I.P.E. is an acronym for In Play Efficiency. It is simply the opposite of hitting error percentage (IPE = 1 – error %). It’s putting a positive spin on hitting errors. Many coaches tell players, “Don’t make hitting errors”; this focuses on the negative. Instead, IPE focuses on the positive and encourages players to keep the ball in play. For example, Penn State’s Hitting Error % for 2008 was .126. This roughly equates to 1.3 hitting errors for every 10 attempts. The positive spin on Penn State’s error % or what we consider “IPE” is .874 (1 – 0.126). This means for every 10 attempts, 8.7 swings were in the court. IPE is a positive hitting goal for any team. A player can easily recognize an IPE goal of .900 or simply to keep 9 out of 10 attempts in play. An
attainable outcome goal a player can work towards.

The next step is to take your data and create awareness drills around IPE. Start with simple hitting lines. Give players 10 opportunities each to pass a free ball and take a swing into an open court off a set. Can they keep 9 out of 10 balls In Play? Add a blocker or two. Enter a ball with a serve instead of a free ball. Add in another passer. Or even keep IPE for a wash drill or a scrimmage. Keep stats to keep players aware. Are they still keeping 9 out of 10 balls in play?

To put things in perspective, the USA Women’s National Team Hitting IPE for the 2008 season was .860. Why did I now refer to it as “Hitting IPE”? Read on…

IPE started as a concept for hitting and has migrated to a Team IPE. Team IPE is based on all team errors committed (blocks errors, hitting errors, service errors, ball handling errors, passing errors) for a match (or even a season). Penn State’s Team IPE for the 2008 Final Four was .743 or for every 10 balls played 7.4 were kept in play. This also recognizes that Penn State gave up approximately 25% of their points on an error. Broken-down even further, this means that Penn State gave up roughly 6 points a match on their errors. If you recall Mick Haley’s point breakdown in a recent Coaching Volleyball Magazine article by the AVCA, the number of points he expected a good team to give up was 6. (Team IPE does not include points given up via a violation).

Keep in mind, one stat, or any stat for that matter, is an ultimate predictor or determinant of success. Stats are used to provide trends of players and teams as a guide of strengths and weaknesses. The Hitting IPE stat is one stat of many that breaks down hitting percentage. Hitting percentage is a combination of error % and kill %. Both parts are essential to a hitter and a team’s success. For example, the average Hitting IPE of the four final four teams was .875. This number can become a team’s season goal. In addition to this goal, the average kill percentage of the final four teams was 0.455, with one team far exceeding this average of 0.529 – care to guess which team?
A combination of IPE and Kill % can be used as a guide for players and teams to measure their level of success versus the competition. If a team has an IPE of 0.875 or a goal of 9 out of 10 attempts in play, PLUS has a kill % of .455 or 5 balls out of 10 attacks as kills, the team has a greater chance for offensive success.

During the season at the U of MN, Mike Hebert received an email from a club coach of which he passed along to me. The club coach was concerned with devising an offense system for a team with very little height. The club coach was quick to point out that the team had three great liberos. Here is my reply with Mike’s blessing, it also gives some insight of things I learned at the U of MN:

I hope this email will help save some trees and save you some money from all the paper you are using trying to devise an offense. But let’s look at two things first: 1) Defense 2) Height, and then we can discuss offense.

Allow me to offer some perspective, this past weekend the U of MN played a great, yet grueling 5 set match against an aggressive, #17 ranked Illinois team. Their two “giant” middles combined for a total of 3 blocks out of Minnesota’s 177 total hitting attempts. Illinois dug 82 of those 177 total attempts. Let me ask you this question now, would you prefer to have two great middles or 3 great liberos? It sounds as if your team might be in better shape than you think. Its defense that wins championships.

As much as we would like our middles to block every ball or at least touch every ball hit, it is impossible. In your situation especially, the goal of the middle is to channel the ball, with a clear path, to the defense. It is best to design a defense, and your block, based on your backrow strengths.

Now let’s talk a little about height before we design a defense. Minnesota is recruiting a 5’11″ middle blocker. How can she match-up against the giant 6’5″, 6″6″ girls of the Big Ten? Quickness and her ability to read the game. Her quickness and ability to read the game will enable her to get to the pins faster than most “giants”. She will be able to set-up an effective block that will enable our defense to dig more balls than our opponent.

