Big City Volleyball

Sports Coach

July - August 2023 • New York City, NY

What I liked

I absolutely loved my experience working as a Summer Volleyball Camp Coach, and the connection I have made with Big City Volleyball is one i plan to return to whenever I am at home. Coaching brightened my day; to be able to work with youth and navigate their progress in the sport of volleyball - seeing their "lightbulb" moment when they finally succeed at something that they have been working on for so long - is an incredibly gratifying feeling. I also became more aware of how I was a role model to them, and how our interactions off the court were just as important - possibly even more important, in some aspects - than our interactions on the court. These were young kids, ages 10-16, so there was a lot of learning they still had to do, about sport and life. Being able to be part of that journey, seeing everyone's unique personality and figuring out how to make the sport I love just as enjoyable to them, was something that reaffirmed my love for the sport as well. I also loved having the creative reign to construct my own camp schedules; it allowed me to develop and test certain methods of training and teaching that I have learned, effectively putting my understanding of metacognition to practice. Coaching also helped me remember my own technical necessities, and as a college athlete, that is paramount to my success in games and practices. I have such a deeper and more repetitive understanding of the sport now, because I spent so much time verbalizing the technical aspects that have made me successful, which has inevitably drilled them into my head and helped me maintain a high level of technical sounding in the sport of beach volleyball.

What I wish was different

I did run into some scheduling conflicts or stressors with admin, primarily in the instances when my boss informed me the day of a certain private lesson, that she had booked me for said private lesson. This had a strong impact on my plans for the day, and although my plans were fortunately not conflicting, it did put me on edge consistently and I adapted to keeping certain parts of my day open in the case she sprung one on me the same day again. Having that lack of security was frustrating, especially when it added extra commute time; some days, I only had approximately eight hours of notice that I was needed for a private lesson. There were also some frustrations that other employees and I had about the work schedules; being on a rolling basis, they were occasionally inconsistent, and there was never a reason proactively communicated to the employees as to why. I did not suffer from this too much, but there definitely were weeks in which I had been hoping to work double shifts and did not get any, even though I had secured them the week before. For me, these obstacles were manageable and by chance did not conflict with my personal life schedule. However, I know that for some of my coworkers, the incidents caused greater stress and frustration due to their lifestyles and schedules.

Advice

Have a plan and be specific! There were some days that I went to camp with a general idea of what we were going to do and what skills I wanted to focus on for that day, but I did not always write out specifically what drills we were going to do and in what order or to what number. I ran into decision paralysis on those days, and when your campers are looking at you expectantly for instruction, it can be really nerve-racking! I learned from my mistakes and utilized plans, making use of old ones if I happened to run out of time to create a new one, or making one up during the water breaks I gave to the campers as camp went on.

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