April 25, 2025 • 55 mins
🎧 “I See My Job as a Calling”
In this episode of the Significant Coaching Podcast, host Matt Rogers sits down with Becky Schmidt, the longtime head volleyball coach at Hope College and one of the most respected leaders in Division III athletics.
Coach Schmidt opens up about her deep-rooted belief that coaching is more than a job — it’s a calling. With over 500 wins at Hope, a national championship, and a consistent presence in the NCAA Tournament, she shares what really drives her: helping young women grow into confident, connected, and competitive people.
🔸 Why "When you win, recruit. When you lose, recruit" is her steady recruiting philosophy
🔸 How friendships, not just wins, define the college athlete experience
🔸 Why enthusiasm trumps control — and why she’s proud not to be a micromanager
🔸 The powerful impact of simply not getting in their way
If you're a coach, parent, or athlete who believes sports should be transformational, not just transactional, this episode is for you.
🎓 Learn more, read the blog, and get Significant Recruiting at coachmattrogers.com
Learn more and connect with Matt Rogers here: https://linktr.ee/coachmattrogers
Listen on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, iHeartRadio, and all your favorite podcast platforms.
Did you like what you heard and want more?
New Podcasts every week. Remember to subscribe and follow wherever you get your podcasts.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
Hey everyone.
Welcome back to another episodeof The Significant Coaching
Podcast, the show where we divedeep into the minds of
extraordinary coaches anduncover what makes their
programs and leadership trulysignificant.
I'm your host, Matt Rogers.
Today's guest.
As someone whose legacystretches far beyond wins and
losses, I'm thrilled to welcomeBecky Schmidt, head volleyball
(00:32):
coach at Hope College inMichigan, A national champion, a
relentless builder of cultureand a leader who sees coaching
not as a job.
But as a calling in thisconversation, coach Schmidt
shares wisdom shaped by over twodecades of competitive success
and holistic athletedevelopment.
We talk about recruiting throughwins and losses, the beauty of
(00:55):
unexpected friendships and howthe best coaches know when to
step aside and just not get intheir athlete's way.
She's enthusiastic, she'spurpose driven, and she's not a
micromanager.
And after listening, you'llunderstand exactly why her
players love playing for her.
Now, before we dive in, just aquick reminder, everything you
(01:17):
need about college recruiting,college athletics.
You canlook@coachmattrogers.com.
You can grab a copy of my book,significant Recruiting, read my
weekly blog posts.
Book a recruiting strategysession, or you can invite me to
speak at your schoolorganization.
Make sure to subscribe, follow,like, rate, and leave a comment.
(01:38):
It helps more families andcoaches discover these important
conversations.
Hey, let's get into it.
Here's my conversation withCoach Becky Schmidt.
Coach Schmit, thank you so muchfor being on.
It's just an honor to talk toyou.
You've had such a great career,and it's been so fun following
you and the women in yourprogram and all the great things
(01:59):
you've done.
But in retrospect, now thatyou're six, seven months away,
how are you feeling about yourseason?
I was, just reflecting on this,on the drive in this morning
and, wanted to reach out to myteam through our group chat and
just say, remind them how trulyproud I am, not just of what
(02:19):
they're accomplishing on thecourt, but of who they are as
people, and, I get theopportunity to work with amazing
student athletes that, reallycare about the world and making
it a better place.
And volleyball's just a small,piece of that journey.
But we're certainly, workinghard to make sure that the
volleyball, piece is strong.
And there's a lot of things thatare learned through that process
(02:42):
that I think are gonna bemeaningful for them.
love the way that our kidsrepresent our program.
We think we play with a lot ofjoy.
one of the phrases we use a lotis inspire hope.
And that's something that wewanna be able to do in other
people with the way that we playand represent ourselves.
I'm very proud of them.
your team is so fun to watch.
I love watching a play and Itell kids all the time, I work
with recruits and I'll take avolleyball player, and they go,
(03:03):
I think I wanna play D two or Done.
I go have you watched HopeCollege Play?
Have you watched Juta?
Have you watched the WisconsinSchools?
And they go, no, where can Iwatch them?
I go, They're online You canwatch all their games.
just watch a game.
Tell me what you think.
Watch a set and let me know whatyou think.
And they're always amazed at howathletic your group is and how
(03:23):
fast they play and how powerfulthey play and how they cheer for
each other.
So it's just, it's a greattestament to what D three
volleyball is, what you guys do.
So it's impressive.
I think that D three volleyballhas never been better.
And it is, there's a lot ofreally good teams who are
playing very high levelvolleyball, doing complicated
(03:44):
things because they've got thestudent athletes that are able
to do them, absolutely.
volleyball as a sport isimproving in this country.
There's more parody in divisionone, at least across the power
for, than there ever has been.
and I'm really excited about.
Ways that Division III canreally stand and create a story
of its own Like I'm a proud alumof Hope and of D three
(04:06):
volleyball, I've had plenty ofchances to coach in division
one.
at the end of the day, theexperience of what it means to
be a D three player is the thingthat really aligns with what I
want for my student athletes.
And this is where I am, bestserved.
and love it.
You must have been reading mymind.
'cause that was my nextquestion.
You've been leading hope for twodecades and you were a standout
(04:27):
player there.
What does it mean to you to leadthat program?
I think anybody that's a coachknows that, there's a lot, to
this job that, makes it feel waymore like a calling than an
occupation.
when you feel called, not justto the opportunity that you have
(04:48):
to impact young students' lives,but to the place like you're
called to the mission of aninstitution and you're called to
the work that you and yourcolleagues get to do in large
part because, other people atthat institution did the same
thing for you when you were,growing up in those four very
transformative years.
(05:09):
it just makes so much sense, I'mlucky and thankful, that I get
the opportunity to make a fineliving, doing something that I
love at a place that I love somuch.
this is very much a dream gig.
I'm asking you questions thatyou really have already but I'm
gonna keep asking'em'cause it's,for me, it's really profound.
You've won 500 matches, you'vetaken home a national title.
(05:33):
I'm assuming you've got 25 plusyears still in you.
You're probably gonna breakevery record there is.
What are you most proud of?
I think that the things that I'mmost proud of, are the women
that our student athletes arebecoming, and, the ways that
they go out and lead lives ofmeaning.
we've got alums who are doctors.
(05:54):
We've got alums who are, workingin Washington, dc We've got
alums that have gotten theirPhDs, that are, doing really
impressive work.
We've got a lot of alums who areteachers, and we've got a lot of
alums who are social workers andphysical therapists, holding
these jobs, but what isdistinctive about'em, I think,
(06:15):
is that they are leading livesof meaning.
A lot of them find ways to giveback and to coach, no matter
whether or not they're a teacherin a school district or not.
A lot of them have families thatare incredible and are doing an
amazing job as parents.
I'm just so proud of the type ofwomen that they are, versus, any
(06:36):
win or, accomplishment that isgonna be valued, by.
The outside world in that way.
Yeah.
And again, it's not that wedon't want those things, right?
we're pursuing them because thepursuit is what brings, the
things that end up helping usfigure out what is really
meaningful in life, after all.
(06:56):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you're good at it too.
I have a, I have two young kids.
My daughter's a club volleyballplayer.
I think she's gonna end up beinga golfer in college.
I have a 12-year-old son who Istopped coaching at the college
level the year he was born.
So he never was in the gym withme.
So he never really got thatathletics bug, but he's smart as
(07:16):
a whip.
He's my computer whiz.
And really great at math.
We're making him choose a sportevery year.
And it's hard for him'cause hedoesn't see himself as an
athlete.
So he chose track this year andhis first track meet.
We saw the glimpse in his eye.
Boy, that was fun.
That was fun doing a relay withmy teammates.
You have written on sportspsychology, you've written on
(07:39):
the role of competition.
You talk about what your girlsare becoming and your women are
becoming in the world.
How important do you see it asfamilies take that initiative to
really encourage their kids tobe a part of a team as at, as
young as age, as capable aspossible?
Is that important to you?
(08:00):
Yeah, I think exposing yourchildren to a lot of different
types of opportunities to learnand to grow, People who could be
important people in their lives,their like friends.
you never know where your bestfriend is gonna come from unless
you're exposed to people thatyou have the chance to develop a
(08:20):
further relationship with.
And the same could be said for alocal rec league coach.
I was just having a conversationwith our retired baseball coach,
who, said that every year in thelittle league draft, they would
draft the kid that sometimesstruggled, like he was sometimes
the last one picked he wasalways on Coach Fritz's team.
(08:41):
and Coach Fritz still sees thisguy in Target the kid will say
Hey coach, so excited to seehim.
love putting opportunities infront of children to be able to
be exposed to powerful lessonsand people and, I think
sometimes kids need to beencouraged in that, and it's not
to say that they have tocontinue to do these types of
(09:03):
things.
I'm very careful about notpushing, sports as the thing for
our son, to get involved in.
But wanna make sure that he'sdoing'em or not doing them for
the right reasons.
And I try to be really carefulabout not going to practices.
go to games, but I'm not gonnasit there and watch practice
because practice is yours.
(09:24):
This is your thing, not thankyou.
I needed that for my daughter.
She always wants me to watch.
Yeah.
This is yours.
Go do it.
I'll cheer for you every day.
So I love that you said that,coach.
And it's hard because they ask,and yeah.
They want you there and youwanna support'em.
But sometimes you can support'embest by not being there.
And giving them that space to,to grow as well as the fact that
(09:48):
the last thing that any coachneeds is me.
Up in the stands, evaluatingevery second of a practice
because that is what I'm doing.
Exactly.
You can't help yourself.
You can't help it.
I can't imagine being a youthcoach coaching volleyball and
Becky Schmidt sitting in the gymand, I would be looking up at
you all the time going, Becky,is that all right?
So I totally appreciate that.
I tell her this after games, Igo, you played great.
(10:11):
I'm happy to give you somethoughts tomorrow, but we're not
gonna do, we're not gonna dothat today.
Yep.
I love that approach.
Can we talk about assistantcoaches?
Sure.
You have had a few over theyears.
And I would imagine you didn'thave a full-time assistant early
on.
Correct?
Nope.
(10:31):
How is it for you choosing anassistant and going through that
process, and what is yourmindset when you're adding
somebody that you need to be amaster teacher, a recruiter, a
representative of your program,a representative of you?
What is your mindset when you'rehiring and looking for that new
person?
