January 13, 2025 • 35 mins
Tim Cates talks with former Penn State standout and current Mater Dei HS girls volleyball coach Dan O'Dell about his playing career and the success he's had bulding a championship program in Southern California. Coach O'Dell talks about the growth of volleyball in the US, the competitive play in Southern California and whether your child needs to play club sports to better their game. Coach O'Dell discusses why it was important for him to pursue his MCAA from Concordia University Irvine
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From a standout player at Penn State to one of
the best high school volleyball coaches in the country. Dan
O'Dell from Modern Day High School in southern California, joins
us now on episode seventy four of the Masters in
Coaching podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Let's Go.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Well.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Welcome into episode seventy four the Masters in Coaching Podcast
here on iHeartRadio or wherever you are listening here or watching.
We appreciate that joining it is now excited to talk
to this week's guest. A former standout player at Penn State,
helped the Nitney Lions get to four Final four appearance
as an assistant coach at UCLA, and since twenty thirteen,
he has been a teacher at head girls volleyball coach
(00:42):
at Modern Day High School here in southern California. Five
CIF championships ten of eleven seasons CIA finalist state national
championships in twenty eighteen and twenty thirteen. Also a graduate
of the Masters in Coaching Athletics Administration program at Concordia University, Irvine.
He is Dan O'Dell and he joins us here on
the Map in Coaching podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Dan, How you doing.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I'm doing good? It's Thursday. It's college football playoff for
Penn State. So I'm I'm excited. It's a in my
Since I've been a Penn State fan for like twenty
five years, we've never been in this scenario, so I'm
very excited for today.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Rep in your school. I love that you played volleyball
at Penn State, and we'll start right there. How does
a guy from the northeast end up playing volleyball end
up at Penn State of all places?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
So I was kind of the son of a coach.
So my mom was a volleyball coach for seventeen years.
So I was just one of those kids that you know,
grew up running under the bleachers, grew up just being
forced to go to games and practices. If we didn't
have a babysitter, I would just tag along with my
mom to wherever she was going in I was also
three older brothers, so when the oldest one started playing,
(01:49):
you know, you kind of just do what you know
your older siblings are doing. So as they started playing volleyball,
you know, I got into it at a very young age.
And boys volleyball especially is a pretty small sport, so
it just so happened. Rochester, New York was a hot
bed for that where it actually was popular where I
grew up, and so sure enough I got into volleyball.
And I mean I was that kid that played every sport,
(02:11):
but you know, volleyball was a passion or something I
love doing, so stuck with it and ended up at
Penn State.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Did you were you played other sports growing up?
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Or because you were around volleyball so much, is that
something that kind of stood out more than other sports?
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Now? I mean I played everything as obviously through elementary
you did. I probably played six different sports. You know.
Middle school was mostly volleyball, basketball, baseball, and then the
high school I did basketball and volleyball. My basketball coach
wasn't too happy that I was doing volleyball. My volleyball
coach wasn't too happy I was doing basketball. So but
I forced it to make it work because both sports
were just so fun to play, and I knew I
(02:47):
was I had more of a career path in volleyball,
so that was always what I was going to do.
But you know, my high school was a great basketball team,
so I didn't want to miss an opportunity to play
on a you know, a really good basketball team for
those four years. With basketball, even though I kne volleyball
was the path.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Talk a little bit about your time at Penn State
and playing there and the success that you guys had
h going to final fours and your time spent playing there.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Yeah, I loved it. Penn State's a special place and
you know, obviously an extremely large school, but the school
full of students that are passionate about sports. So there's
so many like minded individuals, whether they were actually athletes,
you know, on different teams, or they're just you know,
regular students attending Penn State. Everyone seemed to really enjoy
that you know, athletics community. So knowing that you know
(03:35):
you would go to you know, women's volleyball games, wrestling games,
soccer games, football games, whatever it was, you know, everybody
really appreciated, you know, what was going on at Penn State.
So it was just a really awesome place. A lot
of great people. You made a lot of friends, the
volleyball community especially. You know, Penn State was always we
were kind of known as you know the power school
outside of California when I was there. So obviously, you know,
(03:57):
California is such a strong Bedford you know, boys volleyball,
but Penn State we were good at recruiting just projectable
athletic kids that we could kind of hang and compete with,
you know, all those West Coast schools. So you know,
if I wasn't going to end up, I looked at
Pepper in Santa Barbara when I was in high school,
but staying closer to home was kind of the priority
for me so my parents could see me play more,
(04:18):
and Penn State just seemed like a perfect pit.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Well, I want to get into the whole volleyball East coast,
West coast, as you mentioned, California being a hotbed for that,
but Penn State we're talking a little Big ten. UCLA
and USC now in the Big Ten and traveling back
and forth and having to play them in volleyball now
here in twenty four, twenty five and moving forward now
they've got written in the Pac twelve and merged into
(04:43):
the Big Ten. What does that do for volleyball and
the Big Ten and adding these California West Coast schools.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
It's absolutely wild to me. I mean, I'm trying to
keep track of it. When I see Stanford's out there
playing like Louisville and Miami. How are they in the
same conference doesn't make any sense. I mean, selfishly, I'm
kind of excited about it because that means Penn State's
going to be traveling wes More. You know, you can
get to actually watch Penn State teams, whether it's volleyball,
(05:10):
whether it's football, whatever. You know, they're typically going to
play USC in UCLA now, So selfishly I'm happy about it.
I just can't imagine the logistical nightmares that especially these
smaller sports are feeling with, you know, constantly traveling around
the country. It's got to be a nightmare academically and
(05:30):
the things that they have to juggle and balance as
student athlete. It's nowadays, it's just it's really hard. So
as a fan and the spectator, I love its great,
But as imagining what the college student is going through
in a day to day basis, I'm imagining life's pretty
tough for them right now.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
When you got done playing collegiately and got done playing professionally,
you got into coaching and you end up at UCLAM.
Believe it was your first stop in your coaching career
as an assistant coach. Uh you had success there the Bruins.
I believe won a national championship in your time in Westwood.
What was it that you wanted to then get into
coaching right after playing and how did you end up
(06:07):
at UCLA?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
So when I basically how I got into coaching was
I was an IT consultant for a couple of years
out of college. I had an engineering background, so I
thought I was going to go in the business world
and I found I don't know, I sometimes like to
portray it as I felt like I was in an
office an episode of the Office where I was, you know,
I was Jim Helper, where everybody around me like thought
(06:31):
this was so serious this business world, and like it
was that was the mL for it, and me I
would look around, I'm like, why does everyone think this
is the most serious thing in the world of them?
I'm like, because I didn't feel that same passion for
you know, we were installing an SAP product and the
Comcast system, and I was like, this is weird. I mean,
I can do this work, but I don't mind it.
(06:51):
But I just it wasn't passionate about it, and I
wasn't seriously and I felt like I would giggle to
myself in meetings because this just wasn't for me. So
after I finished playing at Penn State, actually had reconstructed
knee surgery, so I couldn't play volleyball for two years.
So I kind of was forced out of it and
went into the business world. But kind of around two
thousand and eight time I actually got laid off in
(07:12):
that consulting gig because people weren't really hiring companies weren't
hiring consultants anymore. The economy was kind of going down.
So that's when I got back into volleyball. Played a
year in Portugal, which was super fun and great experience,
and then I came back and was getting married, and
I thought, you know, I don't know that I can
just keep sustaining living in Europe for half the year
for while I'm getting married. So, you know, I met
(07:34):
Joy Furbringer, who was running visit to Long Beach and
who also had just accepted an assistant job at UCLA
when I got back from playing, and she offered me
to come coach club. And the new head coach at
UCLA at the time was Mike Seely, who coached on
the men's side when I was playing, so he knew
of me. You know, I was kind of in between
do I try to get back into the consulting world
or the engineering world, or you know, what should I
(07:56):
try to do. So he offered me to come on
initially as a volunteer as system coach in twenty ten,
just to see if I enjoyed that coaching world. And
sure enough, spending that year at UCLA, you know, getting
into club volleyball and getting into coaching, it was awesome.
I felt like my analytics background of engineering, you know,
(08:17):
meshed with you know, the strategic side of game planning
and you know, how can we beat this team? What's happening?