So let’s set-up your defense based on some blocking strategies developed over the years from Paul Arrington and Jim Coleman. Conventional wisdom has been that one blocker is good, two or more must be better. After intense analysis of blocking (a well formed two person block, a poorly formed two person block – hole in block, bad timing, etc., and a one person block) the study found that a well formed two person block is best, but it was proven that a one person block is about two times as effective versus a poorly formed two person block. With this being the case, your three great defense players are now looking even more valuable.

So with this in mind, your middles (who are quick and already read the game well) can now ‘release’ to block an opponents strength, especially in two hitter rotations (when the setter is front row). Release means that the coach (or player) will determine before your serve (based on experience and statistics, if available) that the middle blocker will literally move to the outside or right-side to set up a well formed two person block (after reading/blocking a potential middle attack, or setter dump in two hitter rotations). In this strategy, your middle blocker will only be responsible for defending the middle (or setter in two hitter rotations) and one direction versus having to cover the entire net. You are now able to rely upon your
backrow to make an effective defensive movement against a well formed two person block or a single block (likely against a team’s weaker hitter).

After this block defense is implemented, your backrow will have good, clear looks at the set location and approach of the hitter. Thus the backrow will be able to better read the attack of the hitter resulting in more digs (and frustrating your opponent).

As for offense, let’s look at the statistics of our match against Illinois. Of 191 total attempts by Illinois hitters, only 29 were taken by their two middles resulting in 10 total kills. Did I mention that Illinois took Minnesota to five sets? Illinois uses their middles to attempt to spread the block in order to get the ball to their outside hitters (of which we often released to their outside hitters).

There is nothing harder for a team to defend than the 4 – 1 – 9 (high set to the outside, quick set to the middle, and high set to the rightside). So establish the 1 early in a match then use it as a decoy. I would then have your team run 31s in counter attack (transition). Most middles, especially at the junior level, will not track their middles in transition.

I would experiment with the height of the set to the pins, but as we learned this season, a high outside set, was more effective for our team than a faster tempo set to the outside. I would also experiment with the backrow attack. It is becoming much more prevalent and effective in the Olympic and college game, I assume it will trickle down to the junior level as well. Much of this will be based on the ability of your personnel.

Your offense does not have to be complex. Minnesota’s is not. Vary your sets to the outside (run a 4 and then a Rip or 32 set on occasion). Run the 1 with your middle on occasion to keep the middle blocker honest. Run slides with your middles if they are talented enough. Run a high back to your right side and occasionally bring her in for a back 2. The girls will have fun with the different options (make sure you have an excellent communication system in place) and take stats to learn what is most effective for your team.

The most important element of your offense is keeping the ball in play; for your hitters to make wise hitting decisions (read my earlier “What is IPE” post). It is important for them to go after it and rip the ball when its a great set versus making a smart hit into the court on a poor out of system set. In a 25 point set, USC Head Coach, Mick Haley discovered that a team achieves 16 points on kills. The second leading way for a team to achieve a point is on an opponent error (6 points per set). Thus your team needs to keep the ball in play (don’t give them more points than necessary)…let your three liberos win the match.

It is not the height of the players you have, but the confidence you instill in them as a coach. I highly recommend you never mention anything about their lack of height and push them to be their best. They will respect you for this and in turn, you will learn a lot from them and have great respect for them. Be patient, be positive, and good luck!

P.S. Geoff Carlston, Head Coach of Ohio State University and one time
Volunteer Assistant Coach at the University of Minnesota, under Coach Hebert, has a nice DVD out called “Winning Without Height”: http://www.championshipproductions.com/cgi-bin/champ/p/Volleyball/Intangibles-for-Success-Winning-Without-Height_VD-02677A.html Check it out.

The mental game. Do we coach it enough? Do coaches know how to coach it? In club, it is sprinkled throughout practices. When I coached at Georgia Southern, the team had the benefit of working with a sports psychologist. He provided some great team insight and exercises, but he wasn’t utilized enough. I think many collegiate programs incorporate a sports psychologist with their programs because its what everyone else is doing, to “keep up with the Jones’s”. Mick Haley uses a team psychologist, Mike Voight, throughout the season with, I believe, great benefit. At the University of Minnesota, Dr. Mike Hebert handles the team psychology lessons. He prepares his “Championship Manual” during the off-season and presents it to the team during the pre-season. His season plan also incorporates a day each week for mental learning and preparation. I appreciate the psychological side of sports and didn’t realize how fortunate I was to be a part of Minnesota Volleyball to partake in these player and team building sessions.

