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speaker-1: Good morning everybody. Johan Dolfer here, along with my good friend Richard Gary. Richard, good morning. You've been fired.
speaker-2: Morning, yep, I'm a single sport coach again.
speaker-1: All right, awesome. We'll talk about that. And our guest of the day, Becky Schmidt at Hope College. Becky, how are you this morning?
speaker-0: Doing great. It's great to be here.
speaker-1: We have been looking forward to getting you on this podcast because you and I go back gosh when I saw you play on an international trip and then move to your alma mater hope college where you've been wildly successful wearing the orange of my birth nation. So we have the Dutch in common and of course on your way to the two thousand fourteen national championship at Hope College. Your team beat the crap out of my Clarkson Golden Knights. And so I'll remember that forever too. We may have to talk about that today.
speaker-0: Go down those memory paths.
speaker-1: it was a good year, Becky. We can talk about that, right? All right. Becky, I would love for you to introduce yourself a little bit to our listeners. And we're building listeners. We're getting more and more each week, but give them a little bit of your background specifically in, and we have this in common too, but in sports psychology. Tell us a little bit about how you ended up blending that with your coaching.
speaker-0: Yeah. Well, when I was going to college at Hope, you know, in the late nineties, I knew that being a college head coach was was what I wanted. I thought that at the time I wanted to be a big time D one head coach. I went to my first AVCA convention when I was a junior at Hope. doing I was like coaching middle school volleyball and and you know the the the convention was in Cleveland, so pretty close, short drive and said, yeah, I want to learn a little bit more about coaching and was just enamored by all of these big time coaches that I got the chance to meet, you know, and volleyball is a pretty small, small community, you know, in terms of of people really looking out for each other and and just was so impressed. So I thought that I wanted to, you know, go the D one route and be be a a a big time coach at the time. I don't know if that's still the same now, but it's it was necessary to get a master's degree in order to be a college coach. And so decided to pursue a D1 opportunity at Miami University in Ohio, which at the time I think is was and still is one of the the strongest master's degree programs for sports psychology in the country. but had the opportunity to volunteer for co Carolyn Condit's program at at Miami as well and realized through that whole experience that division one was not where I wanted to be. and the experience that I had as a division three student athlete was much more aligned with what my values were as a as a coach and and as a professional. And so And not not to any fault of Miami. I had a great experience there and learned a ton, but but but just different priorities. And so, yeah, I had the opportunity to go to the University of Redlands and become a head coach at the age of twenty five. and then, you know,
speaker-1: You to coach lacrosse as well, right?
speaker-0: They asked me to my my second duty as a as D three head coach was to be an assistant lacrosse coach. And the first game I ever coached was the first game I ever saw. And that was that was a treat. I learned a ton from that experience, I'll tell ya. And and and loved it and loved the people I got to work with and and so yeah, but now I'm back at home and
speaker-1: I just realized another another tangent that connects our lives because at at Miami you worked with in the sports psych department with Doctor Veely whose whose work was instrumental to my master's thesis at the University of Minnesota at the time in sports confidence. So anyone interested in in in confidence for for volleyball athletes in particular, Doctor Veely is really is instrumental in all of that and you got to work with her.
speaker-0: Yeah, she was my thesis advisor and was just just a wonderful mentor at Miami. Yeah.
speaker-1: Yeah. Well, welcome to the podcast. I am just thrilled that you're here and want to dig into some of the stories that I'm sure you can you can enlighten us with. Last week we had Matt Troy here. we ended up talking about storming, norming, and performing. And we asked Matt, listen, on your way to an undefeated national championship season, I'm sure there was lots of storming. Matt's answer was I can't remember too much of it, but there were injuries
speaker-0: I loved I loved that conversation. You that was a that was that was a fun fun listen to. Yeah.