How do I visually see and can impact this game
As a coach, that stuff was super rewarding and I
absolutely loved it. And then you know, developing relationships with
kids was awesome, and all that stuff was just it
was very satisfying to me. So after that first year
(08:37):
as of volunteer or one of our assistants left for
another job, and UH coach Sheli asked me if I
wanted to come on as a full time assistant at UCLA.
I was like, yeah, I like this is awesome, this
is something that I'm really enjoying doing. Yeah, you know,
it's something you can make a career with. And I
just felt like I found kind of what I was
supposed to be doing, and I kind of looked into it.
(09:00):
It was just something that kind of found me, and
I just I don't think when I was in college,
I was like, oh, I want to be a coach
so bad. When I'm never that was never what I
intended to do, but I kind of found me and
I absolutely love doing it still.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
So you went from Jim Halper looking around saying, what
am I doing here? I don't have passion for it,
to Dwight Shrewd, who absolutely loved selling paper at dunder
Mifflin on the office. In coaching volleyball as you started
doing since twenty thirteen, you've been at modern day. What
was the process of getting to modern day? And did
you think you'd be there this long coaching girls volleyball
(09:36):
and having the success that you've had there.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
You know, honestly, when I took the job here, there's
a big perk to it for me, which was, you know,
my wife's a southern California girl. For me, I could
probably live anywhere in the country and be happy knowing that,
you know, I grew up in the winter winters in Rochester,
New York to the beautiful southern California that there's not
really a place that I don't think think I would
(10:00):
be happy, but I know for her, staying in Southern
California's important. So modern day offered a chance to you know,
basically create a career where I could stay, you know,
have a career with coaching, because teaching was going to
be involved and be local and be able to stay
in Southern California and not this college world where it's like, hey,
you want to move up, you got to go take
(10:21):
a job at Wisconsin. Oh, the head coaching job at
Arkansas just open up. They pay really well, let's go
live in Arkansas now and try to work your way
up the coaching ladder where you're trying to start a family,
you're trying to raise kids, and you're doing that by
moving all around the country. So modern day offered that
opportunity where it was a career in coaching in Southern
California and I can still work with, you know, the
(10:41):
type of athletes that are super passionate about volleyball, where
they want to be great, you want to compete with
the best and do all of that which you get
in college, but you can't always find when you're coaching
high school because some high schools, you know, the kids
aren't going to be as serious or they're not as
passionate about volleyball as you would maybe you as a
coach are. But you know, being at modern day offered
a opportunity to work with the elite athletes while basically
(11:02):
starting a career locally.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
How good is the volleyball circuit, the volleyball scene in
particular in southern California because we you know, I got
three daughters, didn't play volleyball, but friends, co workers, daughters
were at momentous all the time on weekends, playing in tournaments,
going around doing the different tournaments around Vegas and Indianapolis
and all across the country. On club teams, the high
(11:26):
school programs. There are elites, a lot of them here
in southern California. As you mentioned at Penn State, you know,
you guys played West Coast teams and now the West
Coast teams in the Big Ten.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
This is the hotbed right for volleyball, men's and women's.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
So I will say the women's side has grown so
much in the last like ten to fifteen years. That
from an elite talent standpoint, it's everywhere. I mean, you're
getting elite kids from South Dakota coming in and being
the best setter in the entire NCAA right now, you know, Atlanta, Dallas, Icago,
(12:00):
all major cities women's volleyball is nationwide. It is absolutely
incredible how many kids are playing and how elite and
talented all these kids are. I would say Southern California
had their niche. Whereas if you were to look at
who's the tenth best club team in Southern California, They're
going to be way better than the tenth best club
(12:20):
team in any other area. Though, I think the depth
of talent you have in Southern California is remarkable. You
just see kids that you know, from the top team
to the thirtieth best team locally and just like a
sixteens age group, you're getting elite kids in future Division
one athletes across the board and all those teams. Whereas,
you know, these other major cities that have just as
e leite of top teams as we do, you know,
(12:42):
they don't have the depth that Southern California has. So
and still the hotbed in the sense that there's just
so many talented players out there, more so probably than
any other place in the country. But I wouldn't say
and women's world now it's it's pretty nationwide where you
know you're getting elite kids every whey where. Right now,
it's really.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
How did you get to that point? You think? Is
it just the growth of the sport?
Speaker 1 (13:04):
More kids now picking up volleyball, more girls, I should say,
picking up volleyball at a younger age, no matter whether
they're at being indoor doesn't matter. The whether I guess, well,
is it a combination of that? Why what do you
think the growth nationally?
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Then? I think volleyball it's a really fun sport for women.
I think it's a sport whereas if you look at
the top like men's sports, which are you know are
going to be a baseball, basketball, football? It's a sport
for women where you can be incredibly physical as an athlete,
when you can utilize your athlete a lot of sism
and be great. But you don't have the physicality of
(13:41):
a basketball where you're like you got in the box out,
you got to hit. I think some women aren't as
in Tune Dead whereas they want that you know, physicality,
whereas men, naturally, you know, they want to wrestle, they
want to tackle each other, they want to do all
that stuff. I mean, I have two girls with the
son at home. My son's always the one that, hey,
let's just go like rough House and fight to the
couch dad. Whereas girls are like they want to play,
(14:01):
they want to pretend they want to. They naturally are
doing different things. And I think volleyball is a sport
where athleticism truly shines, but at the same time, you
don't have to worry about you know, there's a net
separate you, separating you from the other team. You're not
trying to fight for a ball with someone else and
push and shove and you know, grab and all that stuff.
So volleyball kind of offers a really fun sport where
(14:23):
that physicality is great, but you get to avoid some
of the stuff that you know, the soccers or the
basketballs you know, tend to like you got to have
that little dog in you in those sports to really
be successful, whereas volleyball you can have that athleticism, but
you don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
You talk about the elite players spreading it out now nationally,
but here in southern California.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
How competitive is girls women's volleyball.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
It's so competitive, And I'm already dreading next season because
I look across the board at all the top teams
and it seems like every top team is returning all
their players next year. And I know that we're returning
a lot of players and we're gonna be really good.
But there's it's just so many good kids across so
many high schools that I think it's easy to look
at the success we've had and be like, oh, this
is really easy. Amount day just goes out there and
(15:09):
you know they win because they have the most talented teams,
and it's I can tell you from a coach, there's
not a match that we should go into that I'm
not stressed out about or nervous about or worried because
I know there are always other really talented kids on
the other side of the net that are going to
be trying to beat us. And there's just so many
talented kids here that you could never go into a
(15:29):
match against any team, even if you're the top ranked
team in the country, you're playing the twentieth best team
in Southern California. If you think for a second you
can take them for granted and that you're going to
go coast to a win, you won't because there's just
there's too many good bollyball players here. So knowing that
and having that stress constantly and making sure you know,
our team's always prepared and ready to go. It's just
(15:50):
it's important because, like we've talked about, you know, Southern
California is just it's a hotbed. There's so many good teams.
Everyone will always say, you know, and for us, even
winning CIA is always our goal. Winning a state championship.
We don't go into these years like, hey, we're going
to go try to win state this year. Winning CIF,
knowing how deep and talented it is, is always the
primary goal for us, because if you can win the
(16:12):
hardest division in the country, you know, that's a true
accomplishment right there. And then if you can win and
stay that's great. But winning CIF is always, you know,
our primary goal that we enter every single year.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I want to divert a little bit from high school
girls volleyball to the club volleyball circuit. Maybe for some
parents coaches out there that are getting started in the sport,
and I want to listen to you because you've you
got the knowledge and the experience at the high school
and the collegiate level and the success you've had. How
important is it to get into club volleyball for a
(16:45):
young girl looking to get into the sport.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
I think it's very important. I think that volleyball, I mean,
like any sport, repetition is super important. You know, they
talk about, you know, if you want to master a
skill type a thousand hours at that skill. So, however,
you can play a sport and get as many reps
as possible, that's incredibly important. So is club volleyball the
must if you can do that. I mean, there's not
really much other structure where you can get those ten
(17:09):
thousand hours. I mean, if you have a group of
friends and you can go to a beach and you
can play every day and you can do that for free,
that's great. Go do that every day. You'll get your reps. However,
you can get your reps, but at the end of
the day, club is going to offer you a structured
environment where you have a coach who's teaching your technique,
who's trying to fix different things about what you're doing
to improve your skill while also getting that, you know,
striving towards those ten thousand hours of mastery to get
(17:32):
towards the skill. So if you want to get really good,
I would say club is going to be something that
you're going to have to consider and do in order
to kind of help reach your volleyball goals. And then
from there, you know, how tall are you going to be,
how athletic are you, how naturally is your hand eye coordination?
