Continue reading »]]> Ok, it’s 2:30 in the morning and I really should be sleeping, but anyone that knows me knows that I keep some pretty crazy hours. Tonight, I can’t sleep because I’m thinking and working on volleyball stuff again and my mind keeps wandering back to a couple of unique experiences that I had during last night’s practices. They are unique because very few coaches will ever get to go through them quite the way I did (as a coach and director of a club). They are completely separate, but they are tied together very closely for me.

First: The 17N team has been playing some extremely high caliber volleyball lately, but we have also been working through some injuries and illness. So when we started practice tonight with only eight players, I was about to scrap our practice plan and wing it. In order for us to practice some 6 vs. 6 tonight I was going to have to find 4 players to fill in. We had two coaches willing to play and I can mix it up when I have to, but where would we find one more? It just happened that one of Coach Casey’s 13s players was hanging around after her practice.

Now in order for a younger player to work with an older group (much less five years apart, which they are) you have to have at least three things. The younger player has to be good, has to have heart, and has to be fearless. Check, check, and check. We went through a full practice with a number of small group competitions and culminating in regular game play. I am absolutely blown away at how successful this player was on our court. She didn’t shy away from the competition and was very effective playing libero with and against some of the best players in our region. Her teams actually won most of the games we played. She got a couple of key digs and handled serve receive very well.

This player is a second year player and was able to decipher exactly what was going on in practice. She knew the terminology and the adjustments to make. She was able to fit in and actually contribute. This is an extreme example of the consistency of coaching and learning that our players go through. From year to year, from the younger age groups to the older ones, from coach to coach, and from practice to practice, the details and the concepts and the learning are the same. It really pays off in so many ways.

Second: I am involved with developing the curriculum and laying the foundations for every team in our club. I am in the gym every week with six of our teams working closely with the coaches to develop practice plans and strategies and generally helping out wherever needed. But anyone who has ever coached can tell you that there is a definite difference between helping out with a team’s practice and actually running it.

Since Regionals is over, I am taking over the day-to-day operations and head coaching responsibilities of our 14National team. The upcoming birth of Coach Emily’s child precludes her from being able to attend the AAU Nationals tournament in June. To complicate things further, we’ve added three players from our regional team to the roster.

I spent Monday really observing the team and doing some video taping to evaluate where we are at and what we need to work on over the coming weeks. We can always work on fundamentals, but the main thing I came into practice last night wanting to accomplish was simply picking up our practice tempo. Playing faster both during rallies and in between rallies.

We teach every player in our club the same basic fundamentals and systems. A player should be able to go from one team’s practice to another without missing a beat. Even so, there should be some adjustment period when you are mixing in several other players. Well, something special happened last night. As the 14s adjusted to playing at the tempo expected of them, the transition of the new players became seamless and everyone’s fundamentals became sharper. We had many high quality rallies and the level of play in the gym was far beyond what I thought it would be at this point. There were great pass/set/hit/dig rallies and we were able to run our transition offense through the middles many times. This is extremely difficult to do unless you are playing very high-level ball.

Last night’s great practice is not possible without Coach Emily (14N) and Coach Erika (14R). Even though they have not worked together until tonight, they have done a remarkable job of teaching consistent fundamentals and systems. They have taught these concepts to a level of detail that these young players were able to coordinate fluidly and make adjustments on the fly with only a word or two of instruction. Really good stuff!

In fact, our entire coaching staff is really on the same page and has done a phenomenal job of teaching the sport. Our players and teams have been improving by leaps and bounds since the beginning of the season and even from year to year. This is the direct result of a strong, dedicated and unified coaching staff. Way to go coaches! And GO PLA!!