(10:52):
And I would imagine now you'regetting the point where you got
some girls that want to comeback.
Some of your players wanna comeback and coach, but for me, that
was always hard.
I think I had one year where Icould pay more than like$2,000
for an assistant.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then what were they gonnahave to do in order to
supplement their income?
for probably, 15 years, we had acouple$3,000, put, positions,
(11:18):
coaches And then about fiveyears ago, we were able to do a
little bit a stipend coach withsome housing and meals and that
kind of thing, like a little bitmore of a, what we call a
coaching intern, right?
Where it's like a really good itintro job after you graduate to
see if coaching is the futurethat you wanna pursue.
(11:39):
the promise that I kinda make tothem is I'm gonna set you up for
the next best opportunity,right?
Whether or not that's headcoaching, whether or not that
is, being an assistant coach atanother level or something like
that.
What I wanna do is make surethat this experience sets you up
for the next step that you wannago in.
some have gone into headcoaching or some have gone back
(12:00):
into a club situation and somehave just decided coaching was
not what they wanted to do,that's the idea behind that
position.
I think when we look for a newperson in that role.
I tend to go through my ownpersonal networks first.
Because I also think like I'mfairly unique.
Like I'm not like your typicaltype of coach in some of the
(12:22):
things that I value.
And, the things that are,important to us team vibe is a
little bit different than a lotof other places.
And so what I want, ourassistants to have a good
understanding of is like thetype of situation that they'd be
walking into.
And the people that know thatbest are the people that know me
best, and so I tend to gothrough those, folks rather than
(12:45):
public posting collectingresumes and like that kinda
stuff My network the first groupthat I am, confident going to
because they know what we're allabout.
They know what I'm all about andthe kinda thing that would be a
good fit for folks.
I think One of the things that Iput in, my intro letter is you
can't be too cool for school.
You can't come into this programthinking that you're all, not
(13:07):
willing to get embarrassed alittle bit.
not like in a demeaning way,we're gonna have fun, and we're
going to do some kind of wackythings, and we're gonna try some
things and they're gonna failmiserably, and we're gonna try
weird, wacky things again.
It's not gonna stop us from whatwe're doing.
thankfully I've had someassistant coaches that have
really embraced that and havecome along, in that journey.
(13:30):
I think one of the great thingstoo, like Carrie La Hockey was
the National Assistant Coach ofthe year last year.
She's been my assistant coachfor seven years, but last year
there was a full-time positionwithin our department be a
faculty member and, lead our PEprogram, physical Education and
health, education program.
She ended up getting that job,so now she's around full-time.
(13:51):
I've got this coaching intern.
I feel very supported, and ourstudent athletes feel supported
because they've got people thatthey can come to.
I hope every president in thecountry's listening to this, how
important it is to support yourstaff and your athletes with not
just a great head coach, butwith an assistant that can do
all those little things andbuild relationships and what
that leads to.
(14:12):
Not much more than just wins,but what that leads to long term
for your health and the healthof the women in your program.
Great advice.
I'm gonna stay with this forjust a sec'cause this is, I
think this is really valuablefor a lot of head coaches to
hear from you about how youattack this.
So you've gone through yoursystem, you found a couple
people through the people youknow that said, Hey, I recommend
(14:33):
this person.
What are some of those initialquestions you ask those
applicants to find out if theycan coach with you?
I'm sure, really quickly the redflags of this isn't gonna work.
What are some of those thingsyou ask or how you ask them?
I think, I don't think I've gotlike a set list, of questions.
(14:55):
I think that I am a prettycurious person, so I like to ask
a lot of follow ups, Like, whensomebody will say something, I'm
like, wow, tell me a little bitmore about that.
I think that there's value ingetting those folks outside of a
typical interview environment.
one of the things that we didwith one of our assistant
coaches when she wasinterviewing was we took her to
(15:16):
a golf simulator place.
it was a good way show some loveto my volunteer assistants Let's
go go golfing.
you see react to failure.
You see how they, embrace tryingto do something a little bit
different.
It's hard.
Yeah.
I think that it's reallyimportant to put people in front
of your student athletes.
Yep.
And to see if there's a goodvibe.
And I'm not asking for anythingmore than that.
(15:37):
I'm like, what's the vibe?
Like she's not gonna be able tosay anything in the, hour that
you guys are having lunchtogether that is going to tell
you whether or not she's got thevolleyball knowledge to be able
to do this.
Or if she puts together goodscouting reports, but we can
teach people how to do all ofthat kinda stuff, right?
The volleyball knowledge thingis a nice thing to have, but
(15:59):
really what I care about thereis are you a student of the
game?
are you curious about it?
Are you wanting to learn more?
Are you asking reallyinteresting questions?
so you might say something whatkinds of questions do you think
a scouting report should answer?
When you're trying to figure outwhether or not a player is the
right fit for you, what kinds ofquestions would you need answers
to, and trying to figure outhow, curious they are about some
(16:21):
of those things.
And then all of that to saysometimes people aren't gonna
have great things to say.
and you are like, okay, you'restill the best fit for what
we're doing.
expect you to grow through thisexperience.
I love that the Socratic methodis a huge part of your approach
to coaching, leading, growingyour family.
(16:41):
I find that, I talk to so manygreat coaches and hall of Famers
like you, that it always comesback to that.
I'm not gonna give the answer,but I'm gonna lead you a little
bit and see where you want totake the answer.
And I wanna find out, can youadapt?
are you somebody that we cantrust and you're gonna love what
we're doing as much as we do.
So it's a great approach.
I really I'm gonna steal thatfrom you.
(17:03):
Talk a little bit about scoutingreports since you brought it up.
How intense is that?
I'm talking to division oneassistants on basketball and
volleyball, and I'm just, myhead's exploding and the time
that they're putting in,preparing for the next match, I
put a lot of time in, I watch alot of film, but what they're
(17:24):
doing at that division one leveland the time they have and the
salaries and the staff they haveis just amazing to me.
What are you able to do and areyou trying to accomplish going
into a game and preparing yourteam for it?
Yeah, that's a really goodquestion and something that
like, I still don't think thatwe've dialed in, at the right
(17:44):
level.
One of the things that I dobelieve, is that the more that
my players are thinking duringbig games, the less likely they
are to respond instinct and touse their, God-given skills to
the best of their ability.
I say to myself all the time ismake sure you don't get in their
way, right?
Yeah.
(18:05):
so people will say, at the endof the season, what are you
trying to do right now?
And I'm like, I'm just trying tostay outta their way.
I think one of the ways that weget in their way sometimes is by
giving them so much informationthat they, are overloaded with
thoughts versus just playing oninstinct.
volleyball is a game ofreactions, right?
(18:25):
it's not, you don't get a wholelot of time to really say okay,
I'm gonna set this up, and takethe time here, one of the things
that we want our players to dois be able to make really fast
decisions and giving them a lotof different options doesn't
tend to do that.
So we try to help themunderstand a little bit about,
(18:46):
the team that they're gonnaface, like the style that the
match is gonna be, and so thatthey're not going into something
the comfort of the game is takenaway from them because the
opponent is all of a suddendoing something that we're not
ready for.
So if a team is gonna playreally fast, like it has a
(19:07):
really fast offense, my teamneeds to know that, and we're
gonna certainly train it inpractice, so that they are
prepared for the feeling of whatthat looks like.
But, I don't need them thinkingabout it a whole lot.
So we'll do a lot of things inpractice that we'll have
scouting report written all overit, but we'll not be on what our
(19:29):
kids are getting in a piece ofpaper or something like that.
So you want them to be the bestversion of themselves, and if
they're the best version ofthemselves, you're gonna be hard
to beat no matter who's on theother side of the net.
I'll give somebody my playbook.
They still have to learn it atour speed, the way we're
teaching it, and be able to playat whatever that physicality is
or whatever that pace is.
(19:49):
So I love that.
It really comes down to findingthat balance between instinct
and preparation.
volleyball isn't thatcomplicated of a game.
there's probably five or sixoffensive plays that give teams
trouble.
so during the course of ourentire season, we are gonna work
on defending all of those.
and we're gonna understand wherewe're vulnerable and we're gonna
(20:11):
overtrain some of thoseweaknesses, and so then we get
into a game and we're gonna say,Hey it's gonna be a fast
offense, or it's gonna be amiddle driven offense, so we're
gonna have to do more committinghere.
That means like pins, you guysare diving in trying to close
seams and that kind of thing,know what the adjustments are.
It's like team dependent alittle bit, but like by and
(20:33):
large, we're doing our thing andyeah.
And responding as the matchcontinues.
I would imagine 90% of it's justgoes back to just being, we're
gonna be really good at ourdefense of the net.
We're gonna be really great atserve, receive, we're gonna be
really good at getting the ballto our setter where they can do
something with it.
Yeah.
Because all those things areworking, it doesn't matter
what's on the other side of thenet.
(20:54):
Yeah.
I wanna dig a little bit moreinto that, and I wanna talk
about, you brought up closing,and I think that's such a huge
part of coaching, is teachingyour kids how to close out a
match.
I'm interested because I wouldalways tell my boys and my men
and my women, I want you towatch the other team during
warmups as well.
I think you can learn a lot inwarmups.
(21:16):
You can watch film until thecows come home.
But being able to see that teamlive for the first time and see
how they hit and how they setand how they communicate and how
they read the ball.
Do you do any of that ahead oftime?
Do you talk about any of that?
We really don't.
I think that there's some valueto that, and there's certainly
opportunities and there'scertainly times where I see the
(21:36):
team watching the opponent.
And, we haven't instructed themon what to be paying attention
to in those moments.
It's not something that I tendto do.
Just not a part of my routine.
Although maybe it should be, I'dlove to learn more, about What
you learned from that.
It's just been so interestingwhen you move away from coaching
and again, I hope you never haveto be in my shoes.
(21:59):
I watch my daughter's game somuch and I know how they're
gonna warm up and I find myselfwatching the other team warm up
and going, what do we have thatcan play with that?
Yeah.
What's that setter doing?
Because I talk to my daughter,she's a Ds, I talk to her all
the time.
I go, you gotta watch thatsetter's eyes, you guys don't
have, you don't have any film atthe club level and high school
level.
You gotta watch that setter'seyes, she'll watch a setter's
(22:21):
eyes to go, dad, holy cow.
She's looking, she's peekingbefore she digs it, and I go,
yeah what a great tool to havein your pocket knowing that, and
you're paying attention to thatas you're watching the hitter
and you're watching the ball.
