I feel like an initial caveat is in order here. If you’re just thinking about becoming a coach, especially at something like the high school level, you may not want to read Coaching Volleyball Successfully by Sally Kus. I could scare him and not do it as a coach, and nobody wants that!
Seriously though, the author talks extensively about what makes up a good volleyball program (not just a good team) and it has many facets. Thinking about all of this as someone new to the world of coaching can be a bit overwhelming.
The first section of the book is described as The Foundation of Coaching. The two main focal points are the philosophy of coaching and communication. Coaching philosophy may be something volleyball trainees or assistant coaches shouldn’t worry too much about, as that will come from the head coach, but for anyone running a team it’s an important consideration. Given that a large proportion of lower level coaches don’t have the benefit of starting out as assistants, that’s likely to cover most readers.
The second approach is communication, in all its forms. We’re talking player-to-player, coach-to-player, coach-to-coach, coach-to-parent, and every other line of exchange you can think of: verbal, written, and otherwise. Kus leaves no doubt how important it is to the health of your team, your program, and yourself to make sure there is good, positive communication with and between all parties involved. Player and team motivation is part of that equation.
The second section of the book is Coaching Plans. Once again, we are talking about a very comprehensive look at the planning aspect of being a successful volleyball coach. Much of it focuses on developing effective training plans, which will no doubt be of considerable interest to most readers. Included here are a number of exercises, games, and warm-up ideas.
Part III addresses the instruction of individual skills. This is pretty detailed in terms of looking at player mechanics with lots of suggestions on ways to tackle common issues and bad habits. This section is also supported by a number of exercise ideas.
After the skills section, in a natural progression, come two sections dealing with systems, strategies, and tactics. These present a comprehensive look at offensive and defensive game systems and how to develop them, as well as considerable discussion of managing teams in preparation for and during games.
The book concludes with a sixth section that reviews evaluations, both of the players and of the program. Kus, as with every other part of the book, goes into quite a bit of detail in terms of what needs to be evaluated and how you can do it.
As you may have realized by now, this book is absolutely loaded. It’s not something you can easily overcome in a few hours. That said, though, the writing is very direct and well-paced. I seriously doubt you’ll get bored anywhere along the way, as can sometimes be the case in training books.
The bottom line is that Coaching Volleyball Successly is a fantastic book. There is a lot of focus on high school volleyball, but there are also many references to college, junior, and junior volleyball, and much of the material can be applied across the board. If I were offering suggestions on what a new or developing coach should read, this would be right at the top of that list.