dr.ricky online

Tag: beach volleyball

  • Visualizing NCAA GPA data

    On 5 Sept 2018, the NCAA Research team tweeted out this chart  :

    It reports the average core high school grade point averages (GPA) among NCAA Division I freshman student athletes. So, a bit of a background – the National Collegiate Athletics Association governs just about all collegiate athletic programs in America, and the Division I schools devote the most money and resources to their athletic programs. A great deal of attention is thus focused on the Division I programs, almost to the detriment of the others (it goes all the way to Division III). The GPA is usually used as a measure of academic performance, though it may not reflect the difficulty of the coursework. But this chart is an egregious use of “infographics” to mislead rather than to bring insight to data:

    • Without a Y-axis to denote scale, the use of bar charts here visually make it appear that 3.77 is 7x higher than 3.07, when it’s actually far smaller in scale on standard 4.0 GPA scales (it tops out at 4).
    • The categorical use of the different sports makes it appear that it is the independent variable, and that GPA is what is being measured. But since the GPA was measured in high school, it actually precedes the sport.
    • Because of this switch in dependent and independent variables, a reader may interpret some form of causality – implying for example that choosing fencing will lead to better academic performance.

    Good data visualization should serve to bring new insight to the data that isn’t evident from just looking at the numbers. The GPAs considered here range between 3-4, which is letter grade B-A, quite above average academically, and that is unsurprising. These are the high school GPAs of student athletes recruited to Division I schools, arguably the most competitive programs. This is a measure of their past academic performance, but doesn’t say anything about how the sport chosen affects their current or future performance. The data, however, informs something about the sports programs themselves. Using the exact same data, I replotted the chart.

    High school GPA of males and females as recruited into NCAA Div 1 sports programs.

    The chart is in two parts – on the left is the section where a sport is available for both males and females, and on the right is a smaller section for sports that are gender specific. The axes go from 3.0 to 4.0, indicating the spread within this range. Sports are labeled accordingly.

    A linear relationship exists between enrolled female and male student athlete high school GPAs  – regardless of sport program. What this means is that at least within each sport, they apply their GPA criteria roughly with the same proportion to both genders. Which probably means that the sports programs recruit from the same communities for both men and women, that is fencing programs put a heavier emphasis on high GPAs for admission than basketball programs do, regardless of gender. But we see a stark difference in the GPA cutoffs between genders: almost all athletic programs recruit females with a GPA above 3.5, while more than half athletic programs enrolled male student athletes with GPAs below 3.5. In fact, all the male specific sport programs – baseball, wrestling and football – recruit with GPAs below 3.5. One cannot make definitive interpretations without further details on how the data is collected, but this implies that the barrier to entry to a collegiate athletic program, at least based on GPA, is significantly lower for males than for females. While some may think that this indicates superior academic performance among female student athletes, it could be an indicator for a systemic bias when recruiting for women across all sports programs.

  • Homographic terms

    Homographic terms

    Many terms in athletic coaching are poorly defined yet form the basis of disagreements. For example, the word athletic is really not quantifiable, and describes some quality that cannot be calibrated, yet is used as a basis of comparing people. In volleyball, the idea of ball control is heavily valued, is generally thought be observable, but different people will have different specific ideas as to what constitutes having ball control, or how to measure it.

    Homographic (despite the potentially juvenile interpretation) refer to situations where the same word can carry multiple meanings, and thus be confused between concepts, often leading to disagreements because each party was actually thinking of a different meaning for that word. For example, the word fly can be used both as a noun and a verb, each one carrying radically different meanings.

    But a more subtle disagreement comes with blocking. Blocking refers to both a technique and a strategy. For stat collection purposes, in beach volleyball, a block is only recorded when a player earns a point by jumping up and  intercepting a ball at the net. Consequently, this technique is confused with the whole strategy of blocking, which is a component of defense that limits the offensive options of the opposing team. Blocking actions that serve to guide the ball out or into the convertible control of the team are just as valuable as a stuff block. The technique of blocking is thus simply one of the options of the strategy of blocking. Good blockers consider all the available tools for the strategy. A jumping blocker that knocks the ball out of the defensive arena simply introduces unnecessary unpredictability. An effective blocker may never jump at all, and still control the attack options of the other team, and the contribute to the point conversion opportunities.

