First, you HAVE to improve the INDIVIDUAL skills. Spirit, hustle, and effort will only take you so far. Having 4-hour practices will not catch you up. If you can do just one of the following, that's GREAT! If you can do more than one, you'll see positive results in your program in as little as one year!
- Have camps at your school. If money's a problem, then find someone like me who'll come in and do a camp real cheap. Do not get bent out of shape if all your girls don't come!
- Help them fund raise.This way you can go to camps during the summer. It can be done.
- Become a junior coach or start your own junior program.
- Have open gyms during the off-season. During the spring, I used to have three hours one night for vets and two hours another night for rookies and even had my vets come in to teach them! Some coaches won't have an open gym unless a certain number of girls commit to coming and that's OK. But I was single, so I had open gyms regardless of how many came. When the rookies wouldn't come to my school, I got permission from the middle school principal to have the rookie open gyms at THEIR school.
- Get the girls to doubles tournaments, or host them. It's sun, fun and vball. How much more can a kid want?