speaker-1: Yeah. Well I jumping in for this week, I I I don't mind sharing some of my own vulnerabilities in this podcast and people that have listened know this. we this the this last week at at Hartford has been extraordinarily hard. just to give you an indication, on Tuesday in practice we did nothing but running and that's typically not a good sign for the athletes nor for the coach, right? so something happened that I would consider a storming moment. and and and you know, I we talked about that is something you would want to have happen because working through it typically leads to performing. Now I I would argue that the week before you potentially make the playoffs for the first time in school history is maybe not the ideal time to have this happen. But the question for you, Becky, is Tell us about your run to the two thousand fourteen national championships and tell us a little bit about when did you start getting the inclination that it might happen? and please help us by telling us that it wasn't as smooth as everyone always seems to think that it is when you have a team that's that dominant. Tell us was there some storming of your own going on during that season?
speaker-0: man. I think the storming, yeah, there was. and it was not an easy season by any stretch of the
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imagination. I think that we had a number of different things that we were were storming around with regards to the roles that people were playing, whether or not we were going to have a pl DS play, you know, for a six rotation outside. something that that a lot of us, think about is like what's the value of a back row attack, in our game and you know, should you should we sub out a you know, a very strong attacker for somebody that's maybe a better defender b but but then lose a back row attack. we had a very strong division on the team between the starters and and some of the bench players that weren't getting a whole lot of of opportunity. and there's still some some things around that year that, you know, I look back at at a national championship with, you know, a lot of like, you know, pride and and a lot of work went into it. But there were some things that were left on the table, you know, kind of there in terms like whether or not everybody felt like that was a national championship that they had contributed to. And so that was hard for me and I know it was hard for the bench. It was hard for the starters who eventually had to to have one of those player only meetings and say, look, either get on the board get get on board with what we're doing here or be quiet, basically, and There was there was a lot, and and it was because we were trying to uncover every little rock, The year before you had mentioned it, we got upset in the the national, you know, the elite eight that we were hosting. we lost in in the you know, the quarter final match to a team that I thought we were we were much better than in an in an environment like that was the most orange that I've ever seen in our in our arena. The loudest I've ever heard our arena when we walked out, you know, during the procession. and then that match felt like w was over in twenty five seconds, you know, and I just remember looking at our assistant coaches like I have no idea what to do, what to say, like and didn't know like kind of what to do after that match. We were pretty heavily favored and and just couldn't couldn't find a rhythm at all.
speaker-1: It you had pretty much correct me if I'm wrong, but the the your roster was left intact pretty much from that year to the next. It in a sense do you feel like that may have been your storming moment that allowed for the championship to happen in two thousand twenty four or two thousand fourteen?
speaker-0: Yeah, it was absolutely our storming moment. It was the thing, the heartbreak that really galvanized a group of people towards like never wanting to feel that way again. And and so it was absolutely a storming moment that that brought a group of people together around around something that was that that ended up being pretty special.
speaker-2: So Becky, you know, they there was a story of the Knicks this year that the coach showed them the handshake line from the year before when they lost in the regional games. do you then go that next
day and start watching that video and breaking down what went wrong? Or do you s say, no, we need to turn the page on this and just start start building? How do you respond to That kinda loss in a way that then starts to get some momentum going for the next year.
speaker-0: Yeah, I watched that match back eventually. but not not the next day. I mean the group grief was real, you know, on that and and we gotta protect ourselves too, you know. so but like the the ache of that was definitely something that was that was felt throughout throughout our team for sure.
speaker-2: Do you do you think back though, okay, this time out, this communication, this practice the day before, what were the what were the things that maybe as you are identi are you identifying things that are like, Okay, were this to happen again, this is how I might look at this, or d is it kind of a reset? I know coaches that do it both both ways.
speaker-1: What did do differently? Do you know what you would do differently if you could do it again?