You know, all those other factors that determine how good
it kid gets are important, But you know, getting that
(17:53):
repetition however you can get is the number one goal there.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
I'm curious in other sports, I'll use baseball and football
and basketball as examples with AAU and summer baseball, travel ball,
and in football. Seven on seven. Now we're hearing from
college coaches and high school coaches. Okay, you know we
are focusing on that. Maybe the high school team isn't
the priority, especially in basketball. Well, what AAU team are
(18:17):
you on? How are you competitive with those elite kids
in your grade at a national level as opposed to
how you're doing in your local high school team or
playing here in Southern California and the cif And not
to take away from anything from the high school athletics,
but it seems like in recruiting maybe there is that
being taken away in some sports.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
What is it in volleyball?
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Is there more in recruiting emphasis on club sports and
how you do there as to okay, how they're doing
in high school and how they're helping their high school
team or is it a blend.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
How has that affected the high school volleyball scene?
Speaker 3 (18:50):
You know, I would say it's very similar to basketball.
I would say recruiting primary is through club volleyball. So
I'm not going to sit here and say, hey, coming
to out day. You know it's gonna you know, all
these college because are coming to our practices. You know,
it's not like that. I think, you know, the perk
of high school or at least being at the elite
high schools, like you know, Training League schools or some
of the Mira Costa Ordondo, Marymounts, some of the LA schools,
(19:14):
is it gives you an extra three months where you're
competing against other top kids in practice, in games, you're
fighting for spots, and then at the same time the
high school is preparing you better for college because you
know you're going to play one best of five match
against the team to see who wins, which is exactly
what happens in college. You're training, you're scouting, you're doing
all that stuff for that one match to go execute
(19:34):
to try to win that, which is exactly what's happening
in college. So are you going to get recruited based
on how you're doing that? Not necessarily it's helpful, but
you're going to probably improve more during the high school season.
If you're ating elite high school, then you would if
you were at a high school where you were playing
with ten girls who didn't really care about volleyball the
same way you did, and they're not going to train
(19:56):
you the same way, and you're going to face kids
that you know, if you or hit or your blockers
or defenders aren't going to be as good or stopping you,
so you're not going to learn as much. So I'd
say the kids that are playing with those elite high
schools been that three to four month high school season
improving more than the kids that you know are just
going to their local schools that you know maybe don't
care as much about volleyball. So from that aspect, it's
(20:18):
helpful to you know, get better, you know, to get
used to what a a college season's like through scouting,
through best of five matches and playoff games like that.
Versus club works like, Okay, you show up at eight am,
You're playing four matches today in best of three scenarios.
It's like, that's nothing like you're going to see in college.
But again, that's what college coaches are going to base
(20:39):
their recruiting off of, on how they see you do that.
So recruiting definitely comes from club more. I would say
high school, if you're winning and you're getting awards and
you're showcasing that, that's a good resume builder as part
of your resume for colleges to see. But certainly club
is definitely going to be the recruiting hotbed for the kids.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I appreciate that's the great answer.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
I think very informative for parents and coaches out there
listening and you know that want to know about the
high school versus club and do I do one of
the other?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Do I do both?
Speaker 1 (21:11):
How much emphasis do I put on club versus my
high school? And I think you hit it on the
head there as far as what the balance is for both.
Dan O'Dell is our guest here on the Matches and
Coaching podcast, here on iHeartRadio and wherever you may be
listening on YouTube as well.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Your coaching style, your philosophy. You mentioned your mom was
a coach. You've been at around a lot of great
coaches yourself. Do you find yourself taking a little bit
from everybody that you've learned for and gleaned off a
little bit in your coaching style? And now thirteen years
of modern day, have you established kind of your foundation
your culture and how you want to be a head
(21:47):
coach or are you still looking at and always growing now?
Speaker 3 (21:50):
I mean, I think at the end of the day,
you got to be yourself. I think you know, were
coaches out there, if they're trying to mimic you know, hey,
I see that coach. I want to be just like
that person. I don't know if that's going to work
unless your personality is in tune to that. So you've
got to be yourself. You got to have structure. I
think as long as you're you know, the kids know
(22:11):
you're invested. You know that they're going to hold them
accountable and responsible, especially girls. You know, they're very disciplined
by nature, and if you let things get a little
bit too loose or you let them off the hook
too much, you know, they don't actually want that. They
would rather have that structure, they would rather have that discipline.
So making sure you know you have that stuff under
you're under control is important. And then from there, you know,
(22:32):
your personality is going to be what is going to
drive your your culture and stuff. So for me, like
I have some simple models, like you know, work smarter,
not harder, which is funny because I think a lot
of you know, everyone's like, we want to be the
hardest working team in America. You know, we're going to
outwork everybody. But volleyball is not really a sport where
(22:52):
it's like, hey, how fast can you run and all
that stuff. Volleyball is a sport where you know, in
the best of five match, we're working hard enough that
you're going to be able to sustain your energy for
a five setter. But at the end of the day,
you know, to me, the smartest teams are the teams
that are going to have success. So understanding the game
at the highest level and knowing how to win and
knowing how to you know, read defenses, read setters and
(23:14):
all that stuff. It's going to be what separates a
team in a certain match. So you know, my girls
will run in practice, will work hard, we'll lift weights,
and we'll do all that stuff. But I'm not the
coach that's going to grind them to a pulp where
it's like we're doing tons of sprint sebter practice and
we're having three hour practices and the girls are just
dead tired at the end. Because my goal is to
(23:35):
be the smartest team. My goal is not to be
the team that you know is the most conditioned team,
because I don't think volleyball you need to have the
most conditioned team to have success. And then personality wise,
I think I try to balance making sure practices and
that stuff is very fun. And as long as when
the balls in play, you're serious and you're working hard
(23:56):
for that moment in between realities and that stuff, we
can we can have a good time. You could enjoy
this process because you've got to have a passion for
the sport. And I think coaches that sometimes are too serious,
or you know, they are those grinding coaches, or they're
too tough on the kids. You know, kids will lose interest,
they'll lose passion in the sport because they're always saying, hey,
I'm just not having fun playing it anymore. So making
(24:19):
sure I'm balancing that, you know, I don't want things
to get out of control where you know, when we're playing,
we're getting sloppy and that stuff. But also, hey, let's
laugh about this. That was pretty funny play that just happened.
That was a good time. And then as soon as
that serve goes in or the drill starts whatever, you know,
we're gonna work hard and pay attention and be dialed
in for that moment, and then we can go back
(24:40):
to being loose in between, and then we kind of
go back and forth and teetering that. I think girls
have found that it's a really enjoyable environment to be
in that where they're you know, they're enjoying practice, they're
having fun, they're learning, they're getting a lot better, but
they're also not so stressed out for two hours like,
oh my gosh, is he gonna yell at us today?
Is he going to make a run for this? As
(25:00):
you can do that, and they have that added stress
in their life. So I'm probably described as more of
a players coach, where you know they enjoy it, they
have fun. They know there's a line not to cross it,
because I can get mad if they are not taking
things too seriously. But at the same time, you know
they understand that line and know how to balance it correctly,
(25:23):
and so we do a good job at you know,
getting our work done while also you know, having a
fun environment in the practice gym.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
I hope this doesn't come off as a stupid question.
But in the baseball world, football world now even more,
and I don't know much of the basketball world because
it's basketball.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
But analytics. How much is analytics used in volleyball? And
can it be used in volleyball?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
It's used, I would say, I mean every level you
go up, it's going to get used at a higher
level than it is at the lower level. So I mean,
if you're looking at the Olympic team level, it's incredibly analytical.
Colleges are approaching that level. High schools not as much.
I would say, there's a lot of scouting and stuff
and analytics that you're using. As far as like tendencies,
(26:09):
you know what zones are, team's weekend where kids hitting,
how can you shift defenses to line up correctly to
limit their what the other team's doing. So it's definitely
definitely going up, and there's obviously more software that's coming
out that allows coaches to help that. So I mean
I'm a little bit more old fashioned with my paper
and pencil when I'm scouting, I'm I'm kind of doing
(26:31):
it visually and manually, whereas I'm sure there's softwares now
that i can just you know, split that out where hey,
this hitter hit the ball seventy five percent of the time,
she's swinging this way twenty five percent over on this side,
and so you can there's definitely software that's doing that.
