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Coach Titus Gets a Shout Out From John Kessel

By AVVC Staff, 01/11/15, 10:00PM EST

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One of the unique things about our sport is that
while the court itself is defined at 9x18 meters,
once the ball is served, the playing space turns
into the whole world – or until a wall, bench or
crowd stops you. This first picture I took of Cody
running into the Penn State bench from his side of
the court, was followed just a few points later by
him making a 75 foot dash into the Princeton
Band the other way. Then still in the same set,
my friend John Titus took the second picture of
Cody pursuing yet another errant dig into a group
of John’s 15 and under team who came to learn
from the match. So who led Princeton in digs that match? Yeah, Tony and Cody…as defense is how you get a lead in our sport, by
digging—setting---and killing the ball, you get what we used to call a point, not a sideout. Cody got two of the three up, not the PSU
bench attempt, and none of those saves counted as a dig – it is just a teammate doing one of the most important parts of the game of
volleyball – BETTERING THE BALL. This too is hustle, saving or setting an errant pass or dig, and making it better, or
saving/killing an errant set from your setter or any teammate doing their best with the second contact. GREAT teams better the ball.
One of our best USAV coaches at the Juniors level, BJ Leroy, says his hustle line is "The easiest thing to do in this game is work to
work hard… hitting, serving passing digging blocking setting are HARD…Hustle is easy.”

 

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The rest of the report from John Kessel can be found at the following site:

http://www.teamusa.org/~/media/USA_Volleyball/Documents/Growing%20the%20Game%20News/GTGT%20Book%20Volume%202%20%202013-14.pdf