    Google Image result for volleyball setting

    Another term with homographic confusion between a technique and a strategy is setting – the popular image of volleyball setting (at least as unscientifically assayed through Google Images) is the distinct technique hand setting. Operationally, though, setting is a strategy of establishing the offensive opportunities for the team, and, as with blocking, the technique of hand setting is merely one of the many factors that figure into the strategy of good setting. One who can execute the technique of a hand setting well is not necessarily a good strategic setter. Conversely, good strategic setting should have a broad range of control techniques to carry options for efficient point scoring. Unfortunately, much of the dialog conflates the two meanings of setting, leading to this notion that one can judge the strategic value of a setter simply by evaluating the execution of the technique.

  • How do you want your set?

    How do you want your set?

    I hear a number of common phrases during volleyball play which I discourage athletes from using. This is why. 

    “How do you want your set?”

    Often advised for new teammates, this question is poorly worded and really does not address what is important for the game. What an attacker wants for a set is often pretty different from what she needs in an in game situation. Moreover, the expected answer is often couched in terms of trajectory and distance from the net; it is only applicable in a blocked and controlled passing situation. It can result in some pretty impressive “warm up” hits, but doesn’t necessarily translate to reality.

    The question does reveal something about the setter – the idea of subservience to the attacker, and that ultimately it’s the attacker’s desires that fuel the point earning potential. In this question, the setter outsources his judgment and decision making to the attacker. It lowers the bar, the idea that as long as the setter can deliver along synthetic parameters, he has earned success, even if the team loses the point.

    Looking into the characteristics of a good set, most athletes will define it as some kind behavior of the ball, adjusted with respect to the net. But how effective an attack becomes is contextual to the attacker and the situation. The characteristics of a good set are not easily described between just the setter and the ball, but ultimately it’s the ability of the setter to take responsibility for the options available for her partner that determines the outcome. Falling back onto this question is rejecting that responsibility; the partner cannot really meaningfully answer it, and just describes a desire for a quick answer to a complex question. Let go of the crutch, and understand that good setting is a process – the attack is the outcome.

  • Becoming height neutral

    Becoming height neutral

    The website Beachvolleyballspace covered the recent FIVB Gstaad Major with an article celebrating the winners, the currently top ranked Canadian team of Paredes and Pavan claiming the gold. The article title (Canadian women dominate Gstaad Major – Japan challenges top teams) makes special mention of the fifth place Japanese team of Murakami and Ishii. Why? Was it a remarkable breakthrough performance?

    The whole latter half was spent mentioning how much shorter the team was relative to their opponents. That’s it. Beach volleyball culture venerates height so much that it’s often the first and only statistic mentioned for players. No mention that Murakami is a 7 year veteran of the FIVB circuit – it’s newsworthy because they were supposed to lose.

    Height discrimination is so pervasive that coaches will refuse to consider athletes just for being too short. I’ve spoken with talented young women who have already given up the dream of playing beach volleyball for college because they’ve been told time and again that their genetics will simply not give them a chance. Players constantly pine about being taller, and taller players, regardless of experience, are always groomed. A metric this damning should be backed by extensive studies or data – yet every discussion I’ve had with coaches either point to anecdotal experience, or cherrypicked material. Saying that the best athletes in the world are always taller is flawed logic – they are the product of this pervasive bias, so of course the selection for taller players is evident. What’s more telling is that despite this, players of all sizes break through: Bruno Schmidt, Shelda Bede, Holly McPeak, Annie Martin. If the thesis is that height is always a beach volleyball advantage, these counterexamples are sufficient to discredit it.

    The cultural baggage of height superiority is entrained from a young age, and repeated incessantly – thus, how height becomes an advantage stems from a psychological one. Taller players are simply given more opportunities to play, to explore, to make mistakes. Pay attention without bias next time, and see the language difference between how coaches treat taller and shorter players, and how they treat each other. A shorter team hands to the taller team an immediate advantage by simply expecting themselves to be at a disadvantage. The way out of this is to begin young, and to start instilling in them the confidence of height neutrality. Even among older athletes, we can unlock a richer vein of talent from our pool of players by simply opening our eyes beyond how tall they stand or how high they jump. The game is deeper and wider than the height of its tallest players.

  • Earned or Found

    Earned or Found

    I was having this discussion once about buying chicken. My friend was of the opinion that there are just superior sources of birds, and that one should judge a restaurant already by knowing where they buy their chicken. My position was that it was a poor measure of the skill of chef – after all, where true mastery lies is in extracting a delicious dish from what’s considered inferior ingredients. It’s what our grandmothers have honed through a lifetime of experience – making do with what was available, and still nurturing their families. At the end of the day, when those fancy chefs need inspiration, they go to learn from those grandmas and aunties.