speaker-0: I there was one moment during the season in the twenty fourteen year. So this is you know, the year that we won the national championship. we had just played we had just played Calvin and we had won and I and we became the number one ranked team in the country, like in the in the poll, ABCA poll. And we have one we had one building on campus that was eight stories. Like it was a library for the seminary right next door to the building. And I asked I asked our the the janitor over there if he would be able to get my team up onto the roof of that building. and I mean this is the the tallest building in Holland, Michigan, right? You know, like so it's like seen from everywhere. The only thing taller are some steeples on some of the churches. Sounds Holland itself. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. it was but anyway, he got us up onto the roof of this building and we were able to look out. And we looked out. and I said, go to go as far as close to the edge as you're comfortable. Right. You know, like, and and I want you to look out and I want you to look down and I want you to think about the beauty of what it looks like to look out. from this vantage point, but to recognize the fear that also comes from looking down. And you know what that feels like because you lived it last year, you know, and the, you know, as we as we left that, you know, kind of like, you know, had that moment, went back down the stairs, the senior, the senior class like stayed. They stayed for a little bit and I don't know what they talked about or what they said to each other. but but they had a moment together because it was that was real, right? You know, so you know, think about the the handshake line of the video, you know, of that. Like I don't think I was I wanted to try to remind them of that feeling, but I wanted to do it in a way that was not just about anger or regret. That was about something like that we were calling them to something bigger. Look out. See the beauty that is possible when you are this good of a team and when you have worked this hard and you have built such a strong foundation that now it's just like, hey, keep your gaze up here rather than than get worried about all this stuff below.
speaker-2: Do know when you started, so you come into preseason then after this this year before and is it day one, conversation one, let's go win a championship? Or is it we're not gonna talk about that at all and we're gonna touch behaviors and you know, cause I I hear both versions being very successful.
speaker-0: No, we said this team is clearly capable of winning a national championship. This is the process it's gonna take to to be able to get there. Let's focus on that and and go from there.
speaker-1: No no Becky, I know I know the the answer to this and I I wonder if you have a a blue jacket laying around and some and some aviator glasses and a and a weird hat because I know your love for Ted Lasso. it reminds me what you just described from There you go, yep, well yeah we all have one in our office, that's right. so the story you just do you just described actually really reminds me of Ted taking his team down into the sewers. Do you remember that from the show?
speaker-0: I do. Remember like as soon as as they started doing that, I was like, my gosh, this is so something I would do and this could go really badly.
speaker-1: Right. Right.
speaker-0: No, there was a lot of overlaps in
speaker-1: No wonder you love the show so much.
speaker-2: The the creation of powerful metaphors is something that we hear a lot in in coaching and and that's just one of those moments that solidifies a a a very powerful metaphor for them to be able to look back to. It also reminds me of that that conversation of sports psych, you can walk across a plank when it's on the ground, but if you put it fifty feet in the rafters, that same walk is a lot harder. And you're you're really tapping into all of those different energies and metaphors with that. So it's it's a beautiful s thing that my question we get gets back to then what you come back down now. Do you just go back to practice as usual?
speaker-0: Yeah, I think that I think the best thing that I can do is be a consistent leader for them, you know, and like demonstrate that I am committed to our standards and committed to like every day we're gonna be trying to build on the previous, you know, and so late in the season when our backups beat our starters in a scrimmage, you know, and I, you know, like afterwards I'm just like, my gosh, like how is this happening? And like are we gonna lose in the first round, you know, and and you know, like will we ever win again? You know, like type of these types of questions. I am making sure that I'm not showing that to my team, you know, and And demonstrating that I am not worried, that that we've got we've got confidence in in you to be able to to to do this and you're probably dealing with some of these anxieties too.
the last thing I need to do is to is to to sew some more worry or doubt into you, you know. So
speaker-2: We we were just talking I just had a conversation with a player who's playing pro now and he was saying he never remembered winning a practice like it throughout his career. Somehow that was always the the situation and and yet he couldn't, you know, th thro throw throw everything up and and panic. we you talk about standards, you know, can you outline a few of those? Like can you take talk about 'Cause it's every coach talks in terms of that, but what when you're outlining it, do you use a program manual? Do you reference back to it? Do you go into do you have your ten beliefs on the whiteboard and they have to be reinforced every day? What what what are your things that you use as standards both for setting and reinforcing?