We definitely will talk aboutsome tendencies, like some
physical tendencies that we see.
We usually do that during film.
And we'll try to do it like theday before.
(22:43):
certainly a lot of setters giveaway where they're gonna set
with their posture.
And so there are things that wecan see space.
Yeah.
one of the things I would liketo do at some point is I would
just like to watch film with ateam and a coach like you.
'cause everybody does itdifferent.
Some coaches, it's five minutesof film.
They show five minutes of Clipseand they're done.
Some coaches will watch anentire set, it's really
(23:05):
interesting how everybody, Goes,yeah, this is all we need or we
need more of this.
So I love that.
We started incorporating thatinto our team camp, the first
few rounds, the teams are likeplaying, doing wash drills with
other teams and we'll record onecourt and have everybody move
through that court.
And then once that's done, westart having them go up into a
(23:29):
classroom with one of ourcoaches and our coach will do
like a film instructionalsession.
Not just we'll just go throughthe film and say okay, let's
just watch, movement that'shappening when the ball is not
on your side of the net.
Are you where you should be?
Let's watch now.
When the ball is going tosomebody else, are you moving in
(23:53):
a pattern that is what yourcoach wants you to be doing?
How are you preparing for thenext good contact?
We'll try to talk to them aboutletting go of the embarrassing
stuff that happens, right?
Because they're just allwatching themselves and you want
them to watch the match.
What's really happening here sothat your volleyball IQ goes up,
(24:14):
not your, personal IQ goes up.
So those are some of the thingsthat we do, because we just
don't think that a lot of teamsare super intentional about the
way that they're doing it.
those high school coaches mustthank you as they walk out the
door every time.
That's a gift for them as muchas it is for the girls, I would
(24:35):
imagine.
Yeah, I think that, like ourteam camp we try to do some
fairly unique things, we'll havethem do a team building session
with one of our captains, wherethey evaluate their team culture
figure out some action steps onhow to make it better.
And then every team rotatesthrough a court with me or
another one of my assistants.
And so they get a practice withme and yeah, there's a lot of
(24:58):
fun things that we do.
Coach.
The value of that type of campis worth every penny times two
because they're not getting thatinformation anywhere else.
And the thing that, like when Italk to coaches about our camp,
they're like, we just need toplay.
And I'm like, that's not whatyou need, I've never been one of
those coaches and never will be.
(25:20):
the more kids play, the more themistakes and the bad habits
increase.
And if you don't take a breakevery once in a while for the
competition and evaluate wherewe're at, evaluate our
relationships, evaluate howwe're playing together.
Just digging yourself a hole.
And that's the thing, these kidsare playing a ton.
I know too much.
They're all involved in club.
(25:41):
They're like our high schoollike schedule, they're playing
like 50 some matches becausethey're playing tournaments and
all these, they'll go to atournament and they'll play
seven, seven matches in a daylike course.
And it's wild, what's left aftertwo or three matches, what's
left in the tank and in theirbrains, they play two outta
(26:02):
three sets or just two sets, andthen move on.
And if they split, but the pointis that they're playing all
these games, like during thecourse of their regular season.
Yeah.
That at some point, like thestudent athletes are just like.
S the impetus to really bring itduring play.
Yeah.
Isn't there?
Unless you've teed it up theright way, and I think that's
(26:25):
what we're trying to do.
Like we're trying to, use film,use team, culture some of the
ways that we train and like youtalked about, like closing out
games, and in competition, likewe're trying to, we do a lot of
game-like training and one ofthe things that we hope is that
like about an hour of ourpractices every day, resemble
(26:47):
pretty close to a game ofvolleyball.
Like it's not just drill, whereit's okay, they're definitely
working on passing right now.
what we're also trying to do inthat game-like context is get
our student athletes to beruthlessly focused on one
specific thing.
And something that's gonnacontribute to them being able to
play pretty good volleyball.
(27:08):
we want them to be able to getdialed in on something and to
not just go out there andblindly start playing.
I feel like Kids are doing evenin competition, a day long
tournament, and it's reallyhard.
I don't know how, we don't seeour focuses.
We're really focused on burningthese kids out.
We're really focused on removingthe joy of the love of the game,
(27:30):
if that's all they're doing isplaying and playing, and so it's
hard for me.
I'd love to see clubs start onFebruary 1st or January 15th and
end on May 15th and give thekids the whole summer before
they have to start high school.
kids do not get breaks, none.
You talk about Multisportathletes, And the value of being
a multi-sport athlete, but beinga multi-sport athlete now is
(27:50):
different than it was, 20 yearsago when, being a multi-sport
athlete meant that you playvolleyball in the fall,
basketball in the winter, andsoftball or soccer in the spring
and there was tremendous valuein that.
But now it's, you're playingvolleyball and travel softball
in the fall, playing basketballand travel volleyball in the
(28:12):
winter, and then you're playingsoftball and travel volleyball
in the spring.
And the kids like, they love it,but like what, at what other
expense?
the expense of like maybegetting a job and having another
opportunity to learn something alittle bit different.
Yeah.
And have other important peoplein your life, that is is
valuable.
So like I believe in the valueclub volleyball and travel and
(28:35):
that kind of thing.
I am nervous about the ways thatwe're like promoting being a
multi-sport athlete that alsojust completely overwhelm
students.
Yeah.
And I think risks them findingmeaning and purpose in what
they're doing.
I agree.
I wrote about this in my book,how important it was for
(28:57):
multi-sport athletes.
I've had so many coaches, andI've read so many studies,
you're healthier, you're lessinjury prone, you're a better
teammate, you're more coachable,you're more adaptable.
So we want all those things.
we don't wanna lose those thingsfor any of our kids.
So I appreciate that more than,but I think that all of those
studies are outdated now, right?
Yeah.
(29:17):
'cause it's not the same, likethe, it's different.
What we understand as being amultisport athlete now is not
the same as what it was even 10years ago.
Like the data, that is based ona very different model of
multisport athletes no longerapplies.
And the other thing, I don'tthink this is talked about
enough outside of, between usparents is, if you're playing
(29:38):
three club sports or two clubsports, right off the top you're
spending eight to$10,000 a yearfor club volleyball.
You add another club sport tothat and what the high schools
are asking us to pay.
We're writing a check tomorrowfor$500 for my daughter to be on
the high school golf team.
My father would've had a heartattack if he had to write a
(29:58):
check for me to play a highschool sport,$500.
So those are things I'm the oldman on my front lawn yelling to
slow down and yelling at thecars, going too fast.
But I'm glad you see a littlebit of that and, you're a
proponent for some of that too.
Maybe we need to go to battlewith the club world and set some
precedence.
You brought up the nineties.
(30:20):
You and I grew up in thenineties.
We played in the nineties.
We started coaching in thenineties.
At least I did.
I'm assuming you did too.
Yep.
What's changed in the game andhow have you changed?
Our game has changed incredibly.
Like rally scoring and the Librahas changed the game completely.
(30:42):
And yeah, the game has changed alot.
Also like I would be remiss if Ididn't talk about now what pro
volleyball in the United Statesmeans for tons of girls growing
up and having people to look upto, and more and more volleyball
to be able to watch, let alonejust on, live streamed,
(31:02):
opportunities.
I went through a high schoolcareer of playing volleyball
with having the opportunity towatch one game a year.
On tv and it was like onE-S-P-N-U that I had to go to a
friend's house.
'cause our cable package didn'thave it.
That was probably the divisionone National championship.
(31:22):
And it was the NationalChampionship.
Then you started getting thefinal four then, like even 10
years ago.
It was the Elite eight, and theElite eight would go from like
noon until 11:00 PM and like Iwould sit in front of the TV and
just watch volleyball all dayand tell everybody.
Don't bother me today.
This is volleyball day.
(31:43):
And now you can see all of thesegames and the first rounds of
the NCAA tournament, you gotthree screens on, all different
games going on and, and now withpro volleyball so I love the
fact how has the game changed?
We can learn from it.
we can engage the game as fansand as learners.
And I think that is, reallyimportant.
(32:05):
How have I changed?
I don't know.
I think one of the ways thatI've changed is, I care way more
about recovery now than I did,back when I was a, like a young
coach.
I had grown up like wanting tobecome a coach.
I had started reading a bunch ofbooks.
I remember reading the book,Success is a Choice by Rick
(32:26):
Pitino.
And one of the things that wasin that book was a chapter on
deserve victory.
You are going to work so hardthat you are gonna feel like you
deserve to win more than otherpeople.
so I took that, and I was like,okay, like my team needs to work
incredibly hard to feel likethey deserve to win.
(32:48):
And so I would run them ragged.
I would destroy'em, and now I'vetried to be a lot smarter in the
way that I teach and I train.
I think that we've earned morecompliance because of that.
our players are working out morein the off season, demonstrating
more of that type of commitment.
(33:10):
Than, I certainly remember as astudent athlete doing myself.
I played a lot of sports but Idid not barely ever do our
summer conditioning program.
I'll just be honest.
I was in shape, but I wasn'tphysically tuned up the way that
our summer conditioning programwas designed to make me, I think
that we're getting morecompliance around that because I
think we're treating our studentathletes, not Hey, you better do
(33:33):
this, or Preseasons gonna bereally tough.
preseasons gonna be tough'causewe got a lot we wanna
accomplish, We've moved to amodel where I'm them more time
off.
I care so much about sleep nowthan I did early on in my
career.
To the point where our strengthconditioning coach will say I
can work with your team two daysa week in the off season.
(33:54):
We do three workouts a week inthe off season, my team does.
I can work with you two times aweek, but one of them's gonna be
at 6:00 AM they can just do iton their own, because I make a
promise to them in therecruiting process that the
volleyball stuff they're gonnado is gonna be between the hours
of 30 and that means thatthey've got the rest of the time
to be able to.
(34:16):
Create the college experiencethat they want and they can feel
like they can say yes to thingsversus having their schedule be
nickel and dimmed out because oftheir volleyball commitment, and
then not feel like they canreally say yes to anything else.
And like I just, I really careabout that kind of balance and
the recovery that comes withthat.
the sleep cycle to me is sovaluable.
(34:37):
I helped a high school coach acouple years ago and he wanted
to run practices on Mondays at6:00 AM and then he was gonna
run the rest of the days fromthree to five.
I was like, what do you expectTuesdays to look like?