Michael Carter

Continue reading »]]> Congratulations to everyone for making it through the BIGGEST TOURNAMENT EVER! Some of you are old pros and some of you went through the experience for the first time. Either way, the Big South tournament is truly an event to behold. I’ve been coaching in this tournament for many years, before it was even in Atlanta. It started out in Tampa, then grew to Tampa and Orlando, and finally outgrew Florida all together so they moved it to the GWCC – the only place big enough to have it all under one roof. In my 20 years of coaching, it never ceases to amaze me how far our sport has come and where it is going. The growth of the sport has been explosive and the level of play has been steadily rising for a long time now. The volleyball you see today is NOT the same volleyball that was being played even 5 or 10 years ago. The Big South tournament really gives us a great snapshot of the sport at the Juniors level. The tournament is huge, we get to see and play against teams of all different levels from all over the country, and the whole event is an amazing thing to be a part of, something the girls will remember for the rest of their lives. I’m sure most of you picked up a t-shirt too.:)

Thank You: I have to say a profound Thank You to all of our coaches. Their dedication to our kids, the teams, and the club really goes above and beyond. Many had to take off work or school on Friday and many were there from sun-up to sun-down all three days working with their own teams as well as helping with and supporting the other teams in the club. Their job is monumentally difficult trying to manage the team, each individual player, the parents, and coordinate all the behind the scenes stuff. We don’t say thanks enough, and I would just like to let them know that they are appreciated.

Personally, it was a long weekend for Reilly and me. We had to go downtown and take care of team registration and check-in on Thursday night and then be ready to go first thing Friday morning. The 17s didn’t play until the afternoon, so I was excited about the opportunity to sit with a number of teams in the morning wave. Throughout the course of the weekend, I managed to see every team play a game or a match, and in some cases, multiple matches. I have a couple of big-picture observations I would like to share.

First of all, I fully realize that in any given match that we play, at any level, I am watching a completely different game than the parents are watching. Parents watch their individual daughter more than I do, while I watch how our team or the other teams execute their systems. Parents watch ball contacts, where I watch what happens away from the ball and in between contacts. Parents may be thrilled watching the girls dive all over the floor and somehow win a rally in the end. I may not be thrilled with the same play because I know that we had three girls out of position. Parents may agonize about the ball Sally just hit out of bounds to end the game. I may love the play because the passer executed our serve receive perfectly, the set was on time and Sally had the courage to take the swing. There are many different ways to compare success and failure. The final score and points won and lost is NOT how I view our successes.

The Process: I talk about the Process a lot. It encompasses a number of different things that all players must go through before they can become truly proficient. They must learn the game, the fundamentals, the systems, their teammates, how to compete, and many more things. No player will become a great volleyball player in one season. The Process takes time, a lot of time. So when I really got to see our teams this weekend, I have to say that I am very pleased with our progress through the Process. From the 12s to the 17s, every last player, coach and team is getting better. A lot better. It doesn’t always translate into points on the scoreboard right now, but we are trying to play volleyball the right way. Does each team have things they need to work on? Sure, there will always be room for improvement, but in the long run we will be better volleyball players because of the things we are working on right now.

In our Club, we have a lot of first year players, some second year players, a few third year players and a handful of fourth year players. Different players and teams are at different points in the Process. Everyone makes progress through the course of the club season. Sometimes it isn’t easy to see because we have a tendency to compare our performance today to our performance yesterday. What we really need to compare is where we are today vs. where we were at the beginning of the season. This is much more difficult, but the improvements are dramatic. And our improvements are outpacing the competition. This is even more difficult to see, especially without several years of experience.

Success: I am a firm believer that if we are diligent in our Process, we work hard enough and we pay attention to the (not-so) little details, that the wins will take care of themselves in the end. The 17N team has no first year players, most of the team is in either year 3 or 4, and the roster has been relatively consistent from year to year. Our 14s year was a tough one. We didn’t win very much, but the girls worked hard, developed a love for the game, and the parents were very supportive. This culture has taken hold and has persevered from year to year. The 17s have steadily improved and at the Big South we were silver bracket champions in the 17 National division. This was a great accomplishment as the only teams to beat us finished top 5, and we came away with big wins over teams from Club South, Tsunami, Birmingham VBC and a couple of teams from other regions. Our dramatic championship match on Sunday resulted in a hard fought win against an A5 team. These are all teams we would not have been able to defeat just a couple of years ago. The Process is working.