speaker-0: Yeah, I honestly can't remember what we were doing then. we've excuse me, we've gone through we have what we call our core covenant. And our core covenant has been revised a number of times through my twenty three years here. and our most recent iteration of this is something that's in our locker room and it's something we come back to often. It's much more process, driven than results or outcome, you know, kind of driven. What we talk about is the relentless pursuit of joy, love, and honor in order to win deeply and inspire hope. And you know, winning isn't a part of that. but, you know, with the talent that we have, and I think that this is one of the important things and l one of the the things we talk about with in the recruiting process is when we recruit really talented student athletes. yourself. And we put you into this type of environment where you are working through adversity with joy, when you are selflessly putting other people ahead of your ahead of yourself and loving them regardless of whether or not they are loving you. And and then trying to bring honor to God and our community and the game with playing it but or by playing it the best way possible. then winning is gonna take care of itself, but we're also gonna win deeply. We're gonna win in ways that are going to n nurture our soul, that are gonna like stay with us long past the memory of every of any win or loss on the court, you know, and and then we're also gonna use our platform to be able to inspire hope in some other people. Maybe a team that we're playing, you know, says like, man, I don't what that team has, but I want that, you know, and And that's that gets me. Like when I hear that from from other coaches or other teams, like that is the best. You know, when we're when we're spreading a way of playing the game with others, that fires me up. And so
speaker-1: Well winning deeply and with honor is something that I think I've always looked at you for. I remember two thousand seventeen taking a trip with my Ithaca bombers, the year that we ended up making it to the final four, and beating Hope for the first time on their home court.
And of course the last time we had played you before that was the two thousand fourteen match I just referenced. And my phone rang that night with a text message from you and I'm sure that pain was there from the loss to a team that, you know, losing wasn't a thing. but you did that night and I got a very nice comforting message afterwards saying how how great my team played and how proud you were of me and I think that those are moments that as coaches you you think about who's important in my life and and that's what I that's what to me winning with honor means. 'cause it also coin coincides with losing with honor, right? I think both of those are are important to you. The concept of actually using the word in practice in games in conversations with your players. Talk to me be about how you marry process oriented coaching, which you are known for in my world anyway. and the fact that you opened the season that year in fourteen telling your team we are good enough to win a national championship. How do those two things go hand in hand or go there do or do they?
speaker-0: Well, one of the things that I I think I like morphed at that point, into a the type of coach that said, I wanna be, I wanna be a both and, you know, kind of coach. And there's certainly times that I've failed in terms of the ways that I've done this with teams. but I wanna be a team that will ambitiously set big goals. Like we want to try to do big things and we wanna do it the right way. and it's so it's not an either or type of thing. It's not that it's not just one or and and that's all that care that that we care about. I wanna be able to to to say this is what we wanna try to go out there and do, not be afraid of the negative, you know, of of of the potential failure that comes with that. That's actually one of the most valuable things that our players can graduate from our program with, in my opinion. is like the idea of sending like, hey, I want to go out and do something big. And I'm not going to fear the failure that comes along with that. You know, the the risk of of actually achieving this is actu is maybe pretty small, but I'm not afraid of going after it. And that's one of the things that I really want our players to be able to graduate, having having formed in their in their soul and in their in their mind. So I think that at that point we said, look, we we believe that we're good enough to be able to do this. Let's go out there and do it. Now and and we're not gonna necessarily say that the only validation of success then this season is gonna be whether or not we win the national championship. We're not gonna let outside outsiders define what success is gonna be like at all for us, you know, and that has become a c a continuous thing within our program where we We talk about you know, whether or not we do what we're setting our sights on is not gonna be the thing that validates the effort that went into it. You know, it has to be about the process. It has to be
about what we're what we're putting in. And at the end of the day, win or lose, we are gonna do things that we're gonna be proud of, that's gonna that that that we're gonna feel was all of this was worth it for. And Yeah, so
speaker-2: You talked about a there was a practice where an A side beats loses to the B side, in your design of things, is there a lot of that type of conversation of communicate hey, yeah, I think there was an old model, learn to learn, learn to compete, learn to win. and that that at some point your practice is designed to have competitive environments where you can potentially win or lose and then get that feedback. how much of a week like would you be designing elements that could be won or lost? How much was learning how to win and lose in a practice setting really important? How much was A side versus B side versus intermixed or other models a value as you're building up week by week for for performance?
