Bring Your Team Together - No "I" in Team

4 Activities to help bring your team- together as one.

1. Eat together - this is easier with a junior high or high school level team.
Have each of the players host a dinner the night before or the same day as a home game. Since pasta and sauce is usually fairly inexpensive most families can afford to make a quick dinner for the team that won't put a huge strain on the pocketbook.
While eating, talk about the game coming up that night or just talk and crack jokes.

2. Secret Friend - This should start at the beginning of the season.
Have the players secretly draw names from a hat (or whatever you have on hand.) The name they draw is the person that they will do special things for during the season.
The goal is to keep it a secret throughout the whole season. Reveal the secret friends on the last day of season or at your team banquet.
Some examples are:
Decorating lockers at school, slipping an encouraging note into their gym bag or leaving some candy on their car.

3. Play games at practice - even the most dedicated player needs a break from the same old practice everyday.
To keep the practices fresh, throw in some old favorite games every now and then like dodge ball (volleyballs are great for this game) or tag.

4. OO7 (The double oh seven) -
This is something I thought up a while ago for my players. It's more Mission Impossible than OO7, but fun nonetheless...
At the beginning of the season put individual missions on cards and hand them out to teams of two that you chose. This usually works best when you pair up the most unlikely of players.
These teams of two will have to complete their "mission", without anyone knowing that they are the perpetrators, in a time span of 2 weeks.
For instance, a mission could be 'Stuff toilet paper into [player's name]'s shoes.' By choosing unlikely pairs and putting them up to silly pranks together they will have to work together to reach a common goal.

The most important thing for team bonding as a coach or captain is to remain alert and nip any fighting in the bud immediately.
If there are internal feuds going on, do not assume they will work themselves out. Address the problem as a team and tackle the problem as a team. The longer the problem is allowed to fester, the worse it will become. Always be fair and do not play favorites. Keep practice fun and remember there's nothing like laughter to bring people together!

Take care,

Hayley
http://www.volleyball-magic.com/ http://www.winningvolleyballskills.info/