    When I encounter conversations among volleyball coaches, I hear echoes of this conversation. There’s immediate talk about how this player is tall, or that player is athletic, or if that other player has that relentless competitiveness to pursue the ball – and that of course, they should be the first picks when being trained. But how is that the measure of the coach? In many circles, by only considering the win-loss record of a squad, the measure of a coach is that of a prospector, that if they can just find the right pieces already pre formed, or that it just needs a little polishing, they can win and be rewarded. For all that is preached about growth mindset, coaches often fail to accept the challenge of being mentors and teachers, of seeing the murkiest glimmer of potential and bringing it forward.

    And maybe some of that is inherent in the reward system that doesn’t see the historical context of good athletes, or how we judge beach volleyball players on individual performance versus team contexts – and how they were trained in either. In a sense, the outcome of good competent coaching is to make the role of the coach invisible. Much like how our grandmothers simply dished out miracle after miracle from their meager cupboards that we take for granted – as we rain accolades on the preening chefs that cannot be bothered with the cheap cuts.

  • Improving Quads 2: Reduce seams

    Improving Quads 2: Reduce seams

    The convention of most teams in beach quads format is the “diamond” formation when receiving serve – the players orient themselves with three players staggered in a V formation, and the setter at the apex nearest the net.

    Diamond formation

    The idea here is that the ball is passed close to the net where the setter is then able to send it to one of the two player flanking to finish the kill. As discussed before, using the net as a orientation system has its disadvantages, but another issue with this strategy is the three-person receive formation. The weakest point of any serve receive formation is the “seam” between any two players, where communication is weakest, particularly with athletes conditioned to keep their eyes on the ball at all times (an issue to be addressed at another time). And in the “diamond” formation, there are two possible seams, one on either side of the middle back player. A simple fix is thus to reduce the number of seams — use a two player receive strategy.

    • Even with the larger sized court, two people are sufficient for serve receive passing – in fact, the doubles game was played on the larger sized court for quite a long time.
    • Communication is clearer – unlike a middle player flanked by two potentially mobile barriers, each receiving player only has to deal with the edge of the court, which could potentially be out.
    • It frees up a player to run a quicker attack or fake, increasing the odds of a side out.

    The key here is to have confidence that the passers will develop the range to control the service, and have good communication with the setter.

  • Fundamentals of Beach Volleyball 30 June 2018

    Fundamentals of Beach Volleyball 30 June 2018

     

    Hosted at Sideout Volleybar. Register in person at the bar.

    Learn the sport from the ground up. No prior knowledge of the game is expected, beginners are welcome.

    Intended for adults 18 and older. No juniors please, but seniors are encouraged.

    The focus is on beach volleyball doubles and quads (4s). Participants should be prepared for a physical workout, but we will adjust the program to fit almost all fitness levels. The program is 1.5-2 hrs long, and class size is capped at 8.

    Learn more about the VolleySensei platform.

  • Court behavior beyond the game

    Court behavior beyond the game

    When people picture beach volleyball culture, they usually just think about just the game. People don’t seem to have to think about how the ball, or the net, or the court itself got there. Like the illusion of cooking shows on TV, these things didn’t actually magically appear – specially in public parks and areas, someone had to lug all the equipment there. Someone had to lay down lines, set up the net, bring out the balls. And someone has to break it all down and clear it away at the end of the day.

    In many venues, that someone is one person, or a very small group of people. The same dedicated people who will usually come week after week, spend the money out of their pockets to sustain the active social gathering. Oddly, though, this labor quickly becomes invisible. Players come to a venue simply assuming that they are entitled to challenge onto the courts, and fight to hang on to the courts. The commonly used “challenge” system can mean that those who have worked hardest to maintain a venue can end up using it the least.

    The unspoken injustice shows up in the gambit where players try to find that optimal timing to arrive late enough to avoid helping with set up, and leave early enough to avoid breakdown, while conspiring to form stacked teams to play as much as possible. Or in some cases, openly await the availability of the court set up to “steal” it from the ones who have worked on it. Anecdotally, I’ve observed self-professed “advanced” players disdainful to assist in these matters, more concerned about spending time warming up or stretching out — with the unspoken implication that the this is the appropriate burden for novices.

    Many communities have these selfless organizers and abused leaders, who do this for the love of the game. Afford them a bit more respect, and help to sustain the community. Offer to play with them, specially if you are borrowing their equipment. And at the very least speak your gratitude. Curb the entitlement, for those who rise in recognition often do so on the shoulders of the dedicated silent lovers of the game.