I'm more of a visual guy because when I'm scouting
and seeing that and getting my own analytics for that
(26:51):
way in the game situation, and I'm seeing that team
live and then watching them do it now live, you know,
I can very quickly be like, hey, I've seen her
do this, I know what it looks like like. And
a lot of kids you can kind of witness how
they swing, and it's it's kind of easier to read
when you've seen it done over and over through scouting
versus just getting something to hand out, like hey, this
girl hits it over here a lot or stuff like that.
(27:12):
So yeah, it's definitely used, and I'm sure at the
highest levels there's tons of analytics as far as like, hey,
in this rotation the pass goes here, there's like a
sixty seven percent chance that's going here. You know, twenty
percent chance here, and like thirty percent there. If the
pass is over five feet this way and all of
a sudden shifts towards the setter tendency, it gets too deep.
(27:32):
But yeah, it's definitely used at the highest levels. And
the tougher part for me, I find is you don't want,
you know, analysis by paralysis for these kids. So you
want them to be comfortable. You don't want them to overthink, like,
oh my gosh, there's going to be like if I'm hitting,
I'm gonna have this blocker right here, and like you
want them to play naturally and smooth and go through that.
So trying to keep it somewhat simple, it's like, hey,
(27:55):
if they set this girl, just go stand here and
we'll kind of keep it. Don't ask me why you're
going to stand there, trust me, go there, and you'll
likely be in a position to get the ball. Sometimes
it's as simple as that. But yes, you don't want
to overdo it. I think with the professional athletes you
can sure because their minds are in tuned enough to
realize that. But the high school kids, you know, give
(28:16):
them just enough information to help them, but also make
sure they're comfortable on the court.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Having three girls on my own that went through high
school or in high school, now, the last thing you
want to do is tell them too much and they're
sitting there and think, Okay, the ball goes here, how
much okay, percentages, okay, sixty percent over here, You're just
going to confuse everybody and then you're going to be
a mess out there for sure.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Yeah, too much is too much. So you know, only
that line is important coaching.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
You get into the business world and you're back coaching again,
but you decide to get your masters in coaching from
Concordia University Irvine. Talk about when you decided to pursue
that master's program, how the experience was for you, and
why was it important for you to get that master's degree.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
So, I mean one getting is important. I think you know,
education is very important, So making sure that, you know,
if you're going to do something, especially make a career
out of it, you know, figuring out education wise, how
you can get the most out of that was very
important for me. I decided when I was at UCLA
and I was a volunteer assistant transitioning to become a
full time assistant. There, I saw a future in coaching
(29:24):
for myself. So as soon as I saw a future
and coaching for myself, I thought, Okay, if this is
what I want to do with my life, how can
I improve myself myself as a coach and become a
better coach? And what type of programs could I look
into or do, And so that's what led me to, Okay,
maybe I can see if there's master's programs specifically in coaching,
and so of course you know, google searches and stuff
(29:45):
like that. I think I saw like a Long Beach
State had a sports I guess sports management one, and
then obviously the you know, Concordia Masters in Coaching Athletic
Administration was right there and it was an online program,
which obviously for me, I knowing I could go into
person was going to be incredibly important. But at the
same time I was like it's kind of close by,
it's not too far. So seeing that as a perfect
(30:07):
fit and knowing that, hey, you know, if I want
to do coaching and I'm going to take this seriously,
making sure I get an education in that area is
something that I'm going to really focus on. So that's
what kind of led me to Concordia, and that's what
kind of led me through that program. As far as
what the program did to me, you just offered clarity
of kind of things I should be looking for as
(30:28):
a coach and things that are very important to me
and making sure I'm aware of I think, you know,
growing up, you know, we kind of grew up in
that era where it's like, oh, the Bobby Knights of
the world. You know, those angry disciplinarian coaches. You know,
they exist, and they some of them still exist today.
They're obviously, you know, not as frequent as they used
to be, but you know, learning that there's ways to
be success without being like that, I thought was like,
(30:49):
I think that was one of the very first classes
I had, you know, coaching positively and like successful coaching
with that stuff was very eye opening to be like, Okay,
so because my personality if you haven't lean this yet,
is like I'm not a super like I'm gonna yell
and scream and forced kids to do stuff. You know,
I'm going to make sure you know, I'm going to
coach kids the way if I was an athlete, I
would want to be coach. So realizing like, hey, I
(31:12):
can have my personality, I can be positive, I can
be fine. I can create an environment like that and
still have success with a very good eye opening things.
So I think, you know, that program really just brought
clarity to me as far as you know, as a coach,
how do I want to do this? What do I
want to do? And offer just structure for running a program.
(31:32):
I'm going to set at rutles, I'm going to expectations,
I'm going to do all this stuff that you need
to do to be a successful coach. And it just
really you know, narrowed my focus as far as like, Okay,
this is how I'm going to do this. The program
gave me clarity on that path and allowing me to,
you know, go be a successful coach because.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Of that one thing.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
We kind of hear a lot, and it's funny to hear,
whether it's a volleyball coach, baseball coach, basketball coach, football coach,
and an athletic director. They all go in, Okay, I'm specialized.
I'm a coach of this sport. And when they go
through the program, maybe a couple of classes in, they
find out, Wow, me and the baseball coach have a
lot in common. I can actually learn a little bit
and take a little bit what he's going through. And
(32:10):
we're learning from one another. Even though our sports are different,
We're all here for the same kind of goal of coaching.
And it's interesting. They all leave the program thinking, I'm
glad I did that because I didn't think I'd have
anything common with the wrestling coach or the baseball coach
or the basketball coach, and they do.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
I one hundred percent agree. I think. I mean, obviously,
you're going to make teams better by your knowledge of
the sport, but as far as the structure, as far
as pully accountable, as far as just as a coach
being a role model for student athletes and helping mentor
them through life, and you know, setting an example for
you know how I am as an adult. I hope
they can strive their being like kind of similar to
(32:47):
that all those things from truth through all sports. It's
not there's nothing sport related about any different sport that's
going to tell you, Hey, to be a good volleyball coach,
you have to be like this, but it'd be a
good baseball coach, you got to go to this path.
It's really just you know, you're being a good person.
You're leading by example. You're setting them an example of
how you hold yourself, data and out. You know, am
(33:08):
I going to be like am I telling them one
thing and then going doing another thing? Do I have integrity?
Am I being honest? Am I exhibiting those things in
life to them as an adult so that they can
understand that, Okay, he is doing the things that he
wants me to be. He's going and doing them to
himself as well. So and that stuff just rings truth
through all sports. It's like, as a coach, you need
(33:30):
to be a mentor, you need to be honest, you
need to have integrity, you need to have character, you
need to do all those things, whatever sport you're coaching
and setting that example for those kids, and it's great.
I think that's yeah. The MCAA program was great in
the sense that everybody was doing different things, but we
were all in line and as far as what do
we wanted to be as a coach, So it was
just really cool environment. I really appreciated it.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Well, Dan, we appreciate the time. Continue success at Modern Day.
You've built it and continued a great program there.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
I know I learn a lot.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
I know our list listeners and viewers have learned a lot,
and hopefully parents out there find out a little bit
more about the recruiting process and what they need to
do for their young daughter or son entering the world
of athletics and high school and certainly volleyball. We really
appreciate the time and listening to you and hearing your
story and can again continue success in Modern Day and
beyond in your coaching career.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
Thank you so much, awesome, thank you so much for
having me. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Well there he goes Dan O'Dell, head coach of the
girls volleyball program at Modern Day High School here in
southern California. Two state championships ten of eleven years, going
to the CIF finals. He has built a powerhouse girls
volleyball program at Modern Day High School here in southern California.
