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Grant: It seems like every time that we start our podcast, you bring some level of food in that causes issues.

Gabby: I think last time I was tempting you with the pretzel nuggets.

Grant: Oh, yeah, but they were peanut butter pretzels. And that was… that was probably not the right thing to bring into a podcast. And now you’ve inhaled a cookie and you sound like you’re an ex-smoker.

Gabby: You’re not recording this are you?

Grant: Yes. I absolutely am.

Gabby: Well, delete it!

Grant: I’m not gonna delete this. This is the kind of conversation that we’re going to have.

Gabby: Yeah, and just cut out the vaping?

Grant: I think I’ll cut out the “vaping.”

(Intro Music/Transition)

Grant: Welcome to Calm Down. It’s Just a Game, a podcast for volleyball parents, athletes, aspiring coaches, and the people who love them. With your hosts, Coach Grant Lange…

Gabby: …and Coach Gabby Gray.

Grant: Today is the “Terror of Tryouts,” because many, many, many of us have been counseling young people and their parents about the terror of tryouts. We just went through all of the seasons of it. In July, we went through club because in our area, they do tryouts for club in July. Then there’s the terror of tryouts for high school, which is easier because for the most part those have all been established. You’ve got a high school team, and then tryouts that we’ve had coming in were the people new to the high school. And then there’s the second round of “terror of tryouts” of the clubs who waited until after the high school season. And now we’re rolling into the middle school season and the boys’ season. So, it turns out there’s somebody afraid for their position somewhere every single day.

Grant: What was the tryout that made you the most anxious?

Gabby: So yeah, we knew that 17s was going to be a really important year for me because I wanted to go Division 1, and wanted to go small Division 1. So we decided to try out down in Atlanta. It was 17s year and there were seriously hundreds of people at the tryout. I mean there were probably, I don’t know, six to eight courts or something and just completely filled out.

Grant: For one team?

Gabby: It was probably combined with 17s and 18s. But I just remember there were so many people. And the way that A5 does their tryouts—I don’t know if they do it that way everywhere—but they pull you one by one in the middle of a tryout. So you see other people being pulled away to get offers, and if you don’t get pulled at any point in the tryout, you know that you didn’t get an offer.

Grant: Yeah, so as you’re going through this whole tryout, and you know you’ve got a number on and that’s your distinguishing factor… I didn’t know anybody in the entire club.

Gabby: Yeah, not a coach, not another player. Just me and my dad going to Atlanta to try out. And you know, you just see one by one people starting to get picked off and taken out of tryouts and getting offered.

Grant: Did it start to give you butterflies that you weren’t picked? Like you were seeing people disappear and you’re starting to get more of a pit in your stomach? Or where you like, “Yeah, it’s gonna happen eventually”?

Gabby: No, I was definitely anxious about it. I mean, we had talked to them about me trying out, but they hadn’t, I guess, seen me fully in person yet. So we had a little bit of a relationship there, but I still was super unsure and very overwhelmed. I mean, these are girls that… I went to the second smallest school out of the 17s team that I made. Everybody else went to Miami, Kentucky, Rutgers—these big D1 schools.

Grant: Yeah, there were girls in there that were playing on ranked teams that were going to play in college.

Gabby: And so I was extremely intimidated. Didn’t think that I was gonna get offered. Miraculously got pulled away at one point and got offered, but it was definitely the most anxiety-inducing. Not just because of the caliber of the team, but I think the way that they did tryouts. It was very much like: “You’re on it. You’re not on it.” Very point blank. Like, “We need you to make a decision now. Do you want it or not?”

Grant: And it wasn’t… You know, a lot of clubs do tryouts differently, but when you’re trying out for a team like that you don’t decline the offer. You get offered a spot on the national team at that location and you’re like, “Oh, yeah. This is not anything that we have to consider.”

Grant: To kind of lead up to that… I don’t think you would have gone to try out on a whim, right? You would have to build some resume before you’re gonna go try out for one of the big K2, A5, Muncie, Kiva-level national teams. Like, I don’t think you walk in the gym the first time and don’t know who they are and get offered a national spot.

Gabby: Exactly. You have a resume at that point.

Grant: So for some of you out there who were listening to us, that might be your experience. But I think the first entry into tryouts… When was your first entry into tryouts?

Gabby: School. Middle school. That was really the first time I had played volleyball officially.

Grant: Did it scare you?

Gabby: Yeah.

