When should girls start playing sports? Should they play several sports or specialize in one? Will they get hurt? Maybe it's better to get out of the way entirely and just let them play on their own?
These are the questions that weigh on Carolyn Bell's mind every day. The Director of Youth Volleyball at Niagara Frontier in West Seneca, N.Y., Bell's experiences have put her at the forefront of answering them.
After completing her second master's degree, Bell received a pre-doctoral internship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota where she did research with the world's top minds in sports biomechanics and orthopedics. She also coached club volleyball at the National Volleyball Center, where she saw how the top clubs in the Midwest develop their youth players into elite athletes.
Bell founded Competitive Edge Volleyball to provide a similar framework for athlete development. Her emphasis on fun, skill development, and injury prevention has slowly become a bedrock for the growth of volleyball in Western New York:
Ryan Maloney: When you were at the Mayo Clinic, it seemed like there were so many things that came together in terms of volleyball, in terms of orthopedics, and in terms of biomechanics. A lot of times girls don't get this sort of knowledge and training until they're in college. Can you tell me how you've integrated injury prevention and sports training into youth volleyball?
Carolyn Bell: I can give you a prime example: I train kids starting at the youngest level how to jump, using their glutes and hamstrings versus allowing their knees to collapse in. We learn about sinking into your heels before you jump and absorbing the landing. We really try to get kids to be mindful of that. A lot of coaches don't have training in mechanics and really don't understand that having kids in (shoulder) external rotation when they're hitting a ball is dangerous. It predisposes them to rotator cuff tears. So I really teach kids at a young age to get out of an external rotation position when they're contacting the ball, learning where to contact the ball and get that ball in front of them, and how to adjust.
RM: Can you tell me specifically what that means? What should a coach know in terms of the arm swing?
Bell: I don't teach the traditional bow-and-arrow approach. A lot of coaches teach that drawing back. I believe that draws kids into external rotation. That's fine, but not when they stay in that external rotation and contact that ball in front of them, outside the plane of the body. I've simplified the swing where I have them draw up. I draw them up into an open position, I call it an elbow drive where the elbow draws up rather than back, and then snap over the top of the ball. It's a very simplified approach that makes the kids contact the ball higher, their arm swing is sped up as a result, and as they're drawing up they're taking away any kind of impingement syndrome based on the angle of the shoulder.
RM: I like that. I like that it's simplified. You have an interest in sports psychology too. What about psychology in terms of kids?
Bell: Oh, I integrate it all the time. One of my biggest pet-peeves about traditional coaching methodologies is the "break them down, build them up"-type thinking. I integrate a lot of positive reinforcement in my coaching style, from kindergarten through the adult level. Even with my college kids I would never berate them. I find it really difficult when I see coaches yelling at kids, punishing them for errors. The biggest concern I have with that is that you create a circumstance where kids are afraid to make errors, so they don't try. I really like to focus on the process and not the outcome. If you hit the ball into the net it's okay, as long as you're working on the process. One of my favorite things about coaching is making people feel good, making them feel like they're a success.
RM: Since you've come back to New York and been with the BNCC for the last few years, what's your experience been like? You told me you've had a lot of success.
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| Buffalo Niagara Court Center 11U team |
RM: I want to go a little bit deeper into that. What are some specific things you're talking about in terms of making volleyball fun from that initial stage? Because there's a learning curve to volleyball.
Bell: Well, one of the things that people mistakenly do with the youth is they try to make it all volleyball-related. What we try to do, especially for the K-3rd grade group, is integrate games. Team building games, team challenges, working for prizes, doing relay races. We do a game called "Circle the Wagon" where we see how many balls you can get out of a circle. We'll serve to a hula-hoop, see how many times you can pass to yourself, see how many times you can get the ball over the net in two minutes. We try to do fun warm-up games that are sometimes volleyball-related and sometimes not. Then as we get older into the 4th - 6th grade group, we more volleyball-related activity. We play one-on-one, do a lot of ball control activity, we lower the nets during attacking. Those are all things that we try to do.
RM: Can you tell me what the role of the parent is in what you're doing?
Bell: Right now we don't have parents help because we pull players from the club (Niagara Frontier Volleyball). My goal is to integrate the older kids into coaching the younger kids. They seem to enjoy it, and the younger kids really feed off the older kids. I even have 11 and 12-year-olds come and help with the 5, 6, and 7-year-olds. It's not that we don't want the parents involved, we just have a resource already and we think it's a great model to have those kids participate together.
RM: In your business (Competitive Edge Volleyball) you incorporate technology. How has technology been a part of what you do?
Bell: I haven't done it here as much as I did in Minnesota, but people would eat it up. I would break the approach and arm swing down into 12 different steps. I would have a training example I would show kids of all the different steps and I would put them next to the example. I think video feedback works for a lot of people, and I think it's a component that's sorely missed in a lot of training.
RM: How so?
Bell: Some people are auditory learners and can translate change with just verbal instruction. However, I think a large majority of the population have a lot more success if they can have both auditory cues and visual cues given to them. I think there's so many different learning styles that as a coach if you use only one teaching style you're going to run into a lot of roadblocks because not every kid is the same.
RM: I'm hoping I can get your perspective on being a multi-sport athlete. There's talk and debate about playing multiple sports versus playing just one sport year-round, versus just free play in general. What are your thoughts on all that?
Bell: I'm a huge proponent of multi-activity, maybe not necessarily multi-sport. I struggle with the single-sport athletes because I'm part of that system.
RM: That's one reason I wanted to ask you.
Bell: I struggle with it a lot. I sit on the board of our club, and have been a part of the Junior Olympic scene for years, and I see kids getting burned out, getting overuse injuries at younger and younger ages. One of the reasons I do the youth stuff is that I want to make it fun so there's not that high burnout. And now that I have my own kids, I'm a huge proponent of free play, and giving kids less structured time. I'm not going to have my kids in volleyball at a high level until they're ready. I'm not sure when that is. Some say 12, some say 13, but I'm starting to question if that's even too young. I often see those three-sport athletes do so much better, unless they're on those high, elite level travel programs. I live every day thinking that I'm a part of this system that I see so many kids flourish in, yet there's so many kids that have the emotional, psychological, and physical burn-out.RM: But at the same time I imagine that if you want to make that better, you need to be a part of the system, instead of avoiding it completely.
Bell: That's a really good point. There's a lot of people who don't believe in that and want more and more training and more specialization, but I'm not sure that's the way to go. I don't know. I think at older ages it's okay, but defining what that is I'm not sure yet.
RM: Since you've had kids of your own, how has that changed your perspective on coaching? Particularly having two girls.
Bell: I take winning seriously, but honestly winning isn't everything. When I was younger my focus was very different in that it was a lot about producing these high-level, All-American kids. Now I see these little babies that I have and I realize the importance of unstructured time and letting kids be kids. It's not all about winning, in fact at the youngest levels our focus shouldn't be winning at all. It should be about enjoying the sport and developing skills. At the upper levels that will translate into more success.
Bell: I think the biggest thing I'd leave is that I hope that people are coaching for the right reasons. I think when you coach your goal should be to be a role model and help kids be successful on and off the court. I most enjoy teaching kids life skills, and when I see coaches constantly coaching to win, not allowing flexibility, and being super stern, it takes the fun out of the game, I think that's where people lose kids.
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Carolyn Bell offers private instruction, group training, and volleyball clinics through her company, Competitive Edge Volleyball: competitiveedgevb.com