Coaching Inspirations.

It's been a few days since I last posted, and with good reason, as I've gone to bed as soon as I've gotten home most nights. I find myself wide awake tonight, visualizing tomorrow's match that Lasell has vs. Babson. The girls will be facing a tough opponent, but they have a never-say-die mentality, and I believe that if they give their all the whole match and stay away from getting down on themselves, they could easily pull off the "upset".



This has been my first coaching job that wasn't on a volunteer basis, and it has been a dream job so far. The girls work hard, they all get along, and there are no egos to battle. I've never seen any team like it! Although only 23, I have my coaching philosophy in place already. I've been reading autobiographies on coaches since I was 17, starting with John Wooden, and more recently finishing Tony Dungy's. Each book has given me more insight on what is important to me and what is not, and I hope that although I'm young, I'm able to make a positive contribution to the team.


So what do I believe in? Effort. Poise. Hard work. Selflessness. Wins and Losses come into play, but the means of how we achieve both is what concerns me. Of all the things I learned from John Wooden, it is that we can only strive to be the best we can be, and if we do that, we can consider ourselves successful, no matter what the scoreboard says. The funny thing is, the team that puts forth the most effort ends up winning most of the time anyways, which probably explains why John Wooden won 10 National Championships in 12 years with UCLA.



I feel it is not only important to put forth your best physical effort, but also be as mentally tough as possible. If you don't believe, you can't achieve, and the beautiful thing about sports is anyone can win on any given day, regardless of what the odds may be. Look at all the cinderella stories sports have. I read Lou Holtz's book "Wins, Losses, and Lessons", and feel he had such a good grip on that concept. He continuously took losing programs and turned them into powerhouses, and he did so by changing the mentality of the teams. "What the mind perceives, the body achieves" was his saying, and that stays true with me today.



John Chaney ended up tarnishing his reputation when he sent in a bench player in a basketball game to foul a player hard, which resulted in the fouled player breaking his arm. The sad thing is, although there was terrible judgment on his part when sending that player in, overall he was a very good coach, as well as a hell of a speaker. Although my father taught me the importance of setting goals at a young age, Chaney nailed the point home. I remember his retirement press conference, when he boomed "Don't give up on young people, because they don't fail you. I've never had a young person to fail. They don't even know how much they can give, I don't care how much you ask them, how much you beg them, how much you plead with them to give more, they don't know what they can give until it's done, until it's over. You keep asking for more, you keep raising that ceiling, keep raising the floor, so that they have a chance to make it."

This statement never left me, and I find myself continually raising that bar for my players, never settling for where they're at. As soon as I settle for where someone's at, I've failed them as a coach, because I don't think it's realistic to say "well, so-and-so can't possibly get better", and it's my job to make sure they make the most of their time under me.

I hope that the lessons I teach players on the court will stay with them off the court. As a player who was a nobody in high school, who didn't think he could go anywhere, who had one coach completely change he looked at himself and how he approached sports, I feel that it's my obligation to see the potential in everyone, as my coach saw in me. And so far, the results have been great.

11 days until pre-season begins. I love coaching, but can't wait to play. I'll publish an update from my thoughts as a player in the next couple days.

Introductory Post

As I sit in my dorm room enjoying a relaxing Sunday before going back to the normal grind of school, work, and other Monday-Friday obligations, I can't help but daydream about the upcoming season. I keep telling myself not to count the days, but the closer we get, the more difficult I find that to be. There's so much potential...

As this is my first post, I should probably give a brief background to anyone that decides to read. First off, who is this blog geared towards? To be honest, a large reason I'm doing it is for myself. With all the things I have going on with my life right now, I find it somewhat therapeutic to be able to get my thoughts out of my head and written down (or typed in this instance). On top of that, I've always found myself looking at other people's experiences and beliefs as coaches, players, or spectators, in order to further develop my own. That being the case, I figured that this blog could be used by high school athletes looking to play in college, aspiring coaches, or just volleyball fanatics in general.

So who am I? My name is Bryan McDermand, and I'm currently a Junior at Newbury College. I play on the Men's Volleyball team here, as well as coach the women's program over at Lasell College. I'm a 23 year old originally from Palatine, IL, and I'm currently double-majoring in Finance and Sports Management. I plan on graduating in the Spring of 2010, at which point there are many different directions I could end up heading in. In a perfect world, I'll be somewhere in Europe making a living playing volleyball. Time will tell.

What do I plan on writing? It will probably be a day-to-day process. Ideally, I'll be updating the blog each day, but realistically I'm sure there will be times I just want to crash and write later. The topics will be pretty much all geared towards the volleyball portion of my life, both as a coach and player. Sometimes I may throw a little blurb about something else, but most likely in a manner that discusses how it affects my season. If I end up getting any sort of on-line following, I'd be up for using posts to answer questions/messages I have, whether it be a response to a previous blog, or just picking my brain about something.

For now, I have quite a few things on my mind. As for the Lasell team, although I'm excited for my own season, I am bummed that theirs is coming to an end shortly. I've only been on board for about three weeks, and it's been a wonderful experience. They have 12 players on the team, and every single one of them get along with each other, no cliques or anything. I've never seen anything like it. Also, the head coach has been very warm in her welcome to me, and has helped me learn a lot during the short time I've been there. Their record isn't the greatest, but numbers don't show the hard work they put in, and they recently had a strong 4-game win streak, and have a good shot of making the GNAC Conference Tournament, at which point anything is possible. We shall see! For now, this was a one-year contract for coaching, but I really hope that they invite me back. I've worked hard, and feel that I've made positive contributions, but keep in mind that as a 23-year old, it isn't hard to replace me with someone more experienced. I'm just being realistic about the possibilities, and continue to give my all so that no matter what happens, I can say that I gave the team my best effort.

As for my own season, It's going to be difficult not to write too much each time, because I can honestly go on and on about it. For now, the big focus for me is last-minute preparations for the pre-season. I've put almost 15 pounds of muscle on since coming back this fall, which was nice as it's been too long since I took an off-season to just hit the weights. I'm a bit concerned about my lower-back as I crunch hard when I jump serve and attack the ball, but hopefully taking up yoga will help.

The team in general is ready. This is my third year playing here, and by far we've all worked harder than we ever did in previous off-seasons. It would have been really easy to become content with finishing 6th nationally for Division III last year, but it seems like that only inspired everyone that much more to do everything we could to try and win it all this year. I feel that everyone gels much better than previous years as well, and feel that if we continue to do what we're doing, the sky's the limit.

We're heading to California for Spring Break, and although the fundraising for it can be stressful (I'm blessed by being surrounded by a large group of supportive friends, but I HATE asking people to buy raffle tickets, which is what we have to do), we're all very excited for the trip, knowing that the best competition is out there. I've never been to California, and look forward to the overall experience. For now though, I need to raise the money to make it happen. Ah, the joys of being a Division III athlete.

15 days until preseason. We'll have 4 days of practice, a day off, then head off to Springfield for a tournament, which I'm excited for, as Springfield won the National Championship last year, and it'll be a great gauge on where we're at and what we need to work on. For now, I'm heading out to play some Grass ball, enjoying the warm weather while we have it!