What do you expect them to dothe rest of the week and try and
recover when you've changedtheir sleep cycle?
You're making them get up twohours early and hoping that a
(34:58):
bunch of 16 year olds are gonnago to bed two hours earlier.
Good luck.
So I love that.
Let's go back to closing out agame and closing out your
opponent.
What are your philosophies onhow you teach that?
Because you can be a greatcoach, you can have great
practice plans, you can be amaster teacher, but if you're
not thinking, talking, executingthe intensity of the emotion at
(35:26):
the end of the game, you'regonna lose your five setters.
You're gonna lose those setsthat you should win'cause you
aren't prepared for it.
What's your philosophy inpreparing your team for that?
So we try to do a lot of what?
We'll just do games to five.
instead of setting the score atzero zero and playing to five,
we'll set the score at 2020 andplay to 25.
(35:47):
Just so that they're seeing thatkind of thing on the scoreboard.
We use the scoreboard a lotduring our practices so that
they are used to being evaluatedby it.
over the last couple of yearsI've learned a lot more about
the constraints learningapproach to motor learning,
ecological coaching, theory,where the environment, coaches
the kids, and then you justinteract as a guide, we'll say,
(36:11):
all right, we've got a game tofive, then you pull your setters
across and say how are you goingto, be efficient here?
How are you going to attackthese vulnerabilities Because
you don't have a lot of pointsto find your rhythm, so let's be
smart.
Let's be tactical about it.
If you're going to take a risksetting your weakest hitter you
better make sure that it's theright situation.
(36:32):
You got the right defense to beable to pull that off.
we're just trying to ask themquestions and help them, process
some of those moments so thatthey learn to ask those
questions when they get intothose scenarios.
In practice.
I think that there are timeswhere like our setters will come
in, they'll watch a little bitmore film or we'll try to like,
meet with them before practiceon different days and Hey, look
(36:53):
at these things.
Hey, look at these stats.
Like what are these statstelling you about?
Who you should be setting at theend of a match?
What are these numbers tellingyou about what situations you
wanna be setting people in?
Because we've got more data nowthan we've ever had before to, I
take that back.
We've been using really, likepowerful data tools since 2009.
(37:15):
Like we've had a lot of thesetools.
I see.
one of the things is because oflike volume metrics, our student
athletes have access to thesethings in ways that really, it
was only us as coaches hadaccess before.
So they're able to explore andkinda try to figure some things
out.
somebody will have a verydifferent hitting percentage in
system situations than out ofsystem situations and a good
(37:38):
pass versus a bad passsituation.
hey, setting her is a greatoption when we're in system
because the block is being drawnsomewhere else, and that is
exposing an opportunity for thatkid.
But like, when the block is wellestablished in front of her, she
struggles.
We're gonna work on that, thatwe're not just gonna say in the
middle of the season, oh, Iguess she's not good in this
(37:59):
situation, so don't give her anynew opportunities.
It's not how we do it, but wecontinue to work on it and that
kinda thing.
I am not a micromanager when itcomes to anything on the court.
I'm not gonna tell our setterwho to set except in some very
specific situations, and thenshe doesn't set'em anyway.
On occasion, I'll be like, Hey,let's look at so and so here.
(38:22):
but I also don't want herfeeling like she's gotta force
it to that person if thesituation call for it, I think
that one of the reasons that weget really good setters to play
for us at Hope is because I givethem a lot of autonomy, that I'm
not micromanaging them.
I'm letting them.
Run it And then we're talkingabout Hey, were those the right
decisions to make?
And then they'll tell me alittle bit more why?
(38:44):
And I'll be like, oh yeah, maybethat was the right decision.
Love it.
And for all you, youth and highschool coaches listening to
this, coach Becky is a master ofthe Socratic method.
Whether she thinks about it ornot, the way you ask questions,
the way you make your kids thinkthe way you make them evolve
without micromanaging, enforcingit, a mastery It's really
(39:04):
impressive.
Now, I trick question for you.
I asked this of Chris Katnikdown in Tampa, and he laughed at
me, threw his hands up.
I'm gonna ask you,'cause I'vealready heard it once, so I
wanna see what the answer is.
Is it Libro or Libero?
Help all of volleyball here.
All right, please do.
So I was in Italy, the way topronounce an Italian word, In
(39:28):
Italy is I was coaching an,all-star team that went over
there.
We were playing another team.
I said, this is my chance.
I'm gonna go to the girl withthe other colored jersey on.
That's the hill you're gonna dieon with it Yeah.
Alright, good.
Coach.
I'm gonna give you a littlerapid fire.
Just some quick ones.
Get your brain thinking here'cause you've given me great
time.
I don't wanna waste too muchmore of your time today.
(39:50):
Favorite memory from the 2014team?
Oh, man.
Going up to the rooftop of, oneof the libraries in Holland,
when we were, ranked number onefor the first time and got
special access to go up there.
We went up to the top of thisrooftop and we walked over, as
close to the edge as people werecomfortable and we said you've
(40:14):
got two choices when you'reranked number one in the
country.
You can look down and see howfar you have to fall, or you can
look out and see what abeautiful creation this is and
where this can take you.
Fantastic.
And like from then on, like Ireally do think that they
started embracing theopportunity that some teams
might look at as a threat or aspressure.
(40:35):
And we really looked at it asopportunity it gave them
something to fall back on tomake them say, no, this is not
how I wanna respond to thisloss.
I wanna respond differently.
Sounds like a program changingmoment as much as a season
changing moment.
You remember that story.
That's great.
Is there a coaching book, apodcast, a leadership book?
(40:57):
I know you brought up a couplealready that you think every
young coach should read.
Oh, every young coach.
one of them is, training SoccerChampions by Anson Dorrance.
Is a great one.
I think that championship teambuilding, I'm looking at my
bookshelf here, championshipteam building by Jeff Janssen is
on my list.
(41:18):
I think the culture code, is agood one as well as the talent
code.
these are the books that Iassigned to my coaching class.
Nice.
And I tell them like, my goalhere is to start to build your
coaching library.
Podcasts that I'm listening toright now are Coach Your Brains
Out.
Which is, a couple of volleyballguys.
I love, listening to, slappingGlass, yeah.
(41:40):
Is a basketball podcast orThat's a good one.
And which was, those are theones.
I'm gonna dive into those.
What's the best advice youreceived as a young coach?
Man, and like I was a sponge.
(42:00):
I think most of it like was whenyou win recruit and when you
lose recruit, like it was, likerecruiting is the lifeblood of
this work.
recruiting is tough because it'slike the thing where you spend a
lot of time on it and you end upyielding like maybe four or five
kids, and, you're hearing no 90%of the time, but the kids that
(42:23):
you're hearing yes from arepretty special.
And that's been my experience.
yeah, I think that, great advicerecruiting, recruiting is
valuable.
It never stops.
I always have people ask me,what's the season for recruiting
volleyball?
I go, January 1st to December31st.
Yeah.
It never so is this peakrecruiting season for you?
Yeah.
One word that best defines BeckySchmidt as a coach.
(42:46):
Enthusiastic.
Good idea.
I just try to show my love andpassion for what I'm doing every
day.
I put you in a room with 300volleyball parents.
What piece of advice do you givethem about recruiting?
What do they need to know?
If they wanna play at hope, theywant to play college volleyball,
(43:06):
let's kick'em in the butt.
Becky, what do they need toknow?
They need to know that there isa place.
Where their daughter can playvolleyball in college.
I don't care how good or bad sheis.
There is a place in collegevolleyball for most kids.
if they really wanna play incollege, there is a place that
(43:27):
they can do that.
The challenge is like what kindof role do you want volleyball
to take in your collegeexperience?
And I think that people need tospend a little bit more time
considering that.
And I think that a lot of peoplewould say oh, my daughter loves
volleyball, so that's the mostimportant thing to her.
(43:47):
there's a lot of other thingsthat are gonna be happening in
college.
Yeah.
A lot of other things that she'spreparing for in her life.
Yes.
how is she gonna find that typeof balance?
And is she gonna be playing in aprogram that is going to,
protect that love Of the game?
Because that's the thing that Iget worried about a little bit.
one of the reasons I don't wannacoach in a scholarship,
(44:09):
situation is because I don'twant anything competing with the
love of the game that ourstudent athletes have.
And just from like sportspsychology, it happens, right?
Like whenever you have extrinsicrewards influencing intrinsic
motivation.
It usually goes down.
And that's the big problem withit.
It was a problem withscholarships.
It's a problem with NIL.
(44:30):
not that all NIL is bad, but itcauses, competing interests.
one of the things that I justlove about going down to my gym
every day during our season isthat I know that the only reason
that all of our student athletesare down there working so hard
is because they love this gameand they love the people they
(44:50):
get to play it with.
And that's beautiful.
I need to honor that.
it's my responsibility to godown there and to create an
environment and a situation thathonors that love, and gives them
opportunity to be able toexperience it.
Coach and I've talked to threedivision one coaches this week,
and all of them were pullingtheir hair out.
(45:10):
all three told me a differentstory about how they called the
kid that they loved, that theysaw a play, and the parent got
on the phone and said, sorry,coach, you have to talk to our
agent.
The kid is 18 years old and Ihave to talk to your agent.
I keep hearing that story andwe're going to run these great
(45:32):
coaches out of our professionand we're gonna replace them
with people that don't have thelove, don't have the joy, don't
want to teach.
So thank you for saying that.
Thank you for being you andthank you for a great
conversation, coach.
It was an honor.
I had a lot of fun.
I'll do a shout out for divisionthree for all of those coaches
that are listening to thepodcast that are really
(45:53):
frustrated with state of it all.
There's a place to be able towork with amazing student
athletes where it's still prettypure, right?
I mean there's still some ofthese things that we're dealing
with, but, it's a great place tocoach.
And I've talked to a number offormer division one coaches that
are like, man, this is thebalance that been missing.
I love it.
(46:13):
Thanks for everything coach.
Good luck.
Have a great off season and Ilook forward to talking to you
soon.
Thanks Matt, appreciate it.
That was such a fun andrewarding conversation with
Coach Becky Schmidt from D threePowerhouse Hope College.
From National Champion to sportspsychology, to letting athletes
shine by stepping out of theirway.
(46:35):
Her approach is rooted inbelief, purpose, and people.
I loved her reminder that younever know where your best
friend will come from.
It's a testament to how collegesports can shape lives in ways
that go far beyond competition.