speaker-0: Yeah. I think that in the probably the last five years of my coaching, and this was actually impacted by Hugh McCutcheon's book, Championship Behaviors, where he wrote in there about how how how not very often he is putting A side versus B side on the court together. And And I was I was intrigued by that 'cause I had pretty much always done that and and loved doing that in large part because I love what the scoreboard teaches us, right? Like I you know, and I'm not afraid
speaker-1: The week before your national championship run and the B side beats the A side, right?
speaker-0: Well, I mean, it teaches you something, right? Like it's like, hey, whatever we're doing there isn't working, you know, and we gotta find it's it's not defining of who I am, but it is defining of like, hey, there might be other actions I need to take if I want to be able to get this done. And so that's something that we've been very intentional about saying is like the scoreboard doesn't define you. The scoreboard defines whether or not we are getting closer to the objective that we've set. and this is like a little inner game of tennis, you know, kind of thing too. Like I've really tried to avoid even saying, like, hey, good pass, you know, and replacing it with things like, Hey, like you did this on that pass, and that pass got us in system. And that and getting in system is going to give us a better chance to be able to overwhelm our opponent. You know, like so, so trying to connect success or successful execution of things to the overall impact and not just whether or not it's good or bad, right? that's getting on a whole other tangent though.
speaker-1: I love that. That it's it's it identifies what you are so much and it it we're talking process over outcome, right? So good pass being the outcome, but teaches n teaches you not it could have been luck, it could have been sheer luck. It teaches the the app teacher nothing about why that ball ended up going to target. It's a life lesson to learn. Hey, your back angle stayed exactly
at forty five degrees, that's what pushed that ball to the tape. Good job. Right. So very much process oriented.
speaker-2: One of the other follow up questions to that is is there a question of okay, why are they the A side if if the B side beat them? And was there mobility within that? And and what were your criteria by which so there's a kind of a famous story in men's volleyball, twenty fifteen, sixteen, the coach for new halts in the quarterfinals, the practice the day before said, Whoever wins A side B side, whoever wins starts tomorrow. And the B side won, I think it was like 3634 in a in a single set. And and they got the tape trickler that won. And er every guy who had not played almost the whole season is playing in the in the second round of the NCAAs. And as the game went on, he he then started making subs. And one of those players ended up supplant playing out of his mind for the next three matches and supplanting an all-American. on the Oppo and and playing all three and the all Americans sat the bench for the entire N C double A tournament as they on their way to a championship. Yeah, it's legendary to me of of what great gyms can be as competitiveness, but also insanity as a coach that you would change what has been working and what's going in that late that late in the game. Was there a a situation for you with you obviously had depth of players because your starters were so good, and yet if your second second team could win, How flexible was that? How much did that shift throughout the season? How did that get proven? Was it only practice or did did B-side players get into games and then their performance dictated whether they stayed B-side or or not?
