Creating a successful Volleyball tryout Schedule: A step by Step Guide
Posted on: 8/7/24
Last updated: 8/8/25
Author: Thalia U.
Creating a complete Volleyball Tryout Schedule: A step by step guide for coaches
Creating a tryout schedule can prove to be an overwhelming task because there are many factors you need to consider including; developmental level, time frame, fundamental markers, and much more.
As a high school volleyball coach for over 8 years, and a head Varsity coach for 4 years I have created many tryout schedules which fit numerous developmental levels, ages, and fundamental markers. I hope to make your job as a head coach easier by sharing this information with you!
Check out my FULL Tryout schedule and template on my Etsy shop:
https://defyinggravityvolley.etsy.com/listing/4349747659
There you will find my full 3 day tryout schedule, explanation of drills, and a blank template to create your own personalized tryout schedule!
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 look like.
So… lets (dolphin) dive right into step 1!
1) Writing Your Coaching Philosophy
Your first step to this process starts with your coaching philosophy. Your coaching philosophy can be defined as your values, beliefs, and expectations you uphold your team and yourself to. This can look like but isn’t limited to: Expecting high level of play at all times, respect as a core value, etc. Your coaching philosophy should resemble an elevator pitch which is a short summary paragraph perfectly encompassing your values as a coach.
My coaching philosophy is mainly surrounding an all-around athlete: an athlete that has respect, and high resilience on and off the court. What will yours look like?
2) Choosing your areas of focus
As the head coach you should head into your tryouts with your coaching philosophy in mind, but more specifically what your focus areas will be for the incoming season. These areas of focus are the core aspects of volleyball: serving, passing, setting, and attacking. Higher developed teams will also include: blocking, digging, and specifically serve receive passing.
So you will ensure you have at least:
1 Passing drill (forearm passing)
1 Serving drill
1 Setting drill (over-hand)
1 Attacking drill
(And for higher developed teams) 1 blocking, and 1 digging drill
Remember to not take this literally and only put one passing drill, etc. This is moldable by you, but ensuring you touch each fundamental aspect of volleyball at least once in tryouts is considered a starting point/bare minimum.
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.
As a coach I find specific importance on setting, and serve receive passing. Some coaches prioritize serving, while others focus on attacking and blocking, etc. This does not mean I think the other areas aren’t important, but instead helps me know what type of drills to add more of into my tryout schedule.
We also need to consider what cultural norms you, as a coach, want to deeply focus on during your tryouts. Cultural areas are key aspects which impact your program culture and dynamic, and should be reflected in your coaching philosophy. This will help us decide which drills will test the athletes strength in these specific areas.
Cultural expectation can include (but isn’t limited to):
Agility
Stamina/Fitness levels
Sportsmanship/Team chemistry
Mental toughness
Coachability
Communication
Resilience
Effort
This is why creating your coaching philosophy is vital as it helps decide what areas to focus on, and add drills into for your tryouts. Once you’ve decided you can ask yourself: Did you prioritize agility over team chemistry? Did you think of your own cultural norm to add? Did you find yourself drawn to passing more than setting, so you plan to add another passing drill?
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 collaborating with our athletic director (or for club coaches: your director).
3) Tryout Dates, and Times
Now that we have our coaching philosophy, 4 areas of focus, and our cultural areas of focus we can start getting information to actually create our schedule!
To create our tryout schedule we need to know how many days your tryouts are, the date/s they occur, and if all age groups are trying out together. You can figure this out by communicating with your school’s athletic director (or your club director).
For example: I communicated with my athletic director during the summer to schedule our Fall season tryouts. He mentioned it will need to be a 3 day tryout session, and that all age groups will be trying out together (9th-12th grade). I then confirmed the dates and times for tryouts (days 1-3) that he gave me/we chose… so creating the schedule is now do-able! We have the time frame, dates, and age groups of tryouts set. Now we are really close to writing that schedule as we head into the 4th section!
4) Choosing drills
As we start actually writing out our tryout plans we need to think about the drills we can use to help us hit those key points we came up with in our last few sections.
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 attacking drill. We will also include drills which meet our cultural goals/expectations in the program, and conditioning drills.
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 you need to ensure you’re choosing drills that will challenge your athletes trying out… while also not surpassing their current skill level. For example: I have head coached for a small charter school, and a large public school. The charter school tryout schedules I made were much more fundamental focused and slow paced, while the large public school tryout schedule was fast-paced, and higher skill level drills.
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. This is why choosing drills which test those athletes skills in the cultural, and physical areas is important.
Keep those drills in mind as we head into our last section… creating the tryout schedule!
5) Writing The tryout schedule
I typically use google docs when writing my tryout plan but you can feel free to use any writing document you prefer. I start by accounting for sign in’s, which I start 30 minutes prior to our tryouts start time.
On my schedule this will look like:
9:30am-10:00am: Sign in/Warm ups
Athletes sign in with a coach using registration sheet, & receive a name tag.
Varsity captains start warm ups at 9:50am
Next I’d consider the next step… and that’s introductions, and expectations.
This can look like:
10:00am-10:15am: Introductions + Expectations
Athletes stand around volleyball court lines, and coaches introduce themselves (name, background, what you hope to see today)
Head Varsity coach explains team expectations: Resilience, Effort, Sportsmanship
So all together this can look like…
9:30am-10:00am: Sign in/Warm ups (30 min)
Athletes sign in with a coach using registration sheet, & receive a name tag.
Varsity captains start warm ups at 9:50am
10:00am-10:15am: Introductions + Expectations (15 min)
Athletes stand around volleyball court lines, and coaches introduce themselves (name, background, what you hope to see today)
Head Varsity coach explains team expectations: Resilience, Effort, Sportsmanship
As you can see the schedule accounts for every minute… but the schedule is changeable by you, the coach, at any point. The timeline is to help us stay on track, but to also recall how long we ideally wanted to run something for. I often adjust my tryout schedules in real time when I see what is working, and what is not… so being adaptable is vital as a coach!
Below I’ve included an example of a tryout running from 4:00pm-7:00pm with all grades/skill levels (new & returning players, 9th-12th graders) in one session.
I account for every part of tryouts, from start to finish in my tryout schedule… even water breaks!
Here is an example of what the start of my tryout schedule will look on a google document:
Key points to takeaway…
The main things to takeaway are:
Figure out your timeline of schedule (how many days of tryouts, double sessions, all skill levels/grades, etc)
What is your coaching philosophy? What are your values and beliefs as a coach? What is your season, or overall goal as a head coach?
Create timeline on a writing document (Example: If day 1 of tryouts is running from 4:00pm-7:00pm then start with 3:30-4:00 sign in/warm up, etc)
Hit the key points of volleyball at least once (1 setting, 1 serving, 1 passing, & 1 attacking drill)
Match your school’s experience level (Brand new teams, plan fundamental drills… while experienced teams we test them with harder skill drills.
Check out my Youtube video, and let me know if you have any more ideal for a future blog post! Thank you!
-Coach T