And our mantra, when you winrecruit.
When you lose recruit, it's thekind of consistency and clarity
(46:57):
every coach and athlete canlearn from.
If this episode inspired you orgave you something to think
about, share it with a teammate,a fellow coach, or a family,
navigating the collegerecruiting process.
And don't forget.
You can find all my tools andresources@coachmattrogers.com.
That includes my book,significant recruiting, my free
(47:18):
blog content, past podcastepisodes, and a chance to
schedule a personalizedrecruiting strategy session with
me for free.
Until next time, keep leadingwith purpose, keep coaching with
significance, and thanks forbeing a part of the movement.
Hey everyone.
Welcome back to another episodeof The Significant Coaching
Podcast, the show where we divedeep into the minds of
extraordinary coaches anduncover what makes their
programs and leadership trulysignificant.
I'm your host, Matt Rogers.
Today's guest.
As someone whose legacystretches far beyond wins and
losses, I'm thrilled to welcomeBecky Schmidt, head volleyball
(00:32):
coach at Hope College inMichigan, A national champion, a
relentless builder of cultureand a leader who sees coaching
not as a job.
But as a calling in thisconversation, coach Schmidt
shares wisdom shaped by over twodecades of competitive success
and holistic athletedevelopment.
We talk about recruiting throughwins and losses, the beauty of
(00:55):
unexpected friendships and howthe best coaches know when to
step aside and just not get intheir athlete's way.
She's enthusiastic, she'spurpose driven, and she's not a
micromanager.
And after listening, you'llunderstand exactly why her
players love playing for her.
Now, before we dive in, just aquick reminder, everything you
(01:17):
need about college recruiting,college athletics.
You canlook@coachmattrogers.com.
You can grab a copy of my book,significant Recruiting, read my
weekly blog posts.
Book a recruiting strategysession, or you can invite me to
speak at your schoolorganization.
Make sure to subscribe, follow,like, rate, and leave a comment.
(01:38):
It helps more families andcoaches discover these important
conversations.
Hey, let's get into it.
Here's my conversation withCoach Becky Schmidt.
Coach Schmit, thank you so muchfor being on.
It's just an honor to talk toyou.
You've had such a great career,and it's been so fun following
you and the women in yourprogram and all the great things
(01:59):
you've done.
But in retrospect, now thatyou're six, seven months away,
how are you feeling about yourseason?
I was, just reflecting on this,on the drive in this morning
and, wanted to reach out to myteam through our group chat and
just say, remind them how trulyproud I am, not just of what
(02:19):
they're accomplishing on thecourt, but of who they are as
people, and, I get theopportunity to work with amazing
student athletes that, reallycare about the world and making
it a better place.
And volleyball's just a small,piece of that journey.
But we're certainly, workinghard to make sure that the
volleyball, piece is strong.
And there's a lot of things thatare learned through that process
(02:42):
that I think are gonna bemeaningful for them.
love the way that our kidsrepresent our program.
We think we play with a lot ofjoy.
one of the phrases we use a lotis inspire hope.
And that's something that wewanna be able to do in other
people with the way that we playand represent ourselves.
I'm very proud of them.
your team is so fun to watch.
I love watching a play and Itell kids all the time, I work
with recruits and I'll take avolleyball player, and they go,
(03:03):
I think I wanna play D two or Done.
I go have you watched HopeCollege Play?
Have you watched Juta?
Have you watched the WisconsinSchools?
And they go, no, where can Iwatch them?
I go, They're online You canwatch all their games.
just watch a game.
Tell me what you think.
Watch a set and let me know whatyou think.
And they're always amazed at howathletic your group is and how
(03:23):
fast they play and how powerfulthey play and how they cheer for
each other.
So it's just, it's a greattestament to what D three
volleyball is, what you guys do.
So it's impressive.
I think that D three volleyballhas never been better.
And it is, there's a lot ofreally good teams who are
playing very high levelvolleyball, doing complicated
(03:44):
things because they've got thestudent athletes that are able
to do them, absolutely.
volleyball as a sport isimproving in this country.
There's more parody in divisionone, at least across the power
for, than there ever has been.
and I'm really excited about.
Ways that Division III canreally stand and create a story
of its own Like I'm a proud alumof Hope and of D three
(04:06):
volleyball, I've had plenty ofchances to coach in division
one.
at the end of the day, theexperience of what it means to
be a D three player is the thingthat really aligns with what I
want for my student athletes.
And this is where I am, bestserved.
and love it.
You must have been reading mymind.
'cause that was my nextquestion.
You've been leading hope for twodecades and you were a standout
(04:27):
player there.
What does it mean to you to leadthat program?
I think anybody that's a coachknows that, there's a lot, to
this job that, makes it feel waymore like a calling than an
occupation.
when you feel called, not justto the opportunity that you have
(04:48):
to impact young students' lives,but to the place like you're
called to the mission of aninstitution and you're called to
the work that you and yourcolleagues get to do in large
part because, other people atthat institution did the same
thing for you when you were,growing up in those four very
transformative years.
(05:09):
it just makes so much sense, I'mlucky and thankful, that I get
the opportunity to make a fineliving, doing something that I
love at a place that I love somuch.
this is very much a dream gig.
I'm asking you questions thatyou really have already but I'm
gonna keep asking'em'cause it's,for me, it's really profound.
You've won 500 matches, you'vetaken home a national title.
(05:33):
I'm assuming you've got 25 plusyears still in you.
You're probably gonna breakevery record there is.
What are you most proud of?
I think that the things that I'mmost proud of, are the women
that our student athletes arebecoming, and, the ways that
they go out and lead lives ofmeaning.
we've got alums who are doctors.
(05:54):
We've got alums who are, workingin Washington, dc We've got
alums that have gotten theirPhDs, that are, doing really
impressive work.
We've got a lot of alums who areteachers, and we've got a lot of
alums who are social workers andphysical therapists, holding
these jobs, but what isdistinctive about'em, I think,
(06:15):
is that they are leading livesof meaning.
A lot of them find ways to giveback and to coach, no matter
whether or not they're a teacherin a school district or not.
A lot of them have families thatare incredible and are doing an
amazing job as parents.
I'm just so proud of the type ofwomen that they are, versus, any
(06:36):
win or, accomplishment that isgonna be valued, by.
The outside world in that way.
Yeah.
And again, it's not that wedon't want those things, right?
we're pursuing them because thepursuit is what brings, the
things that end up helping usfigure out what is really
meaningful in life, after all.
(06:56):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you're good at it too.
I have a, I have two young kids.
My daughter's a club volleyballplayer.
I think she's gonna end up beinga golfer in college.
I have a 12-year-old son who Istopped coaching at the college
level the year he was born.
So he never was in the gym withme.
So he never really got thatathletics bug, but he's smart as
(07:16):
a whip.
He's my computer whiz.
And really great at math.
We're making him choose a sportevery year.
And it's hard for him'cause hedoesn't see himself as an
athlete.
So he chose track this year andhis first track meet.
We saw the glimpse in his eye.
Boy, that was fun.
That was fun doing a relay withmy teammates.
You have written on sportspsychology, you've written on
(07:39):
the role of competition.
You talk about what your girlsare becoming and your women are
becoming in the world.
How important do you see it asfamilies take that initiative to
really encourage their kids tobe a part of a team as at, as
young as age, as capable aspossible?
Is that important to you?
(08:00):
Yeah, I think exposing yourchildren to a lot of different
types of opportunities to learnand to grow, People who could be
important people in their lives,their like friends.
you never know where your bestfriend is gonna come from unless
you're exposed to people thatyou have the chance to develop a
(08:20):
further relationship with.
And the same could be said for alocal rec league coach.
I was just having a conversationwith our retired baseball coach,
who, said that every year in thelittle league draft, they would
draft the kid that sometimesstruggled, like he was sometimes
the last one picked he wasalways on Coach Fritz's team.
(08:41):
and Coach Fritz still sees thisguy in Target the kid will say
Hey coach, so excited to seehim.
love putting opportunities infront of children to be able to
be exposed to powerful lessonsand people and, I think
sometimes kids need to beencouraged in that, and it's not
to say that they have tocontinue to do these types of
(09:03):
things.
I'm very careful about notpushing, sports as the thing for
our son, to get involved in.
But wanna make sure that he'sdoing'em or not doing them for
the right reasons.
And I try to be really carefulabout not going to practices.
go to games, but I'm not gonnasit there and watch practice
because practice is yours.
(09:24):
This is your thing, not thankyou.
I needed that for my daughter.
She always wants me to watch.
Yeah.
This is yours.
Go do it.
I'll cheer for you every day.
So I love that you said that,coach.
And it's hard because they ask,and yeah.
They want you there and youwanna support'em.
But sometimes you can support'embest by not being there.
And giving them that space to,to grow as well as the fact that
(09:48):
the last thing that any coachneeds is me.
Up in the stands, evaluatingevery second of a practice
because that is what I'm doing.
Exactly.
You can't help yourself.
You can't help it.
I can't imagine being a youthcoach coaching volleyball and
Becky Schmidt sitting in the gymand, I would be looking up at
you all the time going, Becky,is that all right?
So I totally appreciate that.
I tell her this after games, Igo, you played great.
(10:11):
I'm happy to give you somethoughts tomorrow, but we're not
gonna do, we're not gonna dothat today.
Yep.
I love that approach.
Can we talk about assistantcoaches?
Sure.
You have had a few over theyears.
And I would imagine you didn'thave a full-time assistant early
on.
Correct?
Nope.
(10:31):
How is it for you choosing anassistant and going through that
process, and what is yourmindset when you're adding
somebody that you need to be amaster teacher, a recruiter, a
representative of your program,a representative of you?
What is your mindset when you'rehiring and looking for that new
person?
(10:52):
And I would imagine now you'regetting the point where you got
some girls that want to comeback.
Some of your players wanna comeback and coach, but for me, that
was always hard.
I think I had one year where Icould pay more than like$2,000
for an assistant.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then what were they gonnahave to do in order to
supplement their income?
for probably, 15 years, we had acouple$3,000, put, positions,
(11:18):
coaches And then about fiveyears ago, we were able to do a
little bit a stipend coach withsome housing and meals and that
kind of thing, like a little bitmore of a, what we call a
coaching intern, right?
Where it's like a really good itintro job after you graduate to
see if coaching is the futurethat you wanna pursue.
