in itself, and some skills, especially hitting and blocking, probably improve thereby. But not by design of the Professional coaches. They just get good players, roll out the ball and say, "win."

[Murina]

vbcoach said:

Another history lesson. Changing the sub rules would not hurt players by giving them less playing time. It simply would change the MIX of players getting playing time. That is, there would be fewer defensive specialists on the court and more front line players on the court. And, for that matter, there would be fewer defensive specialists on the TEAM, and more front line players on the roster...just like it used to be. See, we have history as our guide.

I don't know about the history lesson ;D but I'm in complete agreement about the rules changing the mix of players. In addition to the effects you mention, I think the average height of the front row players may go down as the tall stiffs would be weeded out in favor of medium to small but dynamic athletes.

Opinion, but I like seeing volleyball played by medium sized dynamic athletes (Brazil, Cuba, Italy among others).

[Murina]

vbcoach said:

You cannot win with a short team, no matter how good the players are (see Japan.)

Aw crap! Don't tell Cuba (won most of those medals with 3 out of 6 players on court shorter than 5'10")!

;D ;D

[cardfan15]

phaedrus said:

3) Anyone remember seeing the Lions Cup video that USAV handed out? Japanese grade school championships. Lowered net, not sure about lighter ball but I doubt it, Libero, full uniform and bun huggers. This was in the 1990's. The rec players in Japan ae incredible passers, ball control is the only thing you can get good at when you are that young, that weak, and that short. These kids learned how to play because they got dragged to the courts when their mom's played so the game was ingrained in them. Oh, the coliseum was packed with crazy rabid fans screaming and cheering, these are 12 year olds playing, so yes, they play at a different level from a young age. But where is Japan on the international stage? No where, why? because of the physical ability. My good friend, who assisted Arie Selinger in the Japanes pro league came to the USA and marvelled at how physical and how athletic our 15 year olds were. He also changed their passing in two hours. He said, given his druthers, he would rather have good athletes and he can teach them how to pass. The problem is we don't try to teach passing until the studs who go on to the national team are in college, their motor skills have already been hard wired, it is reall y hard to break bad habits when you are 22 than when you are 12. This is why we are always behind.

Just to add my two cents...living in China will teach you a lot about volleyball popularity. I play pick up games with young people and old alike and their number 1 skill is passing and it isn't because they are all 5'5". Even just the recreational players have an insane level of ball control. Yeah there are some bad passers but the all have ball control. How did they get it. I'm convinced its because they were trained at a young age correct technique and also the purpose of passing. Of course a 17 year old girl doesn't want to work on passing. But if you teach her when she is 12 that too hit she must pass first, when she is 17 you won't have to worry about passing.

USAV needs to do a better job of training its club coaches. My experience with club in the US is that most of the best coaches want to coach 16-18 year olds. They choose this because it is where the glory is. They also choose this because many of them want to move up to college. We need well-trained coaches at the 12-14 year old level. USAV is responsible for training these coaches. They should provide more educational opportunities to these coaches.

Finally I want to say this. It is fruitless to talk about revamping the entire system. Volleyball in the US is complex with competing goals and motivations, systems of play, and of course rules. The only way we can "fix" things is by PIECEMEAL solutions. You create a plan and introduce the parts of the plan in pieces. You do what you can when you can do it. My beef with USAV is they seem tooooooooooooooo set in their ways. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY at USAV, has demonstrated the charisma needed to institute these piecemeal solutions to really bring about change. It all starts at the top...

[OverAndUnder]

Yeah, we basically need a dictator like Acosta at the top of USAV, but we need this dictator to use his self-granted and absolute powers for good instead of evil.