speaker-0: I think that as a as a coach, I've got a pretty long memory. and so I am not like I've and I've never been the type of coach where what I would make moment to moment changes. So this player's playing better right now, so then they are gonna get the chance to start tomorrow. You know, or you know, you hear about, you know, coaches making lineup decisions based on warm-ups and we'll see who warms up better. I'm like, never. I would never ever do that. it's gonna be based on on a big N. Like we want a big sample size here, you know, and and I think that one of the, you know, the moment to moment fluctuations or the day to day fluctuations or those situations where somebody, you know, like a the team that should be winning doesn't. is really just an opportunity to open a conversation and to be able to say, hey, what's going on? where what are you feeling what's what's standing in the way of you being able to be your best? 'Cause I know that you're capable of of doing this. And over a big, long sample size, the course of your career, you've demonstrated that this is the place where you need to be. So what's going on? and so I think that that's where we tend to to open those doors. I admire the courage of that coach and I'm glad it worked out well for him. I don't know if that
kind of thing would work out well for me, in terms of my coaching and like how I run up that our program. and I would also kind of worry about like some of the long term consequences of of of that. Like what is that doing in terms of of somebody's mentality over the course of now an entire off season and and that kind of thing? it certainly is a fascinating question. hard.
speaker-2: There's there's a a hot hand element to this too that I wonder if also translates more on the men's side somewhat. the question we're constantly having, because we have very small slivers of difference between players sometimes. And the one side is we want to let a player work through something because we know they're gonna revert to the mean and we wanna let them get to that mean. And the other side is sometimes change for its own sake is very good. And sometimes in the collegiate game, more than higher levels, players don't always revert to the mean that day. And, you know, there can be academic pressures, there can be sleep, there can be roommate kept them up, fire alarms went off all night, and all of a sudden what would be the starter is actually you know, if we're really reading the room, not the starter. And and it's such a tricky thing of knowing when to pull the trigger on making that switch, how to how to create a criteria. this player that I was just talking about playing pro, he he is in now game number 10 of their season, he has never started a game and ended it. And he has never been on the bench to start a game and not been on the court to end it. Every single match, they're starting outside gets subbed out at some point in the match. And at one point he got subbed out while hitting four hundred and passing the highest on the team. But they had lost two sets and the coach made the switch anyways, math be damned, and lo and behold, they win in five. And it's so so it's one of those things, it turns turns the kind of the whole concept of money ball on its head of but w what shouldn't we be playing to this is our player, this is who's been the one
speaker-1: See an entirely new podcast episode just based on crazy coaching decisions, you guys. I think that we have some good examples between the three of us to dive in a little better. Hey, Becky, what we typically do on our podcast is I'm sure you've you've listened to at least one episode, it sounds like we would we like to throw out a couple statements. We call it agree to disagree. we've just actually touched one of them. I was gonna ask you whether playing an A side versus a B side. is a necessary part of being successful right before competition. I never do, I've never done it in my whole life. It sounds like I'm more in the Hume McCutcheon realm. I found it very interesting to hear your your thoughts on this. So we'll leave that one out. But I
speaker-2: No, because she did say you changed, right? So y are you still in that same place now or a and what changed?
speaker-1: Richard's going back to it. my goodness. All right. So we loved Yep. All right.
speaker-0: We do it what much less than what we used to. So we'll still still do it. And like when we we'll do something that we call rotation battles, where you know it's you know our starting rotation one versus our reserve rotate like the defense, you know, just set up into a defensive thing. And then we go through all of our rotations and we see, you know, how how we do in each rotation and where we need to be able to find. value. So that's that's one of the things that I I think is really important to do with your starting group because that's the group that we're gonna go into. But when we are doing six on six just coach initiated exchanges or wash drills, I mix those line up lineups up all the time.
speaker-1: I mean, you can play around with with with words too, right? I I have a problem calling it the A side versus the B side. I do too. I am much happier calling them challengers or calling it you know anything but A versus B or starters versus bench players. I think there's more respectful ways to talk about our players in a gym. That that would help drills as well, right?
speaker-0: Yep. And I also really am trying to be very intentional about moving around the gym so that I'm not spending all of my time just on the side. Right. like proximity as a coach is really important to me. And so like a lot of coaches will spend most of their time near their starters and I'm I'm trying to be very intentional about moving around the gym.
speaker-1: There's always a battle of we're gonna have an hour we're gonna have an hour and a half podcast if I let you talk about this anymore. we we have we have another huh
speaker-2: Next time.
