Jeff Kaufmann
How long have you been coaching volleyball, and what inspired you to get started?
I have been coaching volleyball since 1995, and got started coaching the sport out of college due to my love for the game and my passion for coaching.
What do you enjoy or look forward to about coaching for Alpha?
Alpha has become a new home for me for club coaching, and I really enjoy the family atmosphere, learning from my fellow coaches, and the passion and effort the players bring with them every day to practice and matches.
How do you approach developing athletes both on and off the court?
I learned very early in my coaching career that coaching athletes on and off the court is a must! I am just as interested in preparing them for the ups and downs of life as I am in preparing them for the ups and downs of volleyball match. There are so many lessons in life that can be handled properly if you can fall back on a smaller experiences in sports that helped you learn how to handle tough situations and disappointments. You can also succeed more in life if you have been given opportunities in your early years to face a challenge and overcome it through repeated successes or failures.
What can athletes and their families expect when they join your team in terms of development and growth?
They can expect that I will provide for them an opportunity to develop the necessary skills for success, whether that be the fundamental positional skills of the game or how to properly communicate with someone the need for success in life or a job.
What’s your favorite drill or coaching technique, and why do you love using it?
One of my favorite things to do...every once in a while...is what the kids call these days call "rage baiting" :) What that looks like in a practice is that I will purposely call a ball in when it was maybe out, or I'll stop the play to make a questionable call that might not go my team's way. I like to see how they respond because (as we all know) there will be a missed call by a referee or a line judge who wasn't paying attention. Regardless of whether the call was wrong or not, we will have to play on, and I want to see how each player reacts in that situation. Life isn't always fair, so by practicing opportunities to move beyond something that was out of our control, I feel it helps develop the proper attitude and outlook that people need to keep themselves going without hanging on to the hard things.
What’s one piece of advice you’ve received as an athlete or coach that you still carry with you today?
When a player fails on the court, she is not doing it on purpose. So, there really isn't a reason to get upset. If she put forth the proper effort and intent, then failure is part of the wager we always put up when we compete. We will win or we will lose. It helped me to stay a bit more calm on the sidelines and it helped me to manage my emotions in a way that did not affect my team.