Posted by I don’t think it is a secret that Hugh McCutcheon is one of the most successful and well known coaches in the world. As someone who thinks a lot about the game, and has had success at every level, a lot of the things he says turn out to be pretty wise. Here is a collection of quotes and thoughts of his that have appeared on this blog, and elsewhere, over the last few years.
“Practice is the battle you must win.”
“We don’t have to be great. We had to play good volleyball for extended periods of time”
On the ups and downs of high performance sport
“It’s not all rainbows and ponies.”
“I would hate for people to think there is some kind of coaching algorithm that we just throw out there (that) everyone walks in one end and walks out the other and we’ve got it all grooved in. There’s a lot of art and science that goes into the coaching deal. They’re learning, we’re learning, we’re all trying to figure it out.”
“(There is nothing trademarkable about the ‘system.’) Coaching is about finding a system that works for your players. There are some underlying principles which are applied in any coaching situation but it’s about picking the lock to get this group of players to play the best volleyball they’re capable of playing for a long period of time.”
On switching from coaching men to coaching women
“It’s a really interesting change that’s really forcing me to evolve as a coach, to keep growing and developing and trying to keep getting better.”
“There are pros and cons to working the European season and the national team season. In Europe you get better at coaching in matches. But the advantage we’ve found by having a group of players year round, is that we get better at teaching, which is a critical component of the job. It is about teaching and coaching and if you have a choice you’d rather be a better teacher than coach. If you teach them the right way, they can get out and play just fine on their own and hope you don’t get in the way. Ideally you’re good at both.”
On the US program being primarily a ‘teaching’ program
“There are phases for both (teaching and coaching). We want to get better every day. And the way you do that is put the athletes in an environment that work on their volleyball skills and give them feedback appropriate to that. It’s not a complex formula. It just takes a lot of time and energy and a lot of conviction. You need to have a system that you believe in and a technical foundation that you want to establish.”
“It’s a pretty self indulgent habit. And I think ultimately it is very selfish. ‘My performance has to be perfect for me to be happy on this team right now.’ So what you’ve got to talk to them about is that nobody’s played the perfect game of volleyball yet and it’s sure as hell not going to happen today. So let’s just take that off the table. What we need to talk about is process. How about you cover every ball. How about you call every time. How about you go and support your teammates every time. How about you get your approach footwork right, your double arm lift, and get loaded and work on the things you are supposed to work on to get better at this game. So you can have perfect process. You can demand that. You should demand that. But perfectionism is a selfish and kind of pretentious thing that players use to kind of protect themselves, preventing themselves from actually engaging in the process.”
On yelling
“If you yell all the time, how do they know if you’re really angry?”
“As head coaches, we are perpetually dissatisfied.”
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