Eye on 2012: Keeping U.S. Teams on the Podium

Does it get any better than Beijing for USA Volleyball? I mean, who could have predicted that our indoor teams would tie their best finishes since 1984 with the men’s team winning the gold medal and the women’s team taking home the silver. What an accomplishment! It was great to see the return of U.S. squads to the medal stand.

But the question remains: What happens now?

I’m hoping USAV won’t rest on its new-found laurels and fail to address the problems that held the squads back in previous Olympics. But history may be repeating itself already.

Most of the top players headed overseas in the post-Olympic exodus. Who can blame them? The USOC can’t compete with the salaries professional international leagues can offer. Still, it seems they’ll have to find a way to get the full team training together consistently at least a year before the Olympics or we could be back in trouble in 2012.

USAV also needs to do something about the revolving door of coaches the squads have seen come and go since ‘96. There will be new coaches on both sides yet again for the London Games. With new coaches come new systems, new tendencies and new strategies that the players have to adjust to once they return from their overseas gigs.

Granted, the job is a tough sell seeing as it is quite possibly the worst in the business. Unlike most coaching jobs that have seasons and off-seasons, the USA Volleyball job is non-stop. The team is in various stages of disarray from year to year. To qualify for the Olympics, they play all over the world forcing the coach to be away from home and family for most of the year.

Once all the top players return, the coach has to take a team of all-stars, each convinced they should be starting, and turn them into a cohesive unit in record time. And the pay? USAV seems to bank on someone taking the job out of sheer loyalty and patriotism. Often that isn’t enough to bring in the best candidates or to keep them around once the games are over.

I’d like to see the U.S. develop a system that works consistently. But I think any effort to make things better might have been abandoned with the recent success. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Right?