I continue to learn by reading books of the mind. I just finished Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide. The book provides in-depth analysis on two primary functions of the brain that are responsible for emotion and logic. The key is to find a crucial mental balance between emotion and logic. This further confirms my belief that balance, be it with the mind, nutrition, exercise, etc. is the ultimate core of life. The Yin and the Yang. The Id and the Ego.

Here are a few concepts I took from the book that can be incorporated with volleyball:

• The only way for anyone to succeed over the long term is to use both brain systems in their proper contexts. We need to think and feel.
• The brain always learns the same way, accumulating wisdom through error.
• The best decision makers don’t despair. Instead, they become students of error, determined to learn from what went wrong. They think about what they could have done differently so that they next time their neurons will know what to do. This is the most astonishing thing about the human brain; it can always improve itself.
• Strong emotional reaction to gains or losses can be counterproductive. Too little emotional reaction can also be dangerous. There is an ideal range of emotional response.
• The problem with statistics is that they don’t activate our moral emotions. Interpret quantitative data, not just obey it.
• Slight drop in blood-sugar levels can also inhibit self-control, since the frontal lobes require lots of energy in order to function.
• A follow-up study found that instead of thinking about the mechanical details of the swing, experienced golfers should focus on general aspects of their intended movement, what psychologists call a holistic cue word. For example, instead of contemplating something like the precise position of the wrist or elbow, the player should focus on a descriptive adjective, such as smooth or balanced.
• There was absolutely no evidence of the hot hand. (Alan Reifman has an entire blog on this topic: click here)
• The motor cortex and brain stem are the first parts to mature in children. Those areas are fully functional by the time humans hit puberty. In contrast, brain areas that are relatively recent biological inventions – such as the frontal lobes – don’t finish growing until the teenage years are over. The prefrontal cortex is the last brain area to fully mature.
• Study mistakes for logic. Play game by emotion.

It is my interpretation that coaching the mental game should be a routine part of practice, but it has to be balanced with the physical aspect. My mom always told me, everything in life needs to have balance. Mom’s always know best

This past week in Kansas City at the AVCA Convention and Final Four was thoroughly enjoyable.  It was 24 hours of volleyball.  Blissful.

Even though volleyball is one of the most popular sports in the world, we, in the United States, are fortunate it has not blown-up yet (it will).  It provides us the accessibility for legends to roam amongst us mere mortals.  I had the opportunity to chat with Karch Kiraly while watching Misty May Treanor played a sand coed 4 vs 4 tournament with convention attendees.  How awesome is that?  I’m certain Michael Jordan isn’t attending any basketball conferences nor is Kobe Bryant playing any pick-up games with convention attendees.  We are lucky.

Furthermore, we are fortunate to have the greatest coaches in the game wanting to help us all to be better coaches.  There were incredible educational sessions where we learned from Hugh McCutcheon, Carl McGown, Terry Liskevych, Russ Rose, John Kessel, Terry Pettit, Bill Neville, Mick Haley, John Dunning, Beth Launiere, Anne Kordes, and many more

On top of all this fun, there were great Final Four matches played and I was fortunate to also speak to all the first time attendees of the convention.  What a great honor for me.

If you are a volleyball enthusiast, this is a highly recommended event.  There is so much volleyball going on.  It makes me realize how lucky I am to be doing what I love.

At the AVCA Convention, I listened to a presentation by Russ Rose and Terry Liskevych titled: What We have Learned in 75+ Years of Coaching. Besides it being quite comical, Russ and Terry provided some great insight into how the sport has changed from side-out scoring to rally score and how the sport will continue to develop.

Both Russ and Terry gave great praise to the late Jim Coleman who was a mentor to them both.  As a way of giving back to the sport, they have collaborated with a number of great coaches to give a clinic in which all proceeds are donated to a volleyball scholarship fund.  The coaches that will be in attendance include: Russ Rose, Terry Liskevych, Jerry Angle, Rick Butler, John Cook, Mick Haley, Ruth Nelson, Bill Neville, Bill Walton, and special guest speaker Doug Beal.  What an amazing event.

The clinic will be held at Aurora University on May 14 – 15, 2011.  To register and for more information visit the JimColemanClinic.com website

Future clinics of this nature will be held across the country.  A follow-up clinic is already scheduled in Portland, Oregon on May 21 – 22.  To learn more about this clinic and to see when and where similar clinics will be schedule, visit: The Art of Coaching Volleyball – www.theartofcoachingvolleyball.com