Running a Successful Beginner Camp

I love the feeling at the end of an exhausting week of camp when girls say they wish it was longer. If they say that I know I have done my job – to give them a fun experience and make them love volleyball. I'm sure many coaches have many different strategies for how to accomplish this, but here are some of mine.

Force them to make new friends (especially for girls).

Girls want to build relationships, but sometimes they don't know how to start. Here are a few things I do:

Give a reward (piece of candy or other small prize) for anyone who can say everyone's names at the end of the day.

Make them partner with girls they don't know and introduce themselves.

Put them into teams and have them come up with a name for their team.

Give a “spirit” award

This award goes to the person who was most encouraging of others that day. Typically whoever is most outgoing will get this the first couple of days, so look for the quiet ones making an extra effort. I am specific about what this entails – high fives, telling others positive things like “good job, good try, you got the next one, etc.)

Have a good balance of skill work and “games”.

For me, a game consists of anything where there is a winner and a loser. It can be a serving game, or a game in which two teams are trying to get the most good passes in a period of time, etc. Even though the point of the camp may be to learn skills, the will get bored if they don't have something they consider more fun than drills.

Make sure you tell everyone something positive about how they are improving.

The hard thing about beginner camps is that they are beginners and usually unskilled. Some girls will have very little success with any of the skills. Find something to tell them they improved. If a kid comes to your camp and hasn't received anything positive, he or she may not try anything new again. Even if volleyball is not in this kid's future, something else is.

Always end the day with some sort of “real” game.

Each camp, I evaluate the level of the kids there and decide on a game based on their level. For example, I might do a game in which they can contact the ball as many times on a side and the ball can bounce. In this game, there really isn't a winner and loser but they have fun sending the ball over. I also like to play a lot of 4 v. 4. Even though beginners don't really move to the ball very well, it is still crowded with 6 girls on the court. With 4 v. 4 they realize they have to move to play the ball.

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