Grant: Really? Okay, it’s always interesting because for me, as a coach, I am doing the tryouts. I’m not involved in the tryouts. And men’s is very different because when I was playing men’s, we were struggling to get enough guys to play. So I had a great entry in because I was just playing to play. As a coach, I just see these kids wander in. Some of them hide their nervousness really well, some of them have huge performance anxiety. Just watching these young people walk in for tryouts the first time, my heart breaks just a little bit every time. Because you’re like, “Okay, well, this is gonna be emotionally rough for somebody.”

Gabby: Mm-hmm, right? I will say I was pretty good at hiding my nervousness. I still am.

Grant: You cover a lot of negative emotion for the most part. No, you hide it very well. Like, it actually makes you a pretty good coach. Because if you’re gonna come apart, you’re gonna come apart at the seams off the court.

Gabby: Mm-hmm, behind closed doors. Which is… I don’t know. That’s how I was as an athlete too, up until mid-college.

Grant: I wish I could do that. Oh my.

Gabby: But yeah, my first tryout was middle school. But it was interesting because I was recruited to try out. So I was very, very tall early.

Grant: Oh, yeah, okay.

Gabby: And they saw me sticking out waiting for my classes the first day of school and the volleyball coach said, “Hey, have you ever played volleyball?” I said, “Yeah, I hate it.” And she said, “Okay, well here’s this paper. Take it home to your parents, get them to sign it because we really want you to try out.”

Grant: Yeah, okay.

Gabby: Brought it home. “Hey, lady told me to get you guys to sign this, but I don’t want to go.” And they said, “You know, just try it. See how you like it. See how you like the girls.” And I did. So I kind of already… I mean I remember being nervous, but when you’re asked to try out for something it usually takes off a little bit of nervousness.

Grant: Yeah, so you tried out having been asked to try out. All right, I think that is a unique benefit when you’re above six feet. As both you and I are, so we get an immediate pass through the first wave. Yeah, if you could spell volleyball and you’re above six feet, man, here we go. We’re gonna try out.

Grant: Well, that’s not what we’re talking about today. I think we’re talking a little bit of memory lane for us being successful. But the reality is, most of the athletes who are facing tryouts right now are more on the bubble than not. The people who have tryouts and who are afraid… It’s rare that they know that they’re on the team. I didn’t go through this as an athlete, but I went through as a parent. I’ve now been the decider as a coach. I have been the consultant for families and athletes when they were trying to decide where to try out. So I think in general, this is just kind of a highlight reel of our recommendations to get your mindset right about tryouts.

Grant: Because in general, when you think about putting your child up in front of something that’s scary… What is the reason you’re doing it? More than anything else, why are we engaged in trying out? Why are we going to have you come do this? And the answer is: Because trying out is scary, and we want our kids to be able to face something that’s terrifying for an opportunity.

Grant: I see parents try to protect their young people against that. But I lean into it. Like, I like the idea that you’re going to hold their hand all the way up into the tryout, and you release them and let them try. And then when they come back to you, you deal with whatever consequences that are available. But more than anything else, I want the parents to launch their children. I want them to go: “Okay. It’s gonna be scary. You’re gonna be a little panicky. That’s okay. Nerves are okay.” Nerves mean it matters. Did you have nerves trying out on your 8th grade team when you didn’t want to play? No. I mean there was nothing to lose right, so it didn’t matter to you. But did it matter when you were going into 17s?

Gabby: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Grant: Why? What was the difference?

Gabby: I think there’s a number of reasons why there was a difference. And I think this really is a good tie-in to the reasons why tryouts feel so scary for athletes and parents both. The first thing was I was there to try out for a specific team. It was 17s and it was the national team and I knew that was the team I was trying out for. Of course everybody wants to make that team, but that was why we traveled that far. If I made any other team we wouldn’t have been playing there.

Grant: Yeah, it would just stay local.

Gabby: And so there was this pressure to be on that specific team and live up to an expectation. But I think that there’s something that was really important that made the difference: I was now an athlete. That was my identity. And so my whole self was tied up in whether or not somebody thought I was good enough in this role. And so I think I had a little bit of that more in myself of, “This is who I am. This is what I do.” You know, in order to be successful I have to do X, Y, and Z. I definitely made it more… you know, volleyball is my entire life.

Grant: Yeah.

Gabby: I like school and friends and doing that, but I didn’t have a social life. I was pretty naturally good at my academics. I didn’t have to study and… I mean I worked hard, but I didn’t have to work extra hard.

Grant: Yeah, this was my entire life at 16 years old. Well, and that’s a really good illustration of the point, which is that when you were in eighth grade and you’re like “Yeah, I’ll sign this. I’ll try out. Whatever,” you came to the tryout with very little anxiety. If they said “Hey, you’re tall, come try out for the Reaching the Top of the Shelf Team,” and they’re like “I’m sorry you didn’t make the Reaching the Top of the Shelf Team,” you’d be like, “Okay, whatever. I tried out because you asked me to and now you said I can’t and forget it.” But over the course of time, it’s become your identity. And when it becomes your identity, all of a sudden we have so much more to lose.

