How to create a successful Volleyball tryout plan

Posted on: 8/7/24

Last updated: 8/7/24

Author: Thalia U.

When creating tryout plans there can be feelings of overwhelm because there is a lot of factors you need to ensure to include in your tryouts as a volleyball coach.

As a coach for close to 8 years, and a head coach for 3 years I have created many tryout plans… and am happy to help others get a better idea of what a tryout plan could look like!

In this blog post we will go over what areas you should be covering during your tryouts, drill ideas, and a physical example of what my tryout plans looked like last year.

So… lets (dolphin) dive right into it!

1) Choosing your areas of focus

As a coach during volleyball tryouts you will be looking for players who you see potential in, athleticism, and those athletes that can keep up with learning new skills within your chosen drills.

Choosing the correct areas of focus is the first step to creating your tryout plan. You have to know what you’re looking for, but especially your most vital areas of focus for you as a coach.

Every coach should hit these areas of focus within their volleyball tryouts:

1. Passing abilities (forearm passing)

2. Setting abilities (over hand)

3. Hitting abilities

4. Serving abilities

These are essential areas I would tell every coach they need to include during their volleyball tryouts. Even if you have new players who have never touched a volleyball before, it’s helpful to see how potential athletes react to drills, and if you see any potential within these 4 key areas of volleyball (passing, setting, hitter, serving).

After hitting those 4 key areas, you can think about what you as a coach want to ensure to see during tryouts.

This could include (but isn’t limited to):

1. Agility

2. Stamina

3. Sportsmanship/Team chemistry

4. Mental toughness (How they react to their mistakes)

5. Coachability

6. Communication

Creating these key points helps you as a coach feel confident in what kind of program you want to run. Did you prioritize agility over team chemistry? Did you find yourself drawn to passing more than setting (even though you will likely run both during tryouts)?

Now that we have our 4 key points to hit in tryouts, as well as a few other points that you as a coach would like to see within your program we can now think about what drills will help us see this during tryouts.

2) Choosing drills

Before we start actually writing out our tryout plans, we need to think about a few drills we can use to help us hit those key points we just came up with in our last section.

Within our 4 key points of volleyball we can come up with one drill that hits each point. That means you will need to have (at least) one passing drill, one serving drill, one setting drill, and one hitting drill.

Only you know what type of program you are going into (a brand new program without any volleyball knowledge, a developing program, or an experienced/advantaged team) so ensure you’re choosing drills that will challenge your athletes trying out, but not surpassing their school’s current skill level.

After ensuring you have one drill for each main point of volleyball, you can now start considering if any of those key areas have a bit more importance for you as a coach. As the head coach you create your programs culture (attitude, expectations, etc) so tryouts are where you try to find who can fit within that culture you hope to develop over the years.

For example, I prioritize passing and serving. So I would add in a few more passing and serving drills to see which athletes excel during them. This doesn’t mean your team will automatically be amazing at passing and serving, but instead gives you the chance to see what players could embody those skills best.

I will include a few drills on my Youtube video, but if you need drill ideas google has a bunch of options!

3) Writing out tryout schedule

Now the fun part… writing out the tryout plan (sarcasm noted… but this is worth it!)

I typically use google docs when writing my tryout plan, and start with creating time stamps. So you need to know how many days your tryouts are, if all skill levels are trying out together, and if they will be double sessions. You can figure this out by communicating with your school’s athletic director.

For this example tryouts are running from 4:00pm-7:00pm with all grades/skill levels (new & returning players, 9th-12th graders) and is one session.

I account for every part of tryouts, from start to finish in my tryout schedule. I create time stamps to keep me on schedule, but if I go over schedule by a few minutes its not the end of the world… time stamps are just to keep me focused as the coach since there will be lot going on.

Here is an example of what my tryout schedule will look like for my semi developed program:

For teams that may be more fundamental, or if you’re running a tryout session with only new players my first day of tryout schedule might look like this:

Key points to takeaway…

The main things to takeaway are:

1. Figure out your timeline of schedule (how many days of tryouts, double sessions, all skill levels/grades, etc)

2. What is your coaching philosophy? (Do you prioritize sportsmanship over athleticism? Serve receive passing over hitting?)

3. Create timeline on writing document (Example: If day 1 of tryouts is running from 4:00pm-7:00pm then start with 3:45-4:10 sign in/introductions, etc)

4. Hit the key points of volleyball at least once (setting, serving, passing, hitting)

5. Match your school’s experience level (Brand new teams teach them fundamentals, experienced teams test them with harder drills, etc).

Ensure you have paper to take notes on, and a proper sign in sheet to let you know who is eligible to tryout from your schools guidelines.

Check out my Youtube video, and let me know if you have any more ideal for a future blog post!

-Coach T