(11:39):
the promise that I kinda make tothem is I'm gonna set you up for
the next best opportunity,right?
Whether or not that's headcoaching, whether or not that
is, being an assistant coach atanother level or something like
that.
What I wanna do is make surethat this experience sets you up
for the next step that you wannago in.
some have gone into headcoaching or some have gone back
(12:00):
into a club situation and somehave just decided coaching was
not what they wanted to do,that's the idea behind that
position.
I think when we look for a newperson in that role.
I tend to go through my ownpersonal networks first.
Because I also think like I'mfairly unique.
Like I'm not like your typicaltype of coach in some of the
(12:22):
things that I value.
And, the things that are,important to us team vibe is a
little bit different than a lotof other places.
And so what I want, ourassistants to have a good
understanding of is like thetype of situation that they'd be
walking into.
And the people that know thatbest are the people that know me
best, and so I tend to gothrough those, folks rather than
(12:45):
public posting collectingresumes and like that kinda
stuff My network the first groupthat I am, confident going to
because they know what we're allabout.
They know what I'm all about andthe kinda thing that would be a
good fit for folks.
I think One of the things that Iput in, my intro letter is you
can't be too cool for school.
You can't come into this programthinking that you're all, not
(13:07):
willing to get embarrassed alittle bit.
not like in a demeaning way,we're gonna have fun, and we're
going to do some kind of wackythings, and we're gonna try some
things and they're gonna failmiserably, and we're gonna try
weird, wacky things again.
It's not gonna stop us from whatwe're doing.
thankfully I've had someassistant coaches that have
really embraced that and havecome along, in that journey.
(13:30):
I think one of the great thingstoo, like Carrie La Hockey was
the National Assistant Coach ofthe year last year.
She's been my assistant coachfor seven years, but last year
there was a full-time positionwithin our department be a
faculty member and, lead our PEprogram, physical Education and
health, education program.
She ended up getting that job,so now she's around full-time.
(13:51):
I've got this coaching intern.
I feel very supported, and ourstudent athletes feel supported
because they've got people thatthey can come to.
I hope every president in thecountry's listening to this, how
important it is to support yourstaff and your athletes with not
just a great head coach, butwith an assistant that can do
all those little things andbuild relationships and what
that leads to.
(14:12):
Not much more than just wins,but what that leads to long term
for your health and the healthof the women in your program.
Great advice.
I'm gonna stay with this forjust a sec'cause this is, I
think this is really valuablefor a lot of head coaches to
hear from you about how youattack this.
So you've gone through yoursystem, you found a couple
people through the people youknow that said, Hey, I recommend
(14:33):
this person.
What are some of those initialquestions you ask those
applicants to find out if theycan coach with you?
I'm sure, really quickly the redflags of this isn't gonna work.
What are some of those thingsyou ask or how you ask them?
I think, I don't think I've gotlike a set list, of questions.
(14:55):
I think that I am a prettycurious person, so I like to ask
a lot of follow ups, Like, whensomebody will say something, I'm
like, wow, tell me a little bitmore about that.
I think that there's value ingetting those folks outside of a
typical interview environment.
one of the things that we didwith one of our assistant
coaches when she wasinterviewing was we took her to
(15:16):
a golf simulator place.
it was a good way show some loveto my volunteer assistants Let's
go go golfing.
you see react to failure.
You see how they, embrace tryingto do something a little bit
different.
It's hard.
Yeah.
I think that it's reallyimportant to put people in front
of your student athletes.
Yep.
And to see if there's a goodvibe.
And I'm not asking for anythingmore than that.
(15:37):
I'm like, what's the vibe?
Like she's not gonna be able tosay anything in the, hour that
you guys are having lunchtogether that is going to tell
you whether or not she's got thevolleyball knowledge to be able
to do this.
Or if she puts together goodscouting reports, but we can
teach people how to do all ofthat kinda stuff, right?
The volleyball knowledge thingis a nice thing to have, but
(15:59):
really what I care about thereis are you a student of the
game?
are you curious about it?
Are you wanting to learn more?
Are you asking reallyinteresting questions?
so you might say something whatkinds of questions do you think
a scouting report should answer?
When you're trying to figure outwhether or not a player is the
right fit for you, what kinds ofquestions would you need answers
to, and trying to figure outhow, curious they are about some
(16:21):
of those things.
And then all of that to saysometimes people aren't gonna
have great things to say.
and you are like, okay, you'restill the best fit for what
we're doing.
expect you to grow through thisexperience.
I love that the Socratic methodis a huge part of your approach
to coaching, leading, growingyour family.
(16:41):
I find that, I talk to so manygreat coaches and hall of Famers
like you, that it always comesback to that.
I'm not gonna give the answer,but I'm gonna lead you a little
bit and see where you want totake the answer.
And I wanna find out, can youadapt?
are you somebody that we cantrust and you're gonna love what
we're doing as much as we do.
So it's a great approach.
I really I'm gonna steal thatfrom you.
(17:03):
Talk a little bit about scoutingreports since you brought it up.
How intense is that?
I'm talking to division oneassistants on basketball and
volleyball, and I'm just, myhead's exploding and the time
that they're putting in,preparing for the next match, I
put a lot of time in, I watch alot of film, but what they're
(17:24):
doing at that division one leveland the time they have and the
salaries and the staff they haveis just amazing to me.
What are you able to do and areyou trying to accomplish going
into a game and preparing yourteam for it?
Yeah, that's a really goodquestion and something that
like, I still don't think thatwe've dialed in, at the right
(17:44):
level.
One of the things that I dobelieve, is that the more that
my players are thinking duringbig games, the less likely they
are to respond instinct and touse their, God-given skills to
the best of their ability.
I say to myself all the time ismake sure you don't get in their
way, right?
Yeah.
(18:05):
so people will say, at the endof the season, what are you
trying to do right now?
And I'm like, I'm just trying tostay outta their way.
I think one of the ways that weget in their way sometimes is by
giving them so much informationthat they, are overloaded with
thoughts versus just playing oninstinct.
volleyball is a game ofreactions, right?
(18:25):
it's not, you don't get a wholelot of time to really say okay,
I'm gonna set this up, and takethe time here, one of the things
that we want our players to dois be able to make really fast
decisions and giving them a lotof different options doesn't
tend to do that.
So we try to help themunderstand a little bit about,
(18:46):
the team that they're gonnaface, like the style that the
match is gonna be, and so thatthey're not going into something
the comfort of the game is takenaway from them because the
opponent is all of a suddendoing something that we're not
ready for.
So if a team is gonna playreally fast, like it has a
(19:07):
really fast offense, my teamneeds to know that, and we're
gonna certainly train it inpractice, so that they are
prepared for the feeling of whatthat looks like.
But, I don't need them thinkingabout it a whole lot.
So we'll do a lot of things inpractice that we'll have
scouting report written all overit, but we'll not be on what our
(19:29):
kids are getting in a piece ofpaper or something like that.
So you want them to be the bestversion of themselves, and if
they're the best version ofthemselves, you're gonna be hard
to beat no matter who's on theother side of the net.
I'll give somebody my playbook.
They still have to learn it atour speed, the way we're
teaching it, and be able to playat whatever that physicality is
or whatever that pace is.
(19:49):
So I love that.
It really comes down to findingthat balance between instinct
and preparation.
volleyball isn't thatcomplicated of a game.
there's probably five or sixoffensive plays that give teams
trouble.
so during the course of ourentire season, we are gonna work
on defending all of those.
and we're gonna understand wherewe're vulnerable and we're gonna
(20:11):
overtrain some of thoseweaknesses, and so then we get
into a game and we're gonna say,Hey it's gonna be a fast
offense, or it's gonna be amiddle driven offense, so we're
gonna have to do more committinghere.
That means like pins, you guysare diving in trying to close
seams and that kind of thing,know what the adjustments are.
It's like team dependent alittle bit, but like by and
(20:33):
large, we're doing our thing andyeah.
And responding as the matchcontinues.
I would imagine 90% of it's justgoes back to just being, we're
gonna be really good at ourdefense of the net.
We're gonna be really great atserve, receive, we're gonna be
really good at getting the ballto our setter where they can do
something with it.
Yeah.
Because all those things areworking, it doesn't matter
what's on the other side of thenet.
(20:54):
Yeah.
I wanna dig a little bit moreinto that, and I wanna talk
about, you brought up closing,and I think that's such a huge
part of coaching, is teachingyour kids how to close out a
match.
I'm interested because I wouldalways tell my boys and my men
and my women, I want you towatch the other team during
warmups as well.
I think you can learn a lot inwarmups.
(21:16):
You can watch film until thecows come home.
But being able to see that teamlive for the first time and see
how they hit and how they setand how they communicate and how
they read the ball.
Do you do any of that ahead oftime?
Do you talk about any of that?
We really don't.
I think that there's some valueto that, and there's certainly
opportunities and there'scertainly times where I see the
(21:36):
team watching the opponent.
And, we haven't instructed themon what to be paying attention
to in those moments.
It's not something that I tendto do.
Just not a part of my routine.
Although maybe it should be, I'dlove to learn more, about What
you learned from that.
It's just been so interestingwhen you move away from coaching
and again, I hope you never haveto be in my shoes.
(21:59):
I watch my daughter's game somuch and I know how they're
gonna warm up and I find myselfwatching the other team warm up
and going, what do we have thatcan play with that?
Yeah.
What's that setter doing?
Because I talk to my daughter,she's a Ds, I talk to her all
the time.
I go, you gotta watch thatsetter's eyes, you guys don't
have, you don't have any film atthe club level and high school
level.
You gotta watch that setter'seyes, she'll watch a setter's
(22:21):
eyes to go, dad, holy cow.
She's looking, she's peekingbefore she digs it, and I go,
yeah what a great tool to havein your pocket knowing that, and
you're paying attention to thatas you're watching the hitter
and you're watching the ball.
We definitely will talk aboutsome tendencies, like some
physical tendencies that we see.
We usually do that during film.
And we'll try to do it like theday before.
(22:43):
certainly a lot of setters giveaway where they're gonna set
with their posture.
And so there are things that wecan see space.
Yeah.
one of the things I would liketo do at some point is I would
just like to watch film with ateam and a coach like you.
'cause everybody does itdifferent.
Some coaches, it's five minutesof film.
They show five minutes of Clipseand they're done.
Some coaches will watch anentire set, it's really
(23:05):
interesting how everybody, Goes,yeah, this is all we need or we
need more of this.
