The Game Teaches The Game?

In a previous subscriber-only post, I referenced the Organization - Mechanics - Skill framework and the importance of Organization.

One reason this is a challenge for youth players is that their capabilities evolve quickly from say 13 to 17. The game is quite different at those two ages. The easiest way to see this is in Sideout. At U-13, you choose serve. At U-17, you choose receive.

This means that some of what the game teaches you at U-13 is false at U-17! Some examples:

At U-13, if you have to send a freeball, you want to send it to deep zone 1, but at U-17, I’d rather send it to the short 2/3-seam.

At U-13, rather than send a freeball, you want to get a hand on the ball and hit a downball. At U-17, I’d rather set the ball over the net to a good spot than hit a downball.

At U-13, I’d rather not cover my hitter, because the ball will almost never be blocked, but it will be dug back over a lot and I’m often not big/fast enough to cover the court if it gets dug back over. At U-17, the ball will be blocked more than it will be dug over so I better get good at covering.

There’s a bunch more of these examples and you may not agree with every one. That’s okay, my system might look different in a few years. The game continues to evolve.

Some players do intuitively learn this stuff without having to be told. But many don’t. And also, some plays only work when everybody on the team is on the same page. Those are the most important plays to organize!