One of the elite programs not only here but across
(34:45):
the country, and he was so great in talking about
the recruiting.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Process and the differences between.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
High school volleyball and club volleyball and the blending between
the two and the importance of both in a young
student athlete's career as they look to get a college
scholarsh and beyond.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
So thank you to Coach.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
For his time, his expertise, his knowledge, and great to
hear his story on getting into coaching after getting into
the private sector and working and just not having that
love for what he was doing in a job and
getting back into volleyball and coaching in particular, and he
has turned into one of the best in the country.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
So thanks to Coach. Thanks to you for listening and watching.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Episode seventy four of the Masters in Coaching podcast is
now in the books. Until next time, stay safe, so
long everybody,
From a standout player at Penn State to one of
the best high school volleyball coaches in the country. Dan
O'Dell from Modern Day High School in southern California, joins
us now on episode seventy four of the Masters in
Coaching podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Let's Go.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Well.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Welcome into episode seventy four the Masters in Coaching Podcast
here on iHeartRadio or wherever you are listening here or watching.
We appreciate that joining it is now excited to talk
to this week's guest. A former standout player at Penn State,
helped the Nitney Lions get to four Final four appearance
as an assistant coach at UCLA, and since twenty thirteen,
he has been a teacher at head girls volleyball coach
(00:42):
at Modern Day High School here in southern California. Five
CIF championships ten of eleven seasons CIA finalist state national
championships in twenty eighteen and twenty thirteen. Also a graduate
of the Masters in Coaching Athletics Administration program at Concordia University, Irvine.
He is Dan O'Dell and he joins us here on
the Map in Coaching podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Dan, How you doing.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I'm doing good? It's Thursday. It's college football playoff for
Penn State. So I'm I'm excited. It's a in my
Since I've been a Penn State fan for like twenty
five years, we've never been in this scenario, so I'm
very excited for today.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Rep in your school. I love that you played volleyball
at Penn State, and we'll start right there. How does
a guy from the northeast end up playing volleyball end
up at Penn State of all places?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
So I was kind of the son of a coach.
So my mom was a volleyball coach for seventeen years.
So I was just one of those kids that you know,
grew up running under the bleachers, grew up just being
forced to go to games and practices. If we didn't
have a babysitter, I would just tag along with my
mom to wherever she was going in I was also
three older brothers, so when the oldest one started playing,
(01:49):
you know, you kind of just do what you know
your older siblings are doing. So as they started playing volleyball,
you know, I got into it at a very young age.
And boys volleyball especially is a pretty small sport, so
it just so happened. Rochester, New York was a hot
bed for that where it actually was popular where I
grew up, and so sure enough I got into volleyball.
And I mean I was that kid that played every sport,
(02:11):
but you know, volleyball was a passion or something I
love doing, so stuck with it and ended up at
Penn State.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Did you were you played other sports growing up?
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Or because you were around volleyball so much, is that
something that kind of stood out more than other sports?
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Now? I mean I played everything as obviously through elementary
you did. I probably played six different sports. You know.
Middle school was mostly volleyball, basketball, baseball, and then the
high school I did basketball and volleyball. My basketball coach
wasn't too happy that I was doing volleyball. My volleyball
coach wasn't too happy I was doing basketball. So but
I forced it to make it work because both sports
were just so fun to play, and I knew I
(02:47):
was I had more of a career path in volleyball,
so that was always what I was going to do.
But you know, my high school was a great basketball team,
so I didn't want to miss an opportunity to play
on a you know, a really good basketball team for
those four years. With basketball, even though I kne volleyball
was the path.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Talk a little bit about your time at Penn State
and playing there and the success that you guys had
h going to final fours and your time spent playing there.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Yeah, I loved it. Penn State's a special place and
you know, obviously an extremely large school, but the school
full of students that are passionate about sports. So there's
so many like minded individuals, whether they were actually athletes,
you know, on different teams, or they're just you know,
regular students attending Penn State. Everyone seemed to really enjoy
that you know, athletics community. So knowing that you know
(03:35):
you would go to you know, women's volleyball games, wrestling games,
soccer games, football games, whatever it was, you know, everybody
really appreciated, you know, what was going on at Penn State.
So it was just a really awesome place. A lot
of great people. You made a lot of friends, the
volleyball community especially. You know, Penn State was always we
were kind of known as you know the power school
outside of California when I was there. So obviously, you know,
(03:57):
California is such a strong Bedford you know, boys volleyball,
but Penn State we were good at recruiting just projectable
athletic kids that we could kind of hang and compete with,
you know, all those West Coast schools. So you know,
if I wasn't going to end up, I looked at
Pepper in Santa Barbara when I was in high school,
but staying closer to home was kind of the priority
for me so my parents could see me play more,
(04:18):
and Penn State just seemed like a perfect pit.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Well, I want to get into the whole volleyball East coast,
West coast, as you mentioned, California being a hotbed for that,
but Penn State we're talking a little Big ten. UCLA
and USC now in the Big Ten and traveling back
and forth and having to play them in volleyball now
here in twenty four, twenty five and moving forward now
they've got written in the Pac twelve and merged into
(04:43):
the Big Ten. What does that do for volleyball and
the Big Ten and adding these California West Coast schools.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
It's absolutely wild to me. I mean, I'm trying to
keep track of it. When I see Stanford's out there
playing like Louisville and Miami. How are they in the
same conference doesn't make any sense. I mean, selfishly, I'm
kind of excited about it because that means Penn State's
going to be traveling wes More. You know, you can
get to actually watch Penn State teams, whether it's volleyball,
(05:10):
whether it's football, whatever. You know, they're typically going to
play USC in UCLA now, So selfishly I'm happy about it.
I just can't imagine the logistical nightmares that especially these
smaller sports are feeling with, you know, constantly traveling around
the country. It's got to be a nightmare academically and
(05:30):
the things that they have to juggle and balance as
student athlete. It's nowadays, it's just it's really hard. So
as a fan and the spectator, I love its great,
But as imagining what the college student is going through
in a day to day basis, I'm imagining life's pretty
tough for them right now.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
When you got done playing collegiately and got done playing professionally,
you got into coaching and you end up at UCLAM.
Believe it was your first stop in your coaching career
as an assistant coach. Uh you had success there the Bruins.
I believe won a national championship in your time in Westwood.
What was it that you wanted to then get into
coaching right after playing and how did you end up
(06:07):
at UCLA?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
So when I basically how I got into coaching was
I was an IT consultant for a couple of years
out of college. I had an engineering background, so I
thought I was going to go in the business world
and I found I don't know, I sometimes like to
portray it as I felt like I was in an
office an episode of the Office where I was, you know,
I was Jim Helper, where everybody around me like thought
(06:31):
this was so serious this business world, and like it
was that was the mL for it, and me I
would look around, I'm like, why does everyone think this
is the most serious thing in the world of them?
I'm like, because I didn't feel that same passion for
you know, we were installing an SAP product and the
Comcast system, and I was like, this is weird. I mean,
I can do this work, but I don't mind it.
(06:51):
But I just it wasn't passionate about it, and I
wasn't seriously and I felt like I would giggle to
myself in meetings because this just wasn't for me. So
after I finished playing at Penn State, actually had reconstructed
knee surgery, so I couldn't play volleyball for two years.
So I kind of was forced out of it and
went into the business world. But kind of around two
thousand and eight time I actually got laid off in
(07:12):
that consulting gig because people weren't really hiring companies weren't
hiring consultants anymore. The economy was kind of going down.
So that's when I got back into volleyball. Played a
year in Portugal, which was super fun and great experience,
and then I came back and was getting married, and
I thought, you know, I don't know that I can
just keep sustaining living in Europe for half the year
for while I'm getting married. So, you know, I met
(07:34):
Joy Furbringer, who was running visit to Long Beach and
who also had just accepted an assistant job at UCLA
when I got back from playing, and she offered me
to come coach club. And the new head coach at
UCLA at the time was Mike Seely, who coached on
the men's side when I was playing, so he knew
of me. You know, I was kind of in between
do I try to get back into the consulting world
or the engineering world, or you know, what should I
(07:56):
try to do. So he offered me to come on
initially as a volunteer as system coach in twenty ten,
just to see if I enjoyed that coaching world. And
sure enough, spending that year at UCLA, you know, getting
into club volleyball and getting into coaching, it was awesome.
I felt like my analytics background of engineering, you know,
(08:17):
meshed with you know, the strategic side of game planning
and you know, how can we beat this team? What's happening?
How do I visually see and can impact this game
As a coach, that stuff was super rewarding and I
absolutely loved it. And then you know, developing relationships with
kids was awesome, and all that stuff was just it
was very satisfying to me. So after that first year
(08:37):
as of volunteer or one of our assistants left for
another job, and UH coach Sheli asked me if I
wanted to come on as a full time assistant at UCLA.
