Holy Cows of Volleyball - Ball Control

When I really started to learn volleyball from college coaches, some with international experience, I soon realized that much of what I was taught on my high school team was outdated and often counterproductive. The new concepts were based on principles of motor learning and focused on improving more in the skills that matter most. It's a very scientific and empirical approach to the game and coaching. What I learned in high school was probably what the coach learned as a high school player. I like to describe it as a holy cow. The high school coach learned it from her coach, who probably learned it from her coach. It wasn't a study of the game that resulted in the drills and philosophies. It was tradition. It was a holy cow. And no one wants to kill the holy cow.

After learning from and associating with exceptional coaches, I became part of another program that was superficially similar. It had a lot of the trappings of the way I learned the game, but it did a lot of things that were not empirically derived. One of the concepts that puzzled me was the concept of ball control. There was a significant amount of practice time invested in these Fake Fundamental(s). I think that's why this recent blog post by John Kessel really resonated with me. It was more of what I learned, and laid out some of why ball control made me scratch my head. It was validation.

Ball control involves a lot of pairs of players facing each other and passing or setting the ball back and forth. It is using a skill of the game, but it is not being used in a game like situation. There are almost no situations in competition where a ball will travel straight to a passer who then passes it straight back along that path. It might happen when a server behind zone 1, or between 1 and 6 serves to a passer in zone 1 and the setter's base setting position is along that service flight path. It rarely happens. Much more often the passer will have to pass the ball at an angle to the setter. All of that time spent on ball control will only have a little transfer to competition in probably less than 5% of serves.

Marv Dunphy said, "the best passing drills are pass, set, hit." For one, ball control drills don't include the setting or the hitting (or the passing and the hitting if they are setting back and forth). Another thing is that ball control drills introduce the ball to the drill in that less than 5% situation. Serving at passers who have to pass to a setting target is going to be much more useful to passers.

I'm sure proponents of ball control drills will talk about how it gives new players a high volume of touches. It gives them a lot of opportunities to practice the skill and learn it. A pair of players performing 100 passes will get 50 touches each. Of course the problem is the skill won't transfer well to competition. If the high volume of touches are important, the players will be better served working in groups of three and passing to the player to the right. That will better replicate what is going to happen in competition than pairs passing straight in front with no angle. Three passers passing to the right will be closer to what happens around half the time in competition. With the way newer players will likely shift from their starting position, this is going to give the passer a random, variable passing angle. The hypothetical 100 passes will still give each passer about 33 touches. It isn't as many touches as with pairs, but the value to the player will be greater.

It's time to put ball control down. Let's kill the holy cow and start practicing more effectively. Teach passing within the context of the game and replicating game like situations, and let's get away from the sanitized, nearly useless passing back and forth between a partner you are facing.