Alabama State University Head Coach;
6x Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) Championships;
2014, 2016 SWAC Conference Coach of the Year;
Air Force Head Coach from 1996 to 2009;
University of Memphis Head Coach from 1991 to 1995;
1994, 1995 Great Midwest Conference Coach of the Year;
played on the USA National Volleyball Team from 1985 to 1986;
played for LSU and then professionally in the US & Europe
andwith LaToya Clark,
Alabama State University Associate Head Coach;
Coached 4 SWAC Setter of the Year award-recipients;
5x Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) Championships;
Leon High School (FL) Assistant Varsity Coach & Head JV Coach from 2011 to 2014;
played collegiately for Jackson State;
3x MVP and 2x All-SWAC Tournament performerAlabama State's Penny Lucas-White runs her team through a ball control practice session while focusing on growth and being intentional. She discusses the value of failure in the growth process and demonstrates how to push your players through drills that develop ball control in all phases of the game. Then Associate Head Coach LaToya Clark details the essentials to training great setters!
Encourage your players to grow through failure at practice
Lucas-White shares her view on the growth path throughout a season. She shares that growth is the only guarantee that tomorrow is going to be better because of how intentional we are in what we do today. Lucas-White reminds us that there is no failure in failure; there is only growth in failure.
Control the ball to control the game
Lucas-White demonstrates a set of drills that focus on ball control. She shares that the team that controls the ball has the best chance of controlling their outcome. These drills build from setting to passing to tipping and hitting to allow your team to improve their ball control. Lucas-White pulls in her team to readjust priorities and set new expectations as they demonstrate a variety of drills.
Develop grit and mental toughness that translates into matches
Lucas-White explains how to set goals in these ball control drills to push your players to maintain focus and their communication in order to work as one team. She focuses on how the game is not about you as it's about the team, and when you make a mistake you have a team of people to support you. Using this philosophy, she pushes her players in a drill that builds pressure throughout in order to develop mental strength.
Setter training
Training a setter is one of the most challenging jobs for a coach. While it's easy to work on the hands and contact position in a controlled setting, we all know that in the game, nothing is controlled and that's when the setting breaks down.
Getting your setter ready for game time
With this series of drills the setter is put in more game-like situations and is pushed to get to the ball and execute the set. Through repetition the setter will feel more comfortable during an actual match. In this video, one particularly excellent, useful drill to take to your own practices is one that has the setter come from base to setting position and then must move to recover after a bad pass. Once that ball is set the coach immediately enters another ball more on target for the setter. This creates a little chaos on the court much like you see in an actual match. It is excellent!
One of the more challenging obstacles as a coach is to find effective ways to train players in game-like settings. This gets especially difficult when you are doing single position training, like setters. The group of drills in this video does a terrific job of replicating a game-like experience and helps prepare the setter for the chaos of the real game. The video starts with good warm-up drills that the setters can and should use for their daily routine. During warm up, Coach Clark talks about proper hand placement on the ball for better and cleaner contact. The second half of the video goes over on court training that will work with the setter's footwork that will put them in a position to achieve more accurate setting.
Coach Lucas-White provides a structure where you can allow your players to grow in these drills while still pausing to share where your team needs to push and focus. She demonstrated positive feedback while still stressing the expectations the coach desires from their team. Lucas-White sets a tone of growth and intentionality while allowing players to stretch into new skills and confidence. And Associate head coach LaToya Clark puts forth an excellent setting overview to help you advance your setter's effectiveness in the games ahead!
74 minutes. 2024