I was like, yeah, I like this is awesome, this
is something that I'm really enjoying doing. Yeah, you know,
it's something you can make a career with. And I
just felt like I found kind of what I was
supposed to be doing, and I kind of looked into it.
(09:00):
It was just something that kind of found me, and
I just I don't think when I was in college,
I was like, oh, I want to be a coach
so bad. When I'm never that was never what I
intended to do, but I kind of found me and
I absolutely love doing it still.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
So you went from Jim Halper looking around saying, what
am I doing here? I don't have passion for it,
to Dwight Shrewd, who absolutely loved selling paper at dunder
Mifflin on the office. In coaching volleyball as you started
doing since twenty thirteen, you've been at modern day. What
was the process of getting to modern day? And did
you think you'd be there this long coaching girls volleyball
(09:36):
and having the success that you've had there.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
You know, honestly, when I took the job here, there's
a big perk to it for me, which was, you know,
my wife's a southern California girl. For me, I could
probably live anywhere in the country and be happy knowing that,
you know, I grew up in the winter winters in Rochester,
New York to the beautiful southern California that there's not
really a place that I don't think think I would
(10:00):
be happy, but I know for her, staying in Southern
California's important. So modern day offered a chance to you know,
basically create a career where I could stay, you know,
have a career with coaching, because teaching was going to
be involved and be local and be able to stay
in Southern California and not this college world where it's like, hey,
you want to move up, you got to go take
(10:21):
a job at Wisconsin. Oh, the head coaching job at
Arkansas just open up. They pay really well, let's go
live in Arkansas now and try to work your way
up the coaching ladder where you're trying to start a family,
you're trying to raise kids, and you're doing that by
moving all around the country. So modern day offered that
opportunity where it was a career in coaching in Southern
California and I can still work with, you know, the
(10:41):
type of athletes that are super passionate about volleyball, where
they want to be great, you want to compete with
the best and do all of that which you get
in college, but you can't always find when you're coaching
high school because some high schools, you know, the kids
aren't going to be as serious or they're not as
passionate about volleyball as you would maybe you as a
coach are. But you know, being at modern day offered
a opportunity to work with the elite athletes while basically
(11:02):
starting a career locally.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
How good is the volleyball circuit, the volleyball scene in
particular in southern California because we you know, I got
three daughters, didn't play volleyball, but friends, co workers, daughters
were at momentous all the time on weekends, playing in tournaments,
going around doing the different tournaments around Vegas and Indianapolis
and all across the country. On club teams, the high
(11:26):
school programs. There are elites, a lot of them here
in southern California. As you mentioned at Penn State, you know,
you guys played West Coast teams and now the West
Coast teams in the Big Ten.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
This is the hotbed right for volleyball, men's and women's.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
So I will say the women's side has grown so
much in the last like ten to fifteen years. That
from an elite talent standpoint, it's everywhere. I mean, you're
getting elite kids from South Dakota coming in and being
the best setter in the entire NCAA right now, you know, Atlanta, Dallas, Icago,
(12:00):
all major cities women's volleyball is nationwide. It is absolutely
incredible how many kids are playing and how elite and
talented all these kids are. I would say Southern California
had their niche. Whereas if you were to look at
who's the tenth best club team in Southern California, They're
going to be way better than the tenth best club
(12:20):
team in any other area. Though, I think the depth
of talent you have in Southern California is remarkable. You
just see kids that you know, from the top team
to the thirtieth best team locally and just like a
sixteens age group, you're getting elite kids in future Division
one athletes across the board and all those teams. Whereas,
you know, these other major cities that have just as
e leite of top teams as we do, you know,
(12:42):
they don't have the depth that Southern California has. So
and still the hotbed in the sense that there's just
so many talented players out there, more so probably than
any other place in the country. But I wouldn't say
and women's world now it's it's pretty nationwide where you
know you're getting elite kids every whey where. Right now,
it's really.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
How did you get to that point? You think? Is
it just the growth of the sport?
Speaker 1 (13:04):
More kids now picking up volleyball, more girls, I should say,
picking up volleyball at a younger age, no matter whether
they're at being indoor doesn't matter. The whether I guess, well,
is it a combination of that? Why what do you
think the growth nationally?
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Then? I think volleyball it's a really fun sport for women.
I think it's a sport whereas if you look at
the top like men's sports, which are you know are
going to be a baseball, basketball, football? It's a sport
for women where you can be incredibly physical as an athlete,
when you can utilize your athlete a lot of sism
and be great. But you don't have the physicality of
(13:41):
a basketball where you're like you got in the box out,
you got to hit. I think some women aren't as
in Tune Dead whereas they want that you know, physicality,
whereas men, naturally, you know, they want to wrestle, they
want to tackle each other, they want to do all
that stuff. I mean, I have two girls with the
son at home. My son's always the one that, hey,
let's just go like rough House and fight to the
couch dad. Whereas girls are like they want to play,
(14:01):
they want to pretend they want to. They naturally are
doing different things. And I think volleyball is a sport
where athleticism truly shines, but at the same time, you
don't have to worry about you know, there's a net
separate you, separating you from the other team. You're not
trying to fight for a ball with someone else and
push and shove and you know, grab and all that stuff.
So volleyball kind of offers a really fun sport where
(14:23):
that physicality is great, but you get to avoid some
of the stuff that you know, the soccers or the
basketballs you know, tend to like you got to have
that little dog in you in those sports to really
be successful, whereas volleyball you can have that athleticism, but
you don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
You talk about the elite players spreading it out now nationally,
but here in southern California.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
How competitive is girls women's volleyball.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
It's so competitive, And I'm already dreading next season because
I look across the board at all the top teams
and it seems like every top team is returning all
their players next year. And I know that we're returning
a lot of players and we're gonna be really good.
But there's it's just so many good kids across so
many high schools that I think it's easy to look
at the success we've had and be like, oh, this
is really easy. Amount day just goes out there and
(15:09):
you know they win because they have the most talented teams,
and it's I can tell you from a coach, there's
not a match that we should go into that I'm
not stressed out about or nervous about or worried because
I know there are always other really talented kids on
the other side of the net that are going to
be trying to beat us. And there's just so many
talented kids here that you could never go into a
(15:29):
match against any team, even if you're the top ranked
team in the country, you're playing the twentieth best team
in Southern California. If you think for a second you
can take them for granted and that you're going to
go coast to a win, you won't because there's just
there's too many good bollyball players here. So knowing that
and having that stress constantly and making sure you know,
our team's always prepared and ready to go. It's just
(15:50):
it's important because, like we've talked about, you know, Southern
California is just it's a hotbed. There's so many good teams.
Everyone will always say, you know, and for us, even
winning CIA is always our goal. Winning a state championship.
We don't go into these years like, hey, we're going
to go try to win state this year. Winning CIF,
knowing how deep and talented it is, is always the
primary goal for us, because if you can win the
(16:12):
hardest division in the country, you know, that's a true
accomplishment right there. And then if you can win and
stay that's great. But winning CIF is always, you know,
our primary goal that we enter every single year.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I want to divert a little bit from high school
girls volleyball to the club volleyball circuit. Maybe for some
parents coaches out there that are getting started in the sport,
and I want to listen to you because you've you
got the knowledge and the experience at the high school
and the collegiate level and the success you've had. How
important is it to get into club volleyball for a
(16:45):
young girl looking to get into the sport.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
I think it's very important. I think that volleyball, I mean,
like any sport, repetition is super important. You know, they
talk about, you know, if you want to master a
skill type a thousand hours at that skill. So, however,
you can play a sport and get as many reps
as possible, that's incredibly important. So is club volleyball the
must if you can do that. I mean, there's not
really much other structure where you can get those ten
(17:09):
thousand hours. I mean, if you have a group of
friends and you can go to a beach and you
can play every day and you can do that for free,
that's great. Go do that every day. You'll get your reps. However,
you can get your reps, but at the end of
the day, club is going to offer you a structured
environment where you have a coach who's teaching your technique,
who's trying to fix different things about what you're doing
to improve your skill while also getting that, you know,
striving towards those ten thousand hours of mastery to get
(17:32):
towards the skill. So if you want to get really good,
I would say club is going to be something that
you're going to have to consider and do in order
to kind of help reach your volleyball goals. And then
from there, you know, how tall are you going to be,
how athletic are you, how naturally is your hand eye coordination?