So I love that.
We started incorporating thatinto our team camp, the first
few rounds, the teams are likeplaying, doing wash drills with
other teams and we'll record onecourt and have everybody move
through that court.
And then once that's done, westart having them go up into a
(23:29):
classroom with one of ourcoaches and our coach will do
like a film instructionalsession.
Not just we'll just go throughthe film and say okay, let's
just watch, movement that'shappening when the ball is not
on your side of the net.
Are you where you should be?
Let's watch now.
When the ball is going tosomebody else, are you moving in
(23:53):
a pattern that is what yourcoach wants you to be doing?
How are you preparing for thenext good contact?
We'll try to talk to them aboutletting go of the embarrassing
stuff that happens, right?
Because they're just allwatching themselves and you want
them to watch the match.
What's really happening here sothat your volleyball IQ goes up,
(24:14):
not your, personal IQ goes up.
So those are some of the thingsthat we do, because we just
don't think that a lot of teamsare super intentional about the
way that they're doing it.
those high school coaches mustthank you as they walk out the
door every time.
That's a gift for them as muchas it is for the girls, I would
(24:35):
imagine.
Yeah, I think that, like ourteam camp we try to do some
fairly unique things, we'll havethem do a team building session
with one of our captains, wherethey evaluate their team culture
figure out some action steps onhow to make it better.
And then every team rotatesthrough a court with me or
another one of my assistants.
And so they get a practice withme and yeah, there's a lot of
(24:58):
fun things that we do.
Coach.
The value of that type of campis worth every penny times two
because they're not getting thatinformation anywhere else.
And the thing that, like when Italk to coaches about our camp,
they're like, we just need toplay.
And I'm like, that's not whatyou need, I've never been one of
those coaches and never will be.
(25:20):
the more kids play, the more themistakes and the bad habits
increase.
And if you don't take a breakevery once in a while for the
competition and evaluate wherewe're at, evaluate our
relationships, evaluate howwe're playing together.
Just digging yourself a hole.
And that's the thing, these kidsare playing a ton.
I know too much.
They're all involved in club.
(25:41):
They're like our high schoollike schedule, they're playing
like 50 some matches becausethey're playing tournaments and
all these, they'll go to atournament and they'll play
seven, seven matches in a daylike course.
And it's wild, what's left aftertwo or three matches, what's
left in the tank and in theirbrains, they play two outta
(26:02):
three sets or just two sets, andthen move on.
And if they split, but the pointis that they're playing all
these games, like during thecourse of their regular season.
Yeah.
That at some point, like thestudent athletes are just like.
S the impetus to really bring itduring play.
Yeah.
Isn't there?
Unless you've teed it up theright way, and I think that's
(26:25):
what we're trying to do.
Like we're trying to, use film,use team, culture some of the
ways that we train and like youtalked about, like closing out
games, and in competition, likewe're trying to, we do a lot of
game-like training and one ofthe things that we hope is that
like about an hour of ourpractices every day, resemble
(26:47):
pretty close to a game ofvolleyball.
Like it's not just drill, whereit's okay, they're definitely
working on passing right now.
what we're also trying to do inthat game-like context is get
our student athletes to beruthlessly focused on one
specific thing.
And something that's gonnacontribute to them being able to
play pretty good volleyball.
(27:08):
we want them to be able to getdialed in on something and to
not just go out there andblindly start playing.
I feel like Kids are doing evenin competition, a day long
tournament, and it's reallyhard.
I don't know how, we don't seeour focuses.
We're really focused on burningthese kids out.
We're really focused on removingthe joy of the love of the game,
(27:30):
if that's all they're doing isplaying and playing, and so it's
hard for me.
I'd love to see clubs start onFebruary 1st or January 15th and
end on May 15th and give thekids the whole summer before
they have to start high school.
kids do not get breaks, none.
You talk about Multisportathletes, And the value of being
a multi-sport athlete, but beinga multi-sport athlete now is
(27:50):
different than it was, 20 yearsago when, being a multi-sport
athlete meant that you playvolleyball in the fall,
basketball in the winter, andsoftball or soccer in the spring
and there was tremendous valuein that.
But now it's, you're playingvolleyball and travel softball
in the fall, playing basketballand travel volleyball in the
(28:12):
winter, and then you're playingsoftball and travel volleyball
in the spring.
And the kids like, they love it,but like what, at what other
expense?
the expense of like maybegetting a job and having another
opportunity to learn something alittle bit different.
Yeah.
And have other important peoplein your life, that is is
valuable.
So like I believe in the valueclub volleyball and travel and
(28:35):
that kind of thing.
I am nervous about the ways thatwe're like promoting being a
multi-sport athlete that alsojust completely overwhelm
students.
Yeah.
And I think risks them findingmeaning and purpose in what
they're doing.
I agree.
I wrote about this in my book,how important it was for
(28:57):
multi-sport athletes.
I've had so many coaches, andI've read so many studies,
you're healthier, you're lessinjury prone, you're a better
teammate, you're more coachable,you're more adaptable.
So we want all those things.
we don't wanna lose those thingsfor any of our kids.
So I appreciate that more than,but I think that all of those
studies are outdated now, right?
Yeah.
(29:17):
'cause it's not the same, likethe, it's different.
What we understand as being amultisport athlete now is not
the same as what it was even 10years ago.
Like the data, that is based ona very different model of
multisport athletes no longerapplies.
And the other thing, I don'tthink this is talked about
enough outside of, between usparents is, if you're playing
(29:38):
three club sports or two clubsports, right off the top you're
spending eight to$10,000 a yearfor club volleyball.
You add another club sport tothat and what the high schools
are asking us to pay.
We're writing a check tomorrowfor$500 for my daughter to be on
the high school golf team.
My father would've had a heartattack if he had to write a
(29:58):
check for me to play a highschool sport,$500.
So those are things I'm the oldman on my front lawn yelling to
slow down and yelling at thecars, going too fast.
But I'm glad you see a littlebit of that and, you're a
proponent for some of that too.
Maybe we need to go to battlewith the club world and set some
precedence.
You brought up the nineties.
(30:20):
You and I grew up in thenineties.
We played in the nineties.
We started coaching in thenineties.
At least I did.
I'm assuming you did too.
Yep.
What's changed in the game andhow have you changed?
Our game has changed incredibly.
Like rally scoring and the Librahas changed the game completely.
(30:42):
And yeah, the game has changed alot.
Also like I would be remiss if Ididn't talk about now what pro
volleyball in the United Statesmeans for tons of girls growing
up and having people to look upto, and more and more volleyball
to be able to watch, let alonejust on, live streamed,
(31:02):
opportunities.
I went through a high schoolcareer of playing volleyball
with having the opportunity towatch one game a year.
On tv and it was like onE-S-P-N-U that I had to go to a
friend's house.
'cause our cable package didn'thave it.
That was probably the divisionone National championship.
(31:22):
And it was the NationalChampionship.
Then you started getting thefinal four then, like even 10
years ago.
It was the Elite eight, and theElite eight would go from like
noon until 11:00 PM and like Iwould sit in front of the TV and
just watch volleyball all dayand tell everybody.
Don't bother me today.
This is volleyball day.
(31:43):
And now you can see all of thesegames and the first rounds of
the NCAA tournament, you gotthree screens on, all different
games going on and, and now withpro volleyball so I love the
fact how has the game changed?
We can learn from it.
we can engage the game as fansand as learners.
And I think that is, reallyimportant.
(32:05):
How have I changed?
I don't know.
I think one of the ways thatI've changed is, I care way more
about recovery now than I did,back when I was a, like a young
coach.
I had grown up like wanting tobecome a coach.
I had started reading a bunch ofbooks.
I remember reading the book,Success is a Choice by Rick
(32:26):
Pitino.
And one of the things that wasin that book was a chapter on
deserve victory.
You are going to work so hardthat you are gonna feel like you
deserve to win more than otherpeople.
so I took that, and I was like,okay, like my team needs to work
incredibly hard to feel likethey deserve to win.
(32:48):
And so I would run them ragged.
I would destroy'em, and now I'vetried to be a lot smarter in the
way that I teach and I train.
I think that we've earned morecompliance because of that.
our players are working out morein the off season, demonstrating
more of that type of commitment.
(33:10):
Than, I certainly remember as astudent athlete doing myself.
I played a lot of sports but Idid not barely ever do our
summer conditioning program.
I'll just be honest.
I was in shape, but I wasn'tphysically tuned up the way that
our summer conditioning programwas designed to make me, I think
that we're getting morecompliance around that because I
think we're treating our studentathletes, not Hey, you better do
(33:33):
this, or Preseasons gonna bereally tough.
preseasons gonna be tough'causewe got a lot we wanna
accomplish, We've moved to amodel where I'm them more time
off.
I care so much about sleep nowthan I did early on in my
career.
To the point where our strengthconditioning coach will say I
can work with your team two daysa week in the off season.
(33:54):
We do three workouts a week inthe off season, my team does.
I can work with you two times aweek, but one of them's gonna be
at 6:00 AM they can just do iton their own, because I make a
promise to them in therecruiting process that the
volleyball stuff they're gonnado is gonna be between the hours
of 30 and that means thatthey've got the rest of the time
to be able to.
(34:16):
Create the college experiencethat they want and they can feel
like they can say yes to thingsversus having their schedule be
nickel and dimmed out because oftheir volleyball commitment, and
then not feel like they canreally say yes to anything else.
And like I just, I really careabout that kind of balance and
the recovery that comes withthat.
the sleep cycle to me is sovaluable.
(34:37):
I helped a high school coach acouple years ago and he wanted
to run practices on Mondays at6:00 AM and then he was gonna
run the rest of the days fromthree to five.
I was like, what do you expectTuesdays to look like?
What do you expect them to dothe rest of the week and try and
recover when you've changedtheir sleep cycle?
You're making them get up twohours early and hoping that a
(34:58):
bunch of 16 year olds are gonnago to bed two hours earlier.
Good luck.
So I love that.
Let's go back to closing out agame and closing out your
opponent.
What are your philosophies onhow you teach that?
Because you can be a greatcoach, you can have great
practice plans, you can be amaster teacher, but if you're
not thinking, talking, executingthe intensity of the emotion at
(35:26):
the end of the game, you'regonna lose your five setters.
You're gonna lose those setsthat you should win'cause you
aren't prepared for it.
What's your philosophy inpreparing your team for that?
