Maverick Volleyball Blog

Since 1985 John has been working for the National Governing Body of the sport, USA Volleyball (USAV), now as Managing Director of Region Services. He serves as the staff liaison for Disabled Programs, USA Deaflympic Teams, Starlings USA, National Parks and Recreation Assoc., the YMCA and over 30 other Affiliated Organizations working with USAV. He was Team Leader for the 2000 USA Olympic Beach Volleyball Teams in Sydney, which brought home one gold medal. In 1995, Volleyball Magazine’s special Centennial issue named him one of the 50 most important people in the sport in the past 100 years.

By John Kessel

So I spent the last four nights in Hartford, Connecticut. My last morning a coach from CAP said his girls were serving at about a 33 percent success rate and what could he do to help them. My thoughts shared with him seemed to be of value to share here with all reading this blog, so here are what we talked about…

1. The most important skill in serving is giving yourself a consistent ball to strike.  The vast majority of errors made by all levels of servers are due to the server given themselves a toss that is not the same – resulting in having to change the swing, contact and ball flight. Indeed, just the word “toss” makes players too often put the ball too high – so I often say “place the ball” to get the desired ball arc  – which is to put the ball to the height where when it starts to fall back down, it is struck.  So placement should go up and down at a VERY low height, so consistently it would fall back into your tossing hand should you not contact it
2. Get your contact hand back behind your head before starting to serve. A core principle in being a great player is to simplify the movement you make in each skill. For serving, this means you should simply TOSS-STRIKE, with the toss being low and consistent, and the arm swinging to strike the ball with a fast arm. There is no step – would you teach free throw shooting with a step? I doubt it, and many volleyball coaches are surprised when I note in the gyms of the world how there is a nail or large dot in the middle of the free throw line, placed to allow the hoopsters to shoot from the same spot that is the lined up to the center of the basket.
3. Show the skill with your program’s best and meanest server. Your players will learn faster when they see a peer or near their age player who can do the serve (or any skill) you want all to emulate.  For my team, we watch Erin, state volleyball champion whose serve is one that nobody likes to receive. She is simple in motion and strikes a ball that floats every time. This float, by the way is NOT due to “punching” or stopping your arm when you swing. It is learned by each individual determining where on the sphere he or she need to hit the ball on the true center of the sphere including the intended ball flight. If you see it spin at all left to right, for example, you need to strike it a few millimeters more to the right, still in line with your ball flight. This deliberate practice reading of the ball spin should be done on every serve, as the player also moves into the court to play, or simulate getting to base. Too often coaches have the players just serve and watch, not serve and run to base, thus they are not teaching the whole skill.

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