You know, all those other factors that determine how good
it kid gets are important, But you know, getting that
(17:53):
repetition however you can get is the number one goal there.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
I'm curious in other sports, I'll use baseball and football
and basketball as examples with AAU and summer baseball, travel ball,
and in football. Seven on seven. Now we're hearing from
college coaches and high school coaches. Okay, you know we
are focusing on that. Maybe the high school team isn't
the priority, especially in basketball. Well, what AAU team are
(18:17):
you on? How are you competitive with those elite kids
in your grade at a national level as opposed to
how you're doing in your local high school team or
playing here in Southern California and the cif And not
to take away from anything from the high school athletics,
but it seems like in recruiting maybe there is that
being taken away in some sports.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
What is it in volleyball?
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Is there more in recruiting emphasis on club sports and
how you do there as to okay, how they're doing
in high school and how they're helping their high school
team or is it a blend.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
How has that affected the high school volleyball scene?
Speaker 3 (18:50):
You know, I would say it's very similar to basketball.
I would say recruiting primary is through club volleyball. So
I'm not going to sit here and say, hey, coming
to out day. You know it's gonna you know, all
these college because are coming to our practices. You know,
it's not like that. I think, you know, the perk
of high school or at least being at the elite
high schools, like you know, Training League schools or some
of the Mira Costa Ordondo, Marymounts, some of the LA schools,
(19:14):
is it gives you an extra three months where you're
competing against other top kids in practice, in games, you're
fighting for spots, and then at the same time the
high school is preparing you better for college because you
know you're going to play one best of five match
against the team to see who wins, which is exactly
what happens in college. You're training, you're scouting, you're doing
all that stuff for that one match to go execute
(19:34):
to try to win that, which is exactly what's happening
in college. So are you going to get recruited based
on how you're doing that? Not necessarily it's helpful, but
you're going to probably improve more during the high school season.
If you're ating elite high school, then you would if
you were at a high school where you were playing
with ten girls who didn't really care about volleyball the
same way you did, and they're not going to train
(19:56):
you the same way, and you're going to face kids
that you know, if you or hit or your blockers
or defenders aren't going to be as good or stopping you,
so you're not going to learn as much. So I'd
say the kids that are playing with those elite high
schools been that three to four month high school season
improving more than the kids that you know are just
going to their local schools that you know maybe don't
care as much about volleyball. So from that aspect, it's
(20:18):
helpful to you know, get better, you know, to get
used to what a a college season's like through scouting,
through best of five matches and playoff games like that.
Versus club works like, Okay, you show up at eight am,
You're playing four matches today in best of three scenarios.
It's like, that's nothing like you're going to see in college.
But again, that's what college coaches are going to base
(20:39):
their recruiting off of, on how they see you do that.
So recruiting definitely comes from club more. I would say
high school, if you're winning and you're getting awards and
you're showcasing that, that's a good resume builder as part
of your resume for colleges to see. But certainly club
is definitely going to be the recruiting hotbed for the kids.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I appreciate that's the great answer.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
I think very informative for parents and coaches out there
listening and you know that want to know about the
high school versus club and do I do one of
the other?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Do I do both?
Speaker 1 (21:11):
How much emphasis do I put on club versus my
high school? And I think you hit it on the
head there as far as what the balance is for both.
Dan O'Dell is our guest here on the Matches and
Coaching podcast, here on iHeartRadio and wherever you may be
listening on YouTube as well.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Your coaching style, your philosophy. You mentioned your mom was
a coach. You've been at around a lot of great
coaches yourself. Do you find yourself taking a little bit
from everybody that you've learned for and gleaned off a
little bit in your coaching style? And now thirteen years
of modern day, have you established kind of your foundation
your culture and how you want to be a head
(21:47):
coach or are you still looking at and always growing now?
Speaker 3 (21:50):
I mean, I think at the end of the day,
you got to be yourself. I think you know, were
coaches out there, if they're trying to mimic you know, hey,
I see that coach. I want to be just like
that person. I don't know if that's going to work
unless your personality is in tune to that. So you've
got to be yourself. You got to have structure. I
think as long as you're you know, the kids know
(22:11):
you're invested. You know that they're going to hold them
accountable and responsible, especially girls. You know, they're very disciplined
by nature, and if you let things get a little
bit too loose or you let them off the hook
too much, you know, they don't actually want that. They
would rather have that structure, they would rather have that discipline.
So making sure you know you have that stuff under
you're under control is important. And then from there, you know,
(22:32):
your personality is going to be what is going to
drive your your culture and stuff. So for me, like
I have some simple models, like you know, work smarter,
not harder, which is funny because I think a lot
of you know, everyone's like, we want to be the
hardest working team in America. You know, we're going to
outwork everybody. But volleyball is not really a sport where
(22:52):
it's like, hey, how fast can you run and all
that stuff. Volleyball is a sport where you know, in
the best of five match, we're working hard enough that
you're going to be able to sustain your energy for
a five setter. But at the end of the day,
you know, to me, the smartest teams are the teams
that are going to have success. So understanding the game
at the highest level and knowing how to win and
knowing how to you know, read defenses, read setters and
(23:14):
all that stuff. It's going to be what separates a
team in a certain match. So you know, my girls
will run in practice, will work hard, we'll lift weights,
and we'll do all that stuff. But I'm not the
coach that's going to grind them to a pulp where
it's like we're doing tons of sprint sebter practice and
we're having three hour practices and the girls are just
dead tired at the end. Because my goal is to
(23:35):
be the smartest team. My goal is not to be
the team that you know is the most conditioned team,
because I don't think volleyball you need to have the
most conditioned team to have success. And then personality wise,
I think I try to balance making sure practices and
that stuff is very fun. And as long as when
the balls in play, you're serious and you're working hard
(23:56):
for that moment in between realities and that stuff, we
can we can have a good time. You could enjoy
this process because you've got to have a passion for
the sport. And I think coaches that sometimes are too serious,
or you know, they are those grinding coaches, or they're
too tough on the kids. You know, kids will lose interest,
they'll lose passion in the sport because they're always saying, hey,
I'm just not having fun playing it anymore. So making
(24:19):
sure I'm balancing that, you know, I don't want things
to get out of control where you know, when we're playing,
we're getting sloppy and that stuff. But also, hey, let's
laugh about this. That was pretty funny play that just happened.
That was a good time. And then as soon as
that serve goes in or the drill starts whatever, you know,
we're gonna work hard and pay attention and be dialed
in for that moment, and then we can go back
(24:40):
to being loose in between, and then we kind of
go back and forth and teetering that. I think girls
have found that it's a really enjoyable environment to be
in that where they're you know, they're enjoying practice, they're
having fun, they're learning, they're getting a lot better, but
they're also not so stressed out for two hours like,
oh my gosh, is he gonna yell at us today?
Is he going to make a run for this? As
(25:00):
you can do that, and they have that added stress
in their life. So I'm probably described as more of
a players coach, where you know they enjoy it, they
have fun. They know there's a line not to cross it,
because I can get mad if they are not taking
things too seriously. But at the same time, you know
they understand that line and know how to balance it correctly,
(25:23):
and so we do a good job at you know,
getting our work done while also you know, having a
fun environment in the practice gym.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
I hope this doesn't come off as a stupid question.
But in the baseball world, football world now even more,
and I don't know much of the basketball world because
it's basketball.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
But analytics. How much is analytics used in volleyball? And
can it be used in volleyball?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
It's used, I would say, I mean every level you
go up, it's going to get used at a higher
level than it is at the lower level. So I mean,
if you're looking at the Olympic team level, it's incredibly analytical.
Colleges are approaching that level. High schools not as much.
I would say, there's a lot of scouting and stuff
and analytics that you're using. As far as like tendencies,
(26:09):
you know what zones are, team's weekend where kids hitting,
how can you shift defenses to line up correctly to
limit their what the other team's doing. So it's definitely
definitely going up, and there's obviously more software that's coming
out that allows coaches to help that. So I mean
I'm a little bit more old fashioned with my paper
and pencil when I'm scouting, I'm I'm kind of doing
(26:31):
it visually and manually, whereas I'm sure there's softwares now
that i can just you know, split that out where hey,
this hitter hit the ball seventy five percent of the time,
she's swinging this way twenty five percent over on this side,
and so you can there's definitely software that's doing that.
