Coaching Volleyball Magazine October / November 2015 - Page 28

WRITER’S DESK

The Art of Strategy and Tactics
in Volleyball
Terry Pettit
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to
victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise
before defeat. —Sun Tzu, The Art of War
When I was coaching women’s volleyball at
the University of Nebraska I had a strategy
that was the foundation of every game plan
that I developed.
My strategy was simple but not easy: We
will do what we can to make the opponent
uncomfortable, not just physically but mentally. Tactics were the decisions and behaviors
we trained to implement our strategy.
Tactics are not arbitrary. A coach has to
know his own team’s strengths and weaknesses before he can begin to develop a
game plan. For example, the opponent
may be weak at defending a slide attack
behind the setter, but if we do not pass or
ball handle well enough so that our setter
is in position to set a fast tempo to a slide
attacker, than we need to consider other
tactical options.
An opponent may have a rotation that is
particularly vulnerable to a short serve in

zone 2, but unless all of our servers have the
ability to serve short on command we are
dependent on the right matchup.
In order to take advantage of an opponent’s weaknesses, there were specific areas
of the game that we had to become very
consistent in so that we would have opportunities to exploit an opponent, even when
we didn’t get the ideal matchup. Some of
following examples are applicable to any
level of volleyball. Some require size and
athleticism that may not be an option for
younger teams.
Serving: Every server was trained to
serve deep to seams as well as short to
zones 2, 3 and 4. The key to developing this
fundamental was that the arm speed in a
float serve was the same when serving deep
or shallow. The amount of hip and shoulder
rotation determined the depth of the serve.
The players who were not part of the
regular rotation had to have a forcing
serve. Some were jump servers, some served
from twenty feet behind the end line; some
of them developed look-away serves that

would surprise a receiver. We would never
substitute to someone who would just keep
the ball in play with her serve.
Blocking was a priority. Even our setters were very good blockers. Not all of
them were tall – Lori Endicott, who set in
the Barcelona and Atlanta Olympics, was
only 5’ 9” but she had strong hands, was always balanced and rarely got used. Having
setters who are fundamentally sound blocking gives a coach the freedom to consider
other factors when matching up with an
opponent. A minimum of 20-30 minutes
a day would be spent on blocking footwork
and technique.

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Teams that block and serve well create a third dimension. Tough serving
allows a good blocking team to become a
great blocking team. Volleyball is a game
of runs, which are usually created by nudging the opponent toward unforced errors.
While kills may be impressive, they do not
demoralize an opponent nearly as much as
aggressive serving and blocking.

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HAILVARSITY.COM

Every scouting report should include
information on which player(s) on the
opponent’s team are the most vulnerable
to breaking down and how we can bring
that about. Sometim \