speaker-1: I I I have no doubt that this is gonna happen, but we you and I have been wanting to ask Becky about a topic that could also take an hour of of her time, just that alone, because our first agree to disagree, or our second one I suppose, Becky is the MPI is a fantastic system for division three. All three of us agree agree or disagree.
speaker-0: Disagree.
speaker-2: I'm on the fence.
speaker-1: Okay. And I disagree as well, but let tell tell us what you think, Becky.
speaker-0: I believe that the existence of an NPI is good for Division Three. I couldn't disagree more with the way that the dials are tuned to not valuing strength of schedule. and and I don't think it's even close.
speaker-2: That was why I was on the fence. 'Cause I think it's dials, right? And they're just not they're they're making a system where playing mediocre teams has more of a value than than losing to great teams.
speaker-1: And now we're reducing the the quality of win bonus. How do you feel about that, Becky and Richard?
speaker-0: A hundred percent it's it's a fail. Like it is
speaker-1: Why we doing this? Why why are we doing this? And is it are we truly are we truly interested in rewarding mediocre wins and as many of them as possible?
speaker-0: clearly that's the message
that's being sent. The this is like the oldest adage in sport, right? Like is are you playing to win or playing not to lose? And this is exactly what we're doing, is we are like institutionalizing the playing not to lose mentality versus playing to win. And I like I can't I it it is so clear to me that that's what we're that's what we're doing. And had a conversation with our team last night. I think some one of the bloggers just recently gave us a zero percent chance of making the NCAA tournament if we don't win our AQ. and you know, I don't know the the metrics that go into that. you know, we've we've taken some losses for sure that we shouldn't have taken this year. but I I I look at teams that are ahead of us and I'm like Man, it's not even close like the kind of caliber team that we are, you know, to them. And you know, and so I I I think I you know, I I told you know, talked to the team, like tet said, look, this is where we're at, you know, and and I said, but I don't have any regrets at all with what we have put into this season, nor with how I scheduled the season. because I'm not just trying to prepare you to make the tournament. I'm preparing you to win games when you get into it. And that's what we're pursuing here. And if it if it backfires on us or whatever we don't we don't earn that opportunity, then you know, like it is what it is. But but I do not like the NPI at all.
speaker-2: Follow up question, is there anything we can do as far as mass letters from coaches to the NCAA committee about the dials? is there is there I I've I've talked to a few coaches about hey, I'm gonna put a letter together and get all of us to sign it, you know, but I also need to know exactly what I'm asking for because again, to your point, I I think any system that is discouraging ranked matchups in the regular season in favor of pla playing very much worse ranked teams, so that you can get a guaranteed win, is is a poor system and bad for the sport because it those are the matches that build buzz and build energy and build
speaker-1: Imagine if we were doing this in Division One and Nebraska and Texas and Stanford were avoiding each other just so that they could win matches in the forty to fifty RPI range. I you know, awful to think about, awful for the sport, awful for viewership on T V. Like we would never want that in Division One. We'd never do it. And it it it baffles me that that we encourage that in division three. And it's it's talking to coaches that are currently in that top tier. of schools, they're having a horrible time scheduling because no one wants to schedule a top fifteen MPI team because it's just not worth it. The experience might be really great, but having a a bigger risk of losing is just not worth it. And you'd rather play a number five team out of a week conference so you can get the guaranteed win.
speaker-2: Yeah.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Yeah, it's like we have a we have a it it's a bigger it's a it's a symptom of a bigger
problem, right? that we are increasingly creating sport experiences that allow for safety rather than putting yourself out there and like this is like you know, competitive safety. I'm not talking about like you know, not putting pads on the poles, you know, like It's it's we're we're We're saving kids from hard things and just encouraging the easy the easier road. and I just fundamentally disagree with with that.
