Tactical Tuesday Part 3 - Athletic Ethos

No Opt Out, Right Is Right, Without Apology

Previous Articles
Part 1 - Practice Preparation
Part 2 - Check For Understanding

Athletic Ethos

One of the most important things a coach can do is teach their players how to practice well.

Not just show up. Not just go through the motions. Not even just “work hard.” I mean something more precise: working in a way that builds mastery. Training with intent. Holding to a standard. Raising the bar.

In Teach Like A Champion 3.0, Doug Lemov talks about something called Academic Ethos—a culture in which high standards and rigorous learning are normal, expected, and pursued with energy. He writes:

“In the strongest classrooms, rigor isn’t a bolt-on feature. It’s in the air. It’s not a special occasion, it’s just how we do things.”

That hit me. And it maps to great volleyball environments. In fact, if you go around the great programs — high school, club, college, pro, etc — you would be hard-pressed to list out all of the things that contribute to a high-level training environment. Sometimes we call this Institutional Knowledge. It would be impossible to list out from scratch everything that makes a great program great. But these 3 tactics I’ll discuss today are how you start building all those little behaviors into your gym culture.

I want to talk about building Athletic Ethos in your gym—and three tools for doing it well.

1. No Opt Out

At its core, No Opt Out is a simple rule: if a student (player) doesn’t get something right, the moment doesn’t end there.

Lemov writes:

“The heart of the interaction is something else, subtle but powerful called No Opt Out, which is the name for the moment when [the teacher] returns to [a student], whose initial answer was not correct. When a student does not answer correctly, teachers often call on another student or provide the correct answer themselves. But the class hearing the right answer is different from the original student understanding it and being accountable, with caring and humanity, for expressing that understanding.”

That idea — returning to the player — is huge.

I’ve seen this over and over in practice. Here are a few examples:

• Before practice, you’re reviewing BSBH defensive responsibilities. You ask, “Where should the off-blocker be?” and Cold Call (more on this in a later article) Suzie. She hesitates and says something like, “Drop off the net?” It’s not wrong, but it’s not quite it. You go to another player who says, “10 by 10,” which is the answer you were looking for. But you return to Suzie a few moments later: “Just to refresh—Suzie, where should the off-blocker be?” That return loop closes the gap. Suzie gets the win. Everyone sees that learning is the goal.

• You’re running setter tutor with two players. You ask Suzie to show the Rotation 1 Release. She doesn’t quite nail it. You give a short demo—then go back to her: “Alright, Suzie, your turn again.” The goal isn’t to catch her slipping. It’s to give her a clean rep and a chance to own it.

• Sometimes No Opt Out isn’t verbal. Say you do some Goldilocks Serving early in practice with an emphasis on alternating between short and deep. In 6v6, one or two players clearly prefer serving deep and just serve every ball deep, instead of applying what you worked on earlier in practice. A simple, “let’s see a short one next time,” will close the loop and activate No Opt Out.

Lemov again:

“Done well it often goes a step further, affording a student who’s struggled an opportunity to 'get it right' in front of peers. It can also be an effective response to learned helplessness—the awkward moments when a student simply won’t try.”

Players—especially younger ones—sometimes opt out not because they’re lazy, but because they’re unsure. Your job is to build an environment where not knowing isn’t shameful… but it’s not a stopping point either.

2. Right Is Right

I’ll let Lemov kick off this section:

“In almost every lesson, there comes a moment when a student's answer is similar to what you hoped you'd get (or, even better, to the exemplar you wrote when preparing your lesson), but something is still missing. The gist is there... but it's not all the way complete.”

This is where Right Is Right comes in.