 |
| Johan Dulfer, pictured top right, has led Clarkson to three straight NCAA Elite Eight appearances |
But in the past 10 years since Dulfer took over, Clarkson has made the NCAA tournament six times, including three consecutive trips to the NCAA Elite Eight from 2012-2014. Beyond a doubt, he's proven that it's possible to build a successful program even in the most unlikely locations.
So when I stumbled upon a book on Amazon authored by Dulfer, A Program with Purpose, I was quick to order it ... I even paid for two day shipping! After I read through it I passed it on to Coach Braun. He recommends it to other coaches all the time now.
The concepts we've learned form this short work have been instrumental in helping build our own program at Fredonia. Here are our top five take-aways:
1) Becoming a family is difficult work - "Most of my players will tell me that they are afraid that airing their concerns with their teammates 'will only make it worse.' I believe that as coaches, it is our job to help alleviate some of these fears, and teach our players the benefits of open, honest communication. Without a doubt, teams that go on and have success in the later portion of their season, when championships are won, are teams that overcame their internal issues and team drama." ~ Johan Dulfer
Every year our freshmen come to campus for the first time, grateful to finally be away from the drama of high school. I'm very particular in reminding them that drama doesn't go away in college, it just changes a bit.
But the good news is that the drama is completely normal, even to be expected. Every year, every team has some sort of drama, whether it's big or small. Sport psychologists have recognized it for a long time, and created a process that team's naturally go through: Forming, Norming, Storming, Performing.
At Fredonia, we use a similar structure: Psuedocommunity, Chaos, Community.
The idea is the same: that team's need to get through a period of drama-inflicted discomfort (Chaos / Storming) in order to reach a new level of understanding with each other, what we call becoming a family (Performing / Community).
Every player on every team will try to resist it, because confronting someone when you have a problem with her is uncomfortable, but as Johan suggests, the best teams are the ones that push through the discomfort.
Two of our players' primary goals for this season, rather than winning volleyball games, is to become a family. That's encouraging.
2) Serving is really important - "In the spring of 2013, we scrimmaged a Division I team that had made the NCAA tournament that season. Our serving ability took them by surprise and made them quite uncomfortable. The score ended up way closer than it should've been based on an evaluation of talent alone. They were taller, jumped higher and hit harder. But they were so out of system that we hung with them and only lost by two points in all three sets." ~ Johan Dulfer
We now use a radar gun to measure the speed and difficulty of the serves we produce. It's just easier to tell our players to "serve above 36 mph" rather than, "serve faster." Keeping the other team out of system has gone a long way in our success so far.
Our baseball coach at Fredonia, Matt Palisin, was happy to let us borrow his radar gun. He jokingly now takes credit for some of our team's success.
 |
| The newest member of our volleyball family. We named him, "Jugs". |
3) The players need to believe it's their program, too. - "I might be the one in charge, but the program is only as good as (the players) want it to be. I think it helped that from day one, I've always referred to our goals as 'our project.' I really feel that way ... Sometimes it was almost like my players were my assistant coaches - helping me map out how to get our team to the next level." ~ Johan Dulfer
Any time we can involve our players in helping build our program now, we do it. Here are a few idea's we've implemented recently:
- Our players now have lots of input in building campus visits for new recruits. They also tell us how they think this recruit will fit in with our team.
- When Coach Braun was gone for a couple days for the birth of his third son, the players created part of their own practice. Of course, missing your head coach isn't ever ideal, but the girls really took ownership of their performance on those days.
- Players will come up with their own fundraising ideas.
- Players will create their own team workouts.
- We don't give serving spots anymore. The players take ownership of how and where they serve.
The ideas with this concept are endless.
4) Have a vision for your program. - "When I asked our recruits if they remembered what had made them come to Clarkson, all of them told me honestly that they would've never come here had they looked at the previous year's record. They told me all they could think about was the vision I had described to them, and they simply failed to do enough research on the state of the program at the time." ~ Johan Dulfer
Isn't this idea amazing? That a talented volleyball player will go play for a poorly performing college team, simply based on the vision the coach creates for the program?
I thought it was pretty unbelievable, so I did a little experiment in our first preseason meeting this year and asked all our players if they had done research on our past win-loss records. Out of 17 players sitting around the table that first day, exactly one of them did.
I'm now convinced that most, if not all, of our players came to play for us for a different reason than winning. (see here for more).
5) More than anything, be sincere.
Johan has an entire section of his book that explains his recruiting philosophy. But I was left with several questions because he doesn't describe exactly how he went out and found the players to come to Clarkson. Many of his recruits come to the rural area of upstate New York from as far away as Texas or California. I wanted to know how that was possible.
So I picked up the phone and called him. To be honest, I was pretty nervous. It's not usually a good idea to ask another coach for all his recruiting secrets.
When we started talking, he could tell I was being hesitant. What he said eased my mind immediately: "Ryan, I can tell you're holding back a little with your questions. Let's get one thing straight: I have nothing to hide. If you ask a question, I'll answer it." We talked for the next hour openly and honestly.
I'll never forget that degree of sincerity. In a profession where we're all racing to the top, extending a helping hand goes further than we think.