    Dedicated to the memory of Sammy delaSchott.

  • Improving Quads 1: The net is not a player

    Improving Quads 1: The net is not a player

    Although a great deal of the instruction describes beach volleyball primarily as a doubles game, many, if not most, people are exposed to it in the 4v4 format. These articles focus on tips and discussions that improve the quads game.

    Conventionally, the quads game is treated as a novice version of the sport, with many players thinking that they can “graduate” to the doubles game. But the number of variables and potential plays are much greater with four players than two, and thus, it is a far more complex game to master. It combines many of the potential strategies from indoor volleyball, and couple it with the environmental challenges of beach volleyball, and while it can appear to be less daunting to a novice due to the greater number of people supporting any one player, communities of quads teams fall into limited set strategies and seldom progress to more sophisticated plays.

    Given the opportunity to teach quads players, I ask teams to let go of their ball control orientation with the net, a system that I also apply to beginning doubles players. Many quads teams fall into this idea of the diamond formation, where a setter is situated at near the middle of the net, and the other three players attempt to pass the ball to that spot near the net. This is derived from the indoor volleyball 4-2 passing formation, and thus appears to be relatively easy to communicate specially among players who have had exposure to indoor volleyball culture.

    But this approach demands precision passing to a set location on the court. This effectively creates a very high bar of body control, and is also poorly adaptable. By pegging the plays to specific coordinates on the court, the players are often taken off balance by factors like the weather, or just a strong float situation.

    If the team moves their coordinate system from having one team mate pegged to the net, and instead shift their passing focus to the area bounded by the imaginary boundaries formed by the four players, less precise passing becomes acceptable. This also frees the entire team to move as a unit, gaining confidence in having assistance nearby as they track the ball, instead of trying to change the distance constantly as the action moves nearer or farther from the net. Moreover, setting is also simplified, since the ball is brought to the attacker, rather than trying to coordinate interception of a ball being forced to the net.

    Adopting a team oriented control strategy as opposed to a court oriented one is more easily implemented when the athletes aren’t coming from a conventional indoor volleyball cultural background, where this more malleable passing formation can appear confusing.

  • Just that way

    Just that way

    On a hot Texas summer day for regular pick up beach volleyball, I was asked to fill in on a doubles team by someone seeking a break. My soon to be partner for this game seemed agreeable until we got onto the court, where he made his distaste for sharing the court with me clear after the second serve. He refused high fives, didn’t speak with me, and when I sought to get eye contact, he turned his back to me. During the game, if I ever performed the first contact, no matter the quality, he made it obvious that he was never going set. No, not attempting to score using an on-two strategy – the ball would be simply lofted clumsily into the opponents’ court. These acts of self sabotage were so blatant that our opponents were crying out, “Set him the ball!”.

    I did what I could to be supportive to a player intent on pretending that he didn’t depend on me — rescuing shanks, trying to cover clumsy defensive attempts, and setting him up as often as possible — even with clear disdain for my existence. I even thanked him for the game afterwards, before walking away.

    Now I have played with difficult partners before, and this situation was definitely up there. But I couldn’t puzzle out exactly why he behaved that way – was it something in my behavior? Why would he agree to play only to commit seething team suicide? I wanted to learn so that I knew how to improve. I asked some of the other guys who were on the same court what I did wrong, and just about all of them said that I did nothing wrong. At least one person sheepishly apologized for the situation, and attributed his behavior to being “very competitive”, “hating to lose”, and he’s “just that way.”
    But they all continued to play with him. With the other partners, he at least played as a team mate, so the refusal clearly directed only to me.

    While I may never know why (though many years of height discrimination has perhaps toughened me to summary rejection on the volleyball court), I did notice that despite witnessing explicitly rude behavior, he had no problem getting partners for later games. This action had no social consequence, if anything, he may have been rewarded for it. The very people witnessing this tacitly accepted the behavior.

    I see parallels between this and how women must feel when put in a sexual harassment situation. How often they must have had to put up with rude behavior, justified by “he’s just that way”, and “boys will be boys” — only to watch the very same men get promoted and empowered, sometimes it appears for the very behavior that civil society should condemn. The problem comes because of being complicit in the system. One does not speak up because some day you may want the same person on your team.

    So, what to do about this? I don’t know. I need to contemplate on it, to understand how to shift volleyball culture to mitigate this behavior, because such insecurity belies the seed from which serious hate grows.