During the 17s championship match on Sunday, I was glad to see a lot of players and parents from our other teams watching and cheering. This was commonplace throughout the tournament. At every match I had the chance to see throughout the weekend, there was someone from another team supporting the team that was playing. This is part of the culture that we have really tried to cultivate, and it is a great and powerful thing to have the support of the entire club in your corner. The parents have really been great supporting your daughters, the team, the coaches and the Club in general. I cannot stress enough the powerful influence parents can have on the teams, and I would like to thank you for your positive support.

As we head into the latter part of the season, I would just like to say keep up the good work! We have a great future ahead of us. Go PLA!!

Michael Carter

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Wow! What a way to start off the tournament season for us! The A-Town Showdown may have been the perfect early season tournament. It was a first year tournament with right at 100 teams in a convention center setting. The mix of teams and competition was very good. It was great playing in the GWCC (that experience will pay off later) but the setting was small enough so we could see all of the action. All around, this was exactly the tournament and experience we were hoping it would be. The future is really bright for the A-Town Showdown!

One thing that I really like about our club is the tight-knit family atmosphere that we create. This begins with the way we structure our practices. Both players and coaches have the ability and are encouraged to work with many different teams. This environment really shined through at the tournament. We had all 11 teams playing, and while we weren’t the club with the most teams, it sure seemed like we were. Everywhere I looked there were players and parents with the red and black watching and encouraging each other. We had some of the biggest crowds watching ProLink matches and the energy and support were incredible. Way to go parents, players and coaches!

Next, I want to share some observations from the training side of the experience. All of our teams were able to compete. This was officially a power tournament so the competition was tough. Our girls always had a chance and fought hard for every point. The fact that all of our players are jump serving really gives them a next level confidence that they can do something the other teams can’t (I saw a lot of standing servers this tournament from other teams). It’s also a weapon for us that we use to score points. I watched several matches that we won simply because our serving was better than the other team’s.

The fact that all of our teams, from 12’s on up, are running the same basic systems allowed a couple of things to happen. First and foremost, the younger girls had the opportunity to see some of the more experienced teams execute effectively the same exact things that they are working on. It really helps them to have that visual of “what it’s supposed to look like”. Secondly, we have some players who are working with younger teams in a coaching capacity. They are able to relate directly to the younger players their experiences and insights that sometimes are just received better from players.

The coaches were absolutely fantastic at the tournament. They were able to go from team to team and help out wherever they were needed. To lend an extra pair of eyes, help take stats, or conduct warm-ups can all be invaluable services to another team. We had a number of coaches who really went above and beyond with their commitment. Many were there for the entire tournament. I mean the ENTIRE tournament – from 8am to sometimes 11pm the first two days and until 4 or 5pm on Monday. Our coaches are really invested in the teams and the club and it has been a great thing. Way to go coaches!

I would like to highlight a couple of our finishes in the tournament. If I leave someone out, it’s not because I’m not proud of them, rest assured I am proud of all of our teams – it’s that I have a point to make. If anyone read my last post “Great Volleyball Takes Time”, this is a continuation of that train of thought. Our 13National and 15National teams both finished second in the entire tournament and the 17National team finished third. The reason these are significant is that each of these teams has many players who have been in the ProLink system for at least a couple of years. None of those teams had much success early on. Learning to play volleyball is a process and it does take time. I talk about the three-year plan all the time. There is tremendous value to keeping a team together and learning the same systems and techniques and processes season after season. Once the processes for the teams are good, the wins will take care of themselves and the girls will all be better volleyball players for it. Those are some of our teams that are able to experience that early in the season, because of their past. We must all be patient.

