Just not impressed

This fall, I have been officiating middle and high school volleyball. This has given me a great chance to see players from all over the area. Gaston, Lincoln, Cleveland, Iredell, Burke, and Caldwell Counties in NC have I been in. So far... I am not impressed. The most impressive team I have seen all year was a middle school team who was spot jump serving. They crushed the little team they were playing but I truly believe they would beat ALL the high school teams I have seen this year. Here is why I have not been impressed overall. Let me state up front that there are good players on teams but I am addressing the WHOLE team not being impressive.

        Reason 1. Clubs: I watch familiar faces in warm-ups and I know these girls play club. I know they have played for years yet these players are still struggling with the basics. Passing, serving, talking, and moving their feet. Serves should always be made. If you aren't up by 5 plus then you better not be serving the ball out or in the net. There is never excuse NOT to talk while playing however I see team after team chalked full of club players that will not talk. I say that the clubs these girls play for are a reason the teams aren't impressive because they should have taught these skills. 

         Reason 2. Coaches: There was one coach I dealt with as an official that if I could have thrown a rule book at I would have. Sadly, in high school the coaches just aren't the best in every school. Big reason in that is schools don't want to pay these coaches anything and they expect them to deal with tons of drama.... that is another blog for another day.... Coaches are allowing players to be lazy. They maybe don't have the best players but they can make their players hustle to the ball. Allowing players to be lazy to the ball is going to give you poor results.

          Reason 3. A mix of players: Players that haven't sold out to volleyball enough to play all year are always on a high school roster. Nothing wrong with that except most of these players who add in are called upon to be key roles in starters. These girls might be great athletes but they don't have fine tuned volleyball skills. Sloppy play as in net calls, carries, two hits, or four hits can happen more offend with players who don't play yearly vs ones who play do play yearly. This goes back to the coaches and they have to get all players on the same page to prevent sloppy play.

I gave three reasons why I am not impressed with teams this year. I hope we can all work to bring about better volleyball next season and that starts now.