speaker-1: Yeah. I think we're on the same page here. and I I just sincerely hope that there is a way that as coaches we can reach out and start 'cause you know, those changes are just made this year and they're going the wrong way, in in our opinion anyway, our humble opinion, they're going the wrong way. And I just I I hope that there is a sort of a counterweight that can be applied that can take into account some of these bigger picture life items, right? Because it is something I don't want to make it bigger than it than it really is. We're talking about Division III volleyball, right? But this is a life thing. It it's how how kids are being taught, how they're being parented. I just it's an overall societal thing that we're now seeing reflected in something as quote unquote silly as the MPI for volleyball. Becky, we asked Matt last week in our next agree to disagree, and let me make sure that I read it the same exact way. on my way to a national championship, I would rather not be undefeated in late October. And I'm thinking of Nebraska who still is, but you have this experience as well. Talk to me about what you think. Agree or disagree?
speaker-0: I ooh yeah, this is hard. I you know, I don't If it is if I just have to say agree or disagree, then I'm gonna say disagree. I I think that we don't have to learn we don't have to experience losses in order to learn about what our team needs to do in order to continue to grow and become the best versions of themselves at the end of the season. But I mean, I think that sometimes having that loss, like or what I would say is like a little bit of that heartbreak can actually be really valuable. You know, and so yeah, I mean it kinda comes back to the the storming, you know, performing, kind of question before, right? You know, and I recognize the value that that some of that heartbreak can play in a team. And so yeah, I would I I don't need I I I I'm I'm very comfortable with having a losses going into a national championship. Okay.
speaker-1: Well, last week my answer would have been different. I don't know, Richard, if you changed your your opinion too. Last week I would have said I I'll take the loss and learn from it and just don't let it be the conference championship, which I've definitely experienced prior to going very far in the NCAA tournament. This year I'm changing my opinion this week I'm changing my opinion. I think I'd be comfortable going undefeated and you can learn from another type of storming thing. In my case it happened to be social behavior surrounding Halloween and the aforementioned running practice on Tuesday, I think that would have sufficed just fine instead of giving up the loss. So I am changing my opinion a little bit.
speaker-2: And to both your points, I think the the the demon is pressure and complacency. th those are the two that I I I keep seeing identified. And if you can find a way of avoiding those two without or confronting pressure and then and then avoiding complacency without without that loss, I think the loss of automatically spurs a lack of complacency. It automatically spurs a being in the moment and getting back into process and stuff. So that's probably when coaches say they like the loss. I've heard too many coaches that had undefeated seasons say, no, we we really liked being undefeated, but we were we were aware of those two things.
speaker-1: Right. Does e either one of you doubt that Nebraska's gonna run away with it all to this year?
speaker-2: Wasn't last year the also the sense of inevitability? Right. And it and it was all but and and A and was kind of the team that nobody picked. so so I kind of feel like it would be really, really wild to say, yeah, inevitable.
speaker-0: Yeah, I I I think Nebraska is really good. I think that volleyball is a game that you know, teams can have some some some tough days on, you know. And so I'm I would I believe in Nebraska to be able to to do it all, but but this is why we play the games.
speaker-1: You you never know which outside hitter backup outside hitter with all due respect for Wisconsin wins that last set thirty six, thirty four in practice before the NCAA tournament and then goes on a hot run and helps their team win the con win the championship, right? Never know.
speaker-2: What's the thing too? It's not Nebraska against X team, it's Nebraska against all the teams. Someone else being able to get hot, like that that all of a sudden makes it a a a different equation.
speaker-1: Absolutely. Thank you for a wonderful conversation. Both of you really enjoyed having you on today, Becky. As always, lots of stuff to think about. I don't know how your brain shuts off at night. maybe it doesn't, but it's just incredible to hear some of your thoughts on the game, on life in general, and as a dear friend in the game and beyond. I really appreciate you spending some time with us today. Really appreciate it. Have a wonderful weekend. Each of us have have big things coming up this weekend and we'll catch everybody back on the flip side next next week. And in the meantime, this was under construction. See you next week.