Last but certainly not least, I’d like to say great job to all the parents! I know it takes a great deal of energy and effort to go through a tournament like this and all of the parents were great. You were really supportive of not only your daughters and teams, but also the entire club. I had the opportunity to chat with many of you over the weekend and the positive energy was phenomenal. I can’t tell you how much influence that has over the team and the coaches. I know we are all excited about the potential for the season ahead and the future beyond!

Go PLA!

Michael Carter

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Today is Monday, December 12. After tonight’s practice we will have had a total of 15 practice days. One thing we like to do with our club is to hit the ground running. There isn’t anyone around who has been in the gym working hard on their volleyball skills as much as we have. Not even close.

At ProLink, we have a very specific curriculum and we’ve managed to cover a ton of material since the beginning of practices. The girls and the coaches have been focused and have worked extremely hard to make this happen. All of the teams have been getting to know one another, learning how to practice, working on fundamentals, implementing our basic offensive and defensive systems, and learning the drills and the rules we like to use. For the new players, I’m sure the experience is completely different from what they are used to. For the returning players, we’ve definitely ramped up the expectations. Everyone seems to be adapting quickly.

That said, I’d like to share a few thoughts and observations with everyone. At ProLink, we train the athletes to be great volleyball players. Not just girls who play volleyball. Sometimes the amount of information we give them and the standards at which we ask them to perform can seem daunting. They WILL NOT be good volleyball players in the beginning, regardless of their age and athletic ability. That is just the nature of volleyball. Learning and acquiring volleyball skill is a growth process that the players must go through. There is no way around it. The real question is how long does the process take.

Answer: Certainly not overnight. The majority of our 17 National team has been together for 3 and 4 years now. Most of the girls started playing when they were 14s. That year they had a lot of fun and learned a ton about volleyball, but didn’t win very much. Second year, the team made some big jumps in skill and knowledge and was competitive, but still inconsistent. Third year, the players made another huge leap forward and became more consistent. At this point, the team was able to compete with any opponent they came across.

That brings us to year four. The players have worked extremely hard for a long time now. They have faced many obstacles and have dedicated countless hours in the gym working on their game. They still have a lot to learn, but now they have reached a level of experience, skill and knowledge that will allow them to reach some of their lofty goals such as winning tournaments and playing in college.

The team participated in a scrimmage recently. It was as if all the hard work we had been doing for such a long time finally came together. The girls played very sharp volleyball. Their fundamentals were sound, they stayed focused the entire time, and they were able to execute our systems at a high level. Because we train the players to be complete players (not just one dimensional athletes), the team was even able to play many of the girls out of position. The results were the same. All of the girls are now experienced enough that there are very few situations they can’t handle.

The way the team performed at the scrimmage was a lot of fun to watch and was very rewarding for me personally. Not just for the 17s, but for the whole club in general. We’ve got a lot of young, aspiring volleyball players with the club now. The successes of the 17 National team should be a glowing affirmation to everyone – players, coaches, and parents – of how good our players can be if we just give them time.

Becoming a great volleyball player is a long and involved process. The journey isn’t always easy and it doesn’t happen overnight, but it sure is fun when it all comes together. The future is bright and teeming with potential. Go PLA!

Michael Carter

The program concluded with a championship match, with the winners receiving their tournament championship t-shirts!!

Director Mike Carter led the Buford Middle School team to a record setting season of 16-2.


Coach Emily Castleberry led the Horizon Christian Varsity girls to a season record of 8-8 overall, …

Continue reading »]]> Congratulations to several of the ProLink Volleyball Club coaches for successful seasons coaching in local area school programs.

Director Mike Carter led the Buford Middle School team to a record setting season of 16-2.


Coach Emily Castleberry led the Horizon Christian Varsity girls to a season record of 8-8 overall, 6-2 in region and the Junior Varsity went 10-4, 8-0 in region. They will be hosting the State Tournament this week. Good luck Horizon Christian!