Our club philosophy is simple. Success is a result of confidence, drive and breadth of knowledge. Success does not result from a focus on winning. However, winning is surely a result of a focus on success. We focus on success at Carolina CHAOS Volleyball Club. 

To accomplish this, we focus on the players themselves and on their confidence, drive and breadth. We strive to teach through example, many perspectives on leadership, confidence and humility, and how breadth of skill and balance in life’s priorities are keys to success. We stress the use of creativity and how to accept failure as lessons for success. Coaches should always allow room for creativity and experimentation with guidance on effectiveness. We strive to teach others and to learn ourselves. 

Our coaching philosophy is one of balance. Life is not black-and-white, nor is volleyball. It is a balance. We strive for a goal of perfect execution of skills, balanced with the creativity to experiment and make mistakes along the way. We encourage drive and dedication, balanced with room for fun and freedom. We encourage our coaches to challenge themselves and strike a balance between the success of each player and the success of each team as a whole. We strive to teach, balanced with our desire to learn.

The Ins and Outs of Coaching 

Excerpt from our Coaching Handbook

Our fundamental driver for coaching should be, “it’s about the players, not me”. We truly must check our egos at the door. For coaches, like the athletes we teach, we must focus on our own confidence, drive, breadth of knowledge, and patience. We strive to strike a balance in every situation, we learn from our failures, and we lead by example. The path is not really any different for enabling growth in players and growth in coaches – it is our experience and expertise and our ability to lead that set coaches apart from players – all people.

Coaches all have their own style – as it is in the world around us. We are people, just like our athletes. We must practice what we preach, and players will follow us. There is no other way. We must be willing and able to make decisions, right or wrong, and accept the consequences. We must not blame. A win is always the team’s win, and a loss is always the coach’s loss – we must be OK with this.

  Yes, we must be martyrs, or at least appear to be. Avoid comparatives such as “you’re not as good as her”. Avoid the word “lazy”, always. Consider parents as players as well, and coach them in the same way. Coach with your head, play with your heart.

  We as coaches must remain positive and encouraging in the face of despair. We must avoid statements like, “you are a bad seed”, “you are uncoachable”. Our challenge is to coach the uncoachable. Anything else is simply training. We should embrace the difficult players as challenges, integrate them into our team, and lead them to success. We can never give up on a player or a team. We must strike a balance between “individual” with “team” – probably the most difficult, yet effective skill any coach can exhibit.

  We cannot expect every player or parent to resonate with our personalities. This does not make them a problem player (or parent). We learn how to leverage each player’s strengths and shore up their weaknesses, not force them to change to our own personality and style. This is good leadership and thus good coaching.