Visit to Kansas State

Suzie Fritz

I had a great visit to Kansas State to watch a training session as they prepared for their upcoming match with Missouri (which they won in five sets).  Head coach Suzie Fritz and her staff, Jeff Hulsmeyer and Jeff Grove were wonderful hosts.  I thought the practice was very productive and the players were engaged.  The emphasis upon statistical evaluation of performance within the practice, as well as coming into practice was extensive.  The coaches, based upon statistics, focused upon transition attack and defending against specific sets.  During drills the statistical performance of the team during that drill was provided with the appropriate feedback.

There are two specific items that I will relay that were good ideas for all coaches.  Jeff Grove indicated that in every drill, there were three items to be considered 1) how to score or evaluate the drill, 2) how the ball is entered (serve, toss, etc.), 3) the focus of the feedback.  Jeff indicated if the focus of the drill was hitting, for example, they probably wouldn't give a lot of feedback on defense.

The other item that I thought was nice was that in advance of practice a player would write down what she was going to work on that day.  A teammate would then volunteer to help her in that effort.  The thought was that if players are working to both improve themselves and a teammate, the training really becomes a team effort.

Dartfish TV for I-Pad Coming Soon

VTS members have expressed a desire to be able to view videos on Dartfish TV via their I-pads.   Many coaches would like to take their I-Pads to practice so players can view from the VTS libary on Dartfish TV the drills or skill keys that might be of emphasis on a particular day.  This will be happening soon as Dartfish TV is in the advanced testing stage of allowing the viewing of Dartfish TV via various mobile units.

In advance of that, if there are favorite videos in the VTS library that you would like to view on an I-pad, let me know.  I will need to re-upload the desired videos in a different format to allow viewing on your I-pad.