Never Go To Applebees

Didn't see this one coming!

Sorry for the empty week. Some major life changes afoot. See the end of this article.

I connected with the concept Nassim Taleb calls “Barbell Theory” when I read the book Antifragile. The analogy is that a barbell is stable because it is weighted at both extreme ends. It meshed with a core tenant of my life, which at that point I was calling “High-Low Theory.” Or, as I would sometimes say, “Life Rule #1: Never Go To Applebees.” At some point, I’ll write a series of posts about how to be a nomadic volleyball coach, but it’s easy to appreciate the fact that cost-efficiency is a component of that.

If you’re a 24 year-old who has dropped out of your promising math-quant track to try to make a living by teaching 14 year-olds how to jump float properly, you can’t waste money. But you still want to have some life experiences; you’re a nomadic volleyball coach, not a monk. So: Never Go To Applebees.

Dinner for 2 at Applebees, even in 2010 dollars is still going to set you back $70 when all’s said and done. If you do that once a week, you’re out $280 at the end of the month and all you’ve done is gone to Applebees 4 times. No. Instead, you go Costco 3 times for that $5 rotisserie chicken and on the 4th weekend you spend $200 at a legit steakhouse. Now you're $65 ahead and you have something to look forward to for the next month. Math. Doesn't. Lie.

Applebees Are Everywhere

I’m sorry Applebees, it’s not that you’re singularly bad. Plus, Walker Hayes gave you a lot of free publicity. You’re fine. Substitute any generic chain that’s never really good but I guess is never really terrible and probably has at least an A- rating from the local health inspector. Why do you go there? Because it’s there and you didn’t really plan things out. And you forgot that you’re going to pay them $18 to microwave you that Cajun Shrimp And Chicken Pasta that you can get for $6 a pop at Costco. It’s coming from the exact same warehouse.

The point is: a lot of times you just do stuff because it’s there to be done and you forget that even seemingly not-very-costly things can add up. And then you think you don’t have the money for that $200 steak dinner when what you really don’t have the money for is all the $70 dinners you forgot you even had the next day.

We do this all the time in coaching. When I run a club practice, I never give water breaks. Almost all water breaks are just the coaches and players being bored and having no sense of momentum. Do you want to know how I know? Play Queen of the Court next practice. Just get it going and keep it going. Since it’s Queen of the Court, the players are coming off the court all the time, and even waiting for half a minute or longer before they get back on. And don’t do any instruction or demos or anything that the players would be afraid they’d miss out on.

Do this for an hour and see how many times a player pulls themselves out to get water. They might do it once or twice. Great! They walk over, grab a sip of water, and hop back in the drill. Everybody proceeds along just fine.

So: this is how I conduct practice all the time. We proceed from drill to drill with a sense of momentum and continuity and I don’t break it to get water unless that break serves a purpose, such as allowing an individual conversation to take place, etc. Players are not prohibited from getting water, and are encouraged to keep a water bottle right by the court, so it’s trivial to walk over after you wave off the court or switch sides of the net, grab a sip, and resume playing.

You might get 50 practices in a season. If one team spends 7 minutes on water breaks they are giving up 3 full practices compared to the team that takes no time on water breaks. And most teams take way more than 7 minutes.

And speaking of Queen of the Court… that can be a bigtime Applebees! The expression The Game Teaches The Game is both a valuable and insidious influence in the volleyball coaching world. I think you should always have a clear idea of the answer to the question, “what will at least one person on my team be better at after we run this drill?” A lot of times a drill like Queens seems good because everybody is playing and getting some touches and volleyball is happening. Okay, good, great. But what are they better at? And maybe the purpose is simply: to finish raising their body temperature and get their shoulders warmed up so we can start really working on hitting/defense/passing/whatever. Again, all good. But in my experience a lot of teams soak up time with Applebees drills and then wonder why their defenders are out of position or their setter-hitter connection is off because they never seem to have time to address those issues.

I’m Going To Korea

Last week I became the coach of the Gwangju AI Peppers in the Korean league.

Let’s just say this was not an Applebees move at all, so I’m very excited about it. This is a drastic life change for my family and me but there’s some really cool things about the opportunity. It will also make for some fun SmarterVolley content. In the upcoming weeks, I’ll post some of the typical SmarterVolley stuff, but I’ll also add some content on how I’m approaching taking over a new team. I think you’ll enjoy it.