Grant: And I think more than that, we have to as parents and as coaches think you have to lean into the idea that if it’s part of your identity, it’s going to matter. And there’s going to be anxiety and there’s going to be fear. The question is: how does the athlete manage that? The question is: how does the parent guide the athlete through it?

Grant: And as a coach, you know, I’ve seen 15 different ways of how to deal with tryouts and giving people the opportunity to make the team, get cut, get different opportunities. And some of them work, some of them don’t. Some people really like to be told right away or cut right away. Some people like to be offered one team; if they get the other offer they’re not happy. So I don’t know. I’m a little bit sideways on my thoughts about how you actually provide the acceptance offers or the denial offers. But either way for young people, the first piece of advice is: if you’re nervous, that’s fantastic. I think it’s important to be nervous for something because you’re only nervous towards things that matter to you.

Grant: If you’re a volleyball player and volleyball is your identity, well, if you don’t make the team it really crushes some identity. But if you’re shy and you got to go out in public and perform in public—which is what a tryout is—that can mess with your identity too. You may love the sport of volleyball, but not really know how to manage people on a team. And you know you’re trying out for a new team where you don’t know anybody. That’s terrifying too. So I think the first recommendation is… Number one: as a parent, as an athlete, I want you to acknowledge that you only care about it because it matters to you. And I know that seems a little bit circular, but the things that matter to you should make you feel nervous when you reach hard. When you’re reaching for something that you care about. So good, you’re nervous. That’s awesome. Now what?

Gabby: Yeah, I think this is a really good segue into what athletes themselves can control. Because there’s a lot of things that you can control. There’s some things that you can’t, you know. Decision-making is obviously out of your control. There’s nothing you can do about whether a coach decides if they like you or not, or if they’re a good fit for the team. But you can do things to prepare yourself for tryouts.

Gabby: Of course, we see an effect a lot like cramming for a test. And just making sure that you’re in the right mindset before tryouts, especially with your attitude. So if you know you are shy, mentally prepare yourself to be around all those people. If you know that you need extra work on serving to be a little bit more confident, do that before the week before tryouts. And so those kinds of things you can control. And of course effort is a big one. You know, that’s a thing that coaches talk a lot about is effort and the “shiny penny” theory that you like to bring up—which I’ll let you kind of explain—but that’s a big one on what you can control showing up to a tryout.

Grant: I’m gonna touch on the idea of cramming. This is kind of inside baseball between the coaches that we talk about, which is that I can guarantee you my level of private lessons skyrockets the three weeks before tryouts. And it is rarely the people who most likely are going to make it. The people who most likely are gonna make it, I know their names already. I know that they’ve been in the gym. If they’re trying out for my team, I probably have seen them somewhere else. They’ve been in an open gym like you can kind of see.

Grant: All right, you guys are in the culture, but there seems to be a ramping up of “Let’s see if we can get you ready for the tryout.” And you know, I’ve had parents come to me and say, “Look, I want to do 30 private lessons in the next 60 days.” And okay, I don’t have the time for that. But I watch them try to ramp their kids into the sport by kind of doing the last minute procrastination piece. And if you’re looking to develop confidence, sure. But if you’re looking to get better at your technique, it’s kind of a little bit too little too late.

Grant: I mean I can usually fix a serve to go farther. I can do that. If you have an overhand serve and you want it to go flatter, I can do that. But if you don’t have an overhand serve and you’re trying to get it in the three weeks beforehand… well, I hate to say that you can’t. You can. But more than anything else what I care that you do is that if you care about something, that you make it part of your daily life or you make it part of your weekly life. In other words, you make it consistent. You do something consistent.

Grant: One of the things that we do is that we make sure that you can play with us 52 weeks a year, because I found that I got better when I was playing not every day for four months, but when I was playing a couple of days a week year-round. That’s when I got better. That’s when things worked. So for me, I think the easy thing to do is just be consistent with your practice and then tryouts become less concerning. But I watch so much procrastination happen and then this race to do private lessons and those race to get into stuff right before tryouts and then usually it’s a flame out. You know, there’s 40% of the kids who were probably going to make it anyway. They just want to work on a technique. But there’s 60% of those kids who really raced up and decided that they wanted to do it at the last minute, spend a lot of money to try to get skills that take a long time to learn. And off it goes because you can’t cram for a physical test. It’s just not possible. I can’t go lift in the gym today, tomorrow, the next day and do my max bench and then expect three days later to be able to lift more. It’s just not possible.