I'm more of a visual guy because when I'm scouting
and seeing that and getting my own analytics for that
(26:51):
way in the game situation, and I'm seeing that team
live and then watching them do it now live, you know,
I can very quickly be like, hey, I've seen her
do this, I know what it looks like like. And
a lot of kids you can kind of witness how
they swing, and it's it's kind of easier to read
when you've seen it done over and over through scouting
versus just getting something to hand out, like hey, this
girl hits it over here a lot or stuff like that.
(27:12):
So yeah, it's definitely used, and I'm sure at the
highest levels there's tons of analytics as far as like, hey,
in this rotation the pass goes here, there's like a
sixty seven percent chance that's going here. You know, twenty
percent chance here, and like thirty percent there. If the
pass is over five feet this way and all of
a sudden shifts towards the setter tendency, it gets too deep.
(27:32):
But yeah, it's definitely used at the highest levels. And
the tougher part for me, I find is you don't want,
you know, analysis by paralysis for these kids. So you
want them to be comfortable. You don't want them to overthink, like,
oh my gosh, there's going to be like if I'm hitting,
I'm gonna have this blocker right here, and like you
want them to play naturally and smooth and go through that.
So trying to keep it somewhat simple, it's like, hey,
(27:55):
if they set this girl, just go stand here and
we'll kind of keep it. Don't ask me why you're
going to stand there, trust me, go there, and you'll
likely be in a position to get the ball. Sometimes
it's as simple as that. But yes, you don't want
to overdo it. I think with the professional athletes you
can sure because their minds are in tuned enough to
realize that. But the high school kids, you know, give
(28:16):
them just enough information to help them, but also make
sure they're comfortable on the court.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Having three girls on my own that went through high
school or in high school, now, the last thing you
want to do is tell them too much and they're
sitting there and think, Okay, the ball goes here, how
much okay, percentages, okay, sixty percent over here, You're just
going to confuse everybody and then you're going to be
a mess out there for sure.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Yeah, too much is too much. So you know, only
that line is important coaching.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
You get into the business world and you're back coaching again,
but you decide to get your masters in coaching from
Concordia University Irvine. Talk about when you decided to pursue
that master's program, how the experience was for you, and
why was it important for you to get that master's degree.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
So, I mean one getting is important. I think you know,
education is very important, So making sure that, you know,
if you're going to do something, especially make a career
out of it, you know, figuring out education wise, how
you can get the most out of that was very
important for me. I decided when I was at UCLA
and I was a volunteer assistant transitioning to become a
full time assistant. There, I saw a future in coaching
(29:24):
for myself. So as soon as I saw a future
and coaching for myself, I thought, Okay, if this is
what I want to do with my life, how can
I improve myself myself as a coach and become a
better coach? And what type of programs could I look
into or do, And so that's what led me to, Okay,
maybe I can see if there's master's programs specifically in coaching,
and so of course you know, google searches and stuff
(29:45):
like that. I think I saw like a Long Beach
State had a sports I guess sports management one, and
then obviously the you know, Concordia Masters in Coaching Athletic
Administration was right there and it was an online program,
which obviously for me, I knowing I could go into
person was going to be incredibly important. But at the
same time I was like it's kind of close by,
it's not too far. So seeing that as a perfect
(30:07):
fit and knowing that, hey, you know, if I want
to do coaching and I'm going to take this seriously,
making sure I get an education in that area is
something that I'm going to really focus on. So that's
what kind of led me to Concordia, and that's what
kind of led me through that program. As far as
what the program did to me, you just offered clarity
of kind of things I should be looking for as
(30:28):
a coach and things that are very important to me
and making sure I'm aware of I think, you know,
growing up, you know, we kind of grew up in
that era where it's like, oh, the Bobby Knights of
the world. You know, those angry disciplinarian coaches. You know,
they exist, and they some of them still exist today.
They're obviously, you know, not as frequent as they used
to be, but you know, learning that there's ways to
be success without being like that, I thought was like,
(30:49):
I think that was one of the very first classes
I had, you know, coaching positively and like successful coaching
with that stuff was very eye opening to be like, Okay,
so because my personality if you haven't lean this yet,
is like I'm not a super like I'm gonna yell
and scream and forced kids to do stuff. You know,
I'm going to make sure you know, I'm going to
coach kids the way if I was an athlete, I
would want to be coach. So realizing like, hey, I
(31:12):
can have my personality, I can be positive, I can
be fine. I can create an environment like that and
still have success with a very good eye opening things.
So I think, you know, that program really just brought
clarity to me as far as you know, as a coach,
how do I want to do this? What do I
want to do? And offer just structure for running a program.
(31:32):
I'm going to set at rutles, I'm going to expectations,
I'm going to do all this stuff that you need
to do to be a successful coach. And it just
really you know, narrowed my focus as far as like, Okay,
this is how I'm going to do this. The program
gave me clarity on that path and allowing me to,
you know, go be a successful coach because.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Of that one thing.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
We kind of hear a lot, and it's funny to hear,
whether it's a volleyball coach, baseball coach, basketball coach, football coach,
and an athletic director. They all go in, Okay, I'm specialized.
I'm a coach of this sport. And when they go
through the program, maybe a couple of classes in, they
find out, Wow, me and the baseball coach have a
lot in common. I can actually learn a little bit
and take a little bit what he's going through. And
(32:10):
we're learning from one another. Even though our sports are different,
We're all here for the same kind of goal of coaching.
And it's interesting. They all leave the program thinking, I'm
glad I did that because I didn't think I'd have
anything common with the wrestling coach or the baseball coach
or the basketball coach, and they do.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
I one hundred percent agree. I think. I mean, obviously,
you're going to make teams better by your knowledge of
the sport, but as far as the structure, as far
as pully accountable, as far as just as a coach
being a role model for student athletes and helping mentor
them through life, and you know, setting an example for
you know how I am as an adult. I hope
they can strive their being like kind of similar to
(32:47):
that all those things from truth through all sports. It's
not there's nothing sport related about any different sport that's
going to tell you, Hey, to be a good volleyball coach,
you have to be like this, but it'd be a
good baseball coach, you got to go to this path.
It's really just you know, you're being a good person.
You're leading by example. You're setting them an example of
how you hold yourself, data and out. You know, am
(33:08):
I going to be like am I telling them one
thing and then going doing another thing? Do I have integrity?
Am I being honest? Am I exhibiting those things in
life to them as an adult so that they can
understand that, Okay, he is doing the things that he
wants me to be. He's going and doing them to
himself as well. So and that stuff just rings truth
through all sports. It's like, as a coach, you need
(33:30):
to be a mentor, you need to be honest, you
need to have integrity, you need to have character, you
need to do all those things, whatever sport you're coaching
and setting that example for those kids, and it's great.
I think that's yeah. The MCAA program was great in
the sense that everybody was doing different things, but we
were all in line and as far as what do
we wanted to be as a coach, So it was
just really cool environment. I really appreciated it.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Well, Dan, we appreciate the time. Continue success at Modern Day.
You've built it and continued a great program there.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
I know I learn a lot.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
I know our list listeners and viewers have learned a lot,
and hopefully parents out there find out a little bit
more about the recruiting process and what they need to
do for their young daughter or son entering the world
of athletics and high school and certainly volleyball. We really
appreciate the time and listening to you and hearing your
story and can again continue success in Modern Day and
beyond in your coaching career.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
Thank you so much, awesome, thank you so much for
having me. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Well there he goes Dan O'Dell, head coach of the
girls volleyball program at Modern Day High School here in
southern California. Two state championships ten of eleven years, going
to the CIF finals. He has built a powerhouse girls
volleyball program at Modern Day High School here in southern California.
One of the elite programs not only here but across
(34:45):
the country, and he was so great in talking about
the recruiting.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Process and the differences between.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
High school volleyball and club volleyball and the blending between
the two and the importance of both in a young
student athlete's career as they look to get a college
scholarsh and beyond.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
So thank you to Coach.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
For his time, his expertise, his knowledge, and great to
hear his story on getting into coaching after getting into
the private sector and working and just not having that
love for what he was doing in a job and
getting back into volleyball and coaching in particular, and he
has turned into one of the best in the country.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
So thanks to Coach. Thanks to you for listening and watching.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Episode seventy four of the Masters in Coaching podcast is
now in the books. Until next time, stay safe, so
long everybody,
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