So we try to do a lot of what?
We'll just do games to five.
instead of setting the score atzero zero and playing to five,
we'll set the score at 2020 andplay to 25.
(35:47):
Just so that they're seeing thatkind of thing on the scoreboard.
We use the scoreboard a lotduring our practices so that
they are used to being evaluatedby it.
over the last couple of yearsI've learned a lot more about
the constraints learningapproach to motor learning,
ecological coaching, theory,where the environment, coaches
the kids, and then you justinteract as a guide, we'll say,
(36:11):
all right, we've got a game tofive, then you pull your setters
across and say how are you goingto, be efficient here?
How are you going to attackthese vulnerabilities Because
you don't have a lot of pointsto find your rhythm, so let's be
smart.
Let's be tactical about it.
If you're going to take a risksetting your weakest hitter you
better make sure that it's theright situation.
(36:32):
You got the right defense to beable to pull that off.
we're just trying to ask themquestions and help them, process
some of those moments so thatthey learn to ask those
questions when they get intothose scenarios.
In practice.
I think that there are timeswhere like our setters will come
in, they'll watch a little bitmore film or we'll try to like,
meet with them before practiceon different days and Hey, look
(36:53):
at these things.
Hey, look at these stats.
Like what are these statstelling you about?
Who you should be setting at theend of a match?
What are these numbers tellingyou about what situations you
wanna be setting people in?
Because we've got more data nowthan we've ever had before to, I
take that back.
We've been using really, likepowerful data tools since 2009.
(37:15):
Like we've had a lot of thesetools.
I see.
one of the things is because oflike volume metrics, our student
athletes have access to thesethings in ways that really, it
was only us as coaches hadaccess before.
So they're able to explore andkinda try to figure some things
out.
somebody will have a verydifferent hitting percentage in
system situations than out ofsystem situations and a good
(37:38):
pass versus a bad passsituation.
hey, setting her is a greatoption when we're in system
because the block is being drawnsomewhere else, and that is
exposing an opportunity for thatkid.
But like, when the block is wellestablished in front of her, she
struggles.
We're gonna work on that, thatwe're not just gonna say in the
middle of the season, oh, Iguess she's not good in this
(37:59):
situation, so don't give her anynew opportunities.
It's not how we do it, but wecontinue to work on it and that
kinda thing.
I am not a micromanager when itcomes to anything on the court.
I'm not gonna tell our setterwho to set except in some very
specific situations, and thenshe doesn't set'em anyway.
On occasion, I'll be like, Hey,let's look at so and so here.
(38:22):
but I also don't want herfeeling like she's gotta force
it to that person if thesituation call for it, I think
that one of the reasons that weget really good setters to play
for us at Hope is because I givethem a lot of autonomy, that I'm
not micromanaging them.
I'm letting them.
Run it And then we're talkingabout Hey, were those the right
decisions to make?
And then they'll tell me alittle bit more why?
(38:44):
And I'll be like, oh yeah, maybethat was the right decision.
Love it.
And for all you, youth and highschool coaches listening to
this, coach Becky is a master ofthe Socratic method.
Whether she thinks about it ornot, the way you ask questions,
the way you make your kids thinkthe way you make them evolve
without micromanaging, enforcingit, a mastery It's really
(39:04):
impressive.
Now, I trick question for you.
I asked this of Chris Katnikdown in Tampa, and he laughed at
me, threw his hands up.
I'm gonna ask you,'cause I'vealready heard it once, so I
wanna see what the answer is.
Is it Libro or Libero?
Help all of volleyball here.
All right, please do.
So I was in Italy, the way topronounce an Italian word, In
(39:28):
Italy is I was coaching an,all-star team that went over
there.
We were playing another team.
I said, this is my chance.
I'm gonna go to the girl withthe other colored jersey on.
That's the hill you're gonna dieon with it Yeah.
Alright, good.
Coach.
I'm gonna give you a littlerapid fire.
Just some quick ones.
Get your brain thinking here'cause you've given me great
time.
I don't wanna waste too muchmore of your time today.
(39:50):
Favorite memory from the 2014team?
Oh, man.
Going up to the rooftop of, oneof the libraries in Holland,
when we were, ranked number onefor the first time and got
special access to go up there.
We went up to the top of thisrooftop and we walked over, as
close to the edge as people werecomfortable and we said you've
(40:14):
got two choices when you'reranked number one in the
country.
You can look down and see howfar you have to fall, or you can
look out and see what abeautiful creation this is and
where this can take you.
Fantastic.
And like from then on, like Ireally do think that they
started embracing theopportunity that some teams
might look at as a threat or aspressure.
(40:35):
And we really looked at it asopportunity it gave them
something to fall back on tomake them say, no, this is not
how I wanna respond to thisloss.
I wanna respond differently.
Sounds like a program changingmoment as much as a season
changing moment.
You remember that story.
That's great.
Is there a coaching book, apodcast, a leadership book?
(40:57):
I know you brought up a couplealready that you think every
young coach should read.
Oh, every young coach.
one of them is, training SoccerChampions by Anson Dorrance.
Is a great one.
I think that championship teambuilding, I'm looking at my
bookshelf here, championshipteam building by Jeff Janssen is
on my list.
(41:18):
I think the culture code, is agood one as well as the talent
code.
these are the books that Iassigned to my coaching class.
Nice.
And I tell them like, my goalhere is to start to build your
coaching library.
Podcasts that I'm listening toright now are Coach Your Brains
Out.
Which is, a couple of volleyballguys.
I love, listening to, slappingGlass, yeah.
(41:40):
Is a basketball podcast orThat's a good one.
And which was, those are theones.
I'm gonna dive into those.
What's the best advice youreceived as a young coach?
Man, and like I was a sponge.
(42:00):
I think most of it like was whenyou win recruit and when you
lose recruit, like it was, likerecruiting is the lifeblood of
this work.
recruiting is tough because it'slike the thing where you spend a
lot of time on it and you end upyielding like maybe four or five
kids, and, you're hearing no 90%of the time, but the kids that
(42:23):
you're hearing yes from arepretty special.
And that's been my experience.
yeah, I think that, great advicerecruiting, recruiting is
valuable.
It never stops.
I always have people ask me,what's the season for recruiting
volleyball?
I go, January 1st to December31st.
Yeah.
It never so is this peakrecruiting season for you?
Yeah.
One word that best defines BeckySchmidt as a coach.
(42:46):
Enthusiastic.
Good idea.
I just try to show my love andpassion for what I'm doing every
day.
I put you in a room with 300volleyball parents.
What piece of advice do you givethem about recruiting?
What do they need to know?
If they wanna play at hope, theywant to play college volleyball,
(43:06):
let's kick'em in the butt.
Becky, what do they need toknow?
They need to know that there isa place.
Where their daughter can playvolleyball in college.
I don't care how good or bad sheis.
There is a place in collegevolleyball for most kids.
if they really wanna play incollege, there is a place that
(43:27):
they can do that.
The challenge is like what kindof role do you want volleyball
to take in your collegeexperience?
And I think that people need tospend a little bit more time
considering that.
And I think that a lot of peoplewould say oh, my daughter loves
volleyball, so that's the mostimportant thing to her.
(43:47):
there's a lot of other thingsthat are gonna be happening in
college.
Yeah.
A lot of other things that she'spreparing for in her life.
Yes.
how is she gonna find that typeof balance?
And is she gonna be playing in aprogram that is going to,
protect that love Of the game?
Because that's the thing that Iget worried about a little bit.
one of the reasons I don't wannacoach in a scholarship,
(44:09):
situation is because I don'twant anything competing with the
love of the game that ourstudent athletes have.
And just from like sportspsychology, it happens, right?
Like whenever you have extrinsicrewards influencing intrinsic
motivation.
It usually goes down.
And that's the big problem withit.
It was a problem withscholarships.
It's a problem with NIL.
(44:30):
not that all NIL is bad, but itcauses, competing interests.
one of the things that I justlove about going down to my gym
every day during our season isthat I know that the only reason
that all of our student athletesare down there working so hard
is because they love this gameand they love the people they
(44:50):
get to play it with.
And that's beautiful.
I need to honor that.
it's my responsibility to godown there and to create an
environment and a situation thathonors that love, and gives them
opportunity to be able toexperience it.
Coach and I've talked to threedivision one coaches this week,
and all of them were pullingtheir hair out.
(45:10):
all three told me a differentstory about how they called the
kid that they loved, that theysaw a play, and the parent got
on the phone and said, sorry,coach, you have to talk to our
agent.
The kid is 18 years old and Ihave to talk to your agent.
I keep hearing that story andwe're going to run these great
(45:32):
coaches out of our professionand we're gonna replace them
with people that don't have thelove, don't have the joy, don't
want to teach.
So thank you for saying that.
Thank you for being you andthank you for a great
conversation, coach.
It was an honor.
I had a lot of fun.
I'll do a shout out for divisionthree for all of those coaches
that are listening to thepodcast that are really
(45:53):
frustrated with state of it all.
There's a place to be able towork with amazing student
athletes where it's still prettypure, right?
I mean there's still some ofthese things that we're dealing
with, but, it's a great place tocoach.
And I've talked to a number offormer division one coaches that
are like, man, this is thebalance that been missing.
I love it.
(46:13):
Thanks for everything coach.
Good luck.
Have a great off season and Ilook forward to talking to you
soon.
Thanks Matt, appreciate it.
That was such a fun andrewarding conversation with
Coach Becky Schmidt from D threePowerhouse Hope College.
From National Champion to sportspsychology, to letting athletes
shine by stepping out of theirway.
(46:35):
Her approach is rooted inbelief, purpose, and people.
I loved her reminder that younever know where your best
friend will come from.
It's a testament to how collegesports can shape lives in ways
that go far beyond competition.
And our mantra, when you winrecruit.
When you lose recruit, it's thekind of consistency and clarity
(46:57):
every coach and athlete canlearn from.
If this episode inspired you orgave you something to think
about, share it with a teammate,a fellow coach, or a family,
navigating the collegerecruiting process.
And don't forget.
You can find all my tools andresources@coachmattrogers.com.
That includes my book,significant recruiting, my free
(47:18):
blog content, past podcastepisodes, and a chance to
schedule a personalizedrecruiting strategy session with
me for free.
Until next time, keep leadingwith purpose, keep coaching with
significance, and thanks forbeing a part of the movement.
Popular Podcasts
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides. Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.