Gabby: Yeah, and the same thing’s true with volleyball. So another thing I know that I am looking for as a coach… There’s two things that are really important to me and it’s effort and coachability.

Grant: Yeah.

Gabby: Those are things that I definitely look for a lot when I’m choosing a team. And you know coachability is so important because if you’re not coachable, you’re never going to develop on a team. And it’s very easy to… even if it’s uncomfortable in trials because coaches do this a lot. I know I do this. I’ll go to an athlete. I’ll say, “Hey, been hitting zone one a lot in this drill. Let’s go ahead and serve zone five.” See them do it. If they just kind of shrug their shoulders and serve zone one again, I’m like, “Okay, I put that in the back of my mind.” But if they try to go zone five, hit the ball wide, missed the serve, I’m like, “That’s a good miss.” You know what I mean? Because they’re trying to make the effort to be coachable. So I think it’s important to know coaches also really look for that.

Grant: Mm-hmm, and that’s something that you also can control. I think that leads into the “Bright and Shiny Penny” conversation. As coaches… Look, I’ve seen so many athletes through my gym that I just can’t keep up. But what I do know is that every person who walks in my gym is worth exactly one athlete. They’re not worth two, they’re not worth a half, they’re worth exactly one athlete.

Grant: The Bright and Shiny Penny conversation is: If you have a penny jar at home and you take all the pennies and dump them on the floor, which ones do you notice first? It’s gonna be the shiniest ones. They’re all worth one cent. The ones that are the shiniest are gonna stand out. And then what are the next ones that are gonna stand out? The ones that are really, really dark. The really, really dull ones, right? And then everything else is in the middle.

Grant: So the question that I have for most athletes is: what makes you a bright and shiny penny when you walk in the gym? And for me, the skill sets are rarely the bright and shiny part. You know, at some point there’s an outstanding float serve that underlines a player. At some point there’s a kid who’s six foot two and is jumping out of the gym. That underlines a player. But for the most part athletes are athletes. The bright and shiny penny for me is: Did you listen to what I said about the drill? Did you go get involved in the drill? Were you in a headspace of giving? Could you help other teammates? Could you explain something to them? Could you high five them when they did something? Could you cheer them on? When I asked you guys to shag balls, did you?

Grant: The number of athletes that I have cut when I said “Go ahead and shag balls” and they walked straight over to get their phones whereas four or five other kids went to shag balls… I mean that’s an easy cut immediately. Did you leave your phone out of the gym? Huge piece for me. Because if they’re checking their phone while they’re trying out, they’re telling me that they’re going to check the phone when they’re practicing. The thing is, what can you do outside of your skills that sets you off as somebody that we would want on our team? And it is coachability. It is sportsmanship. It is the willingness to do the extra work. It’s the willingness to be engaged fully in the process. And all of those things are controllable right now. You don’t have to have any skills. You can just walk in and let the ball hit you in the face. But cheer everybody on, say “Hey, great serve, nice job. Hey, I’ll pass that to you next time. If it comes off the other side of my face, let’s go.”

Gabby: Yeah, I’m gonna take that kid every single time over the kid who is you know one hair better but doesn’t go shag, goes and checks her phone, wanders out of the gym looking at the ceiling when I’m talking to her.

Grant: Yeah, easy.

Gabby: Okay. Did you get embarrassed by your parents in any way as you were doing any of your tryouts?

Grant: Not really, because the really competitive tryouts I did, they were closed.

Gabby: Yeah, so that fixes a lot of problems.

Grant: I mean there wasn’t really any ability to. You know, and when I recommend things to parents, I say there’s a balance between advocacy and support. And the balance should weigh heavier on the support. When you are dealing with your child becoming an athlete, it’s entirely their journey that you’re there as a Sherpa for. You’re there to be on the side, make sure they have enough hydration, but you can’t really do anything other than be a Sherpa. So support usually means providing context for what’s happening for them, because this is the first time they’ve ever been through it. And parents, I know it’s the first time you guys have ever been through it too. The reality is that, you know, I only had a 12-year-old young lady to do 12-year-old tryouts once. Right? So it was kind of the first for both.

Grant: The thing that we want to do is prepare them for what’s happening. “Hey, you’re gonna feel nervous. Hey, if this matters to you then that’s why you feel nervous. That’s worthwhile.” Talking to them about the emotional content. Talking to them about what outcomes are most likely going to happen. Meaning that most likely, you’re either going to make it or not make it. The in-betweens are usually you’re gonna get offered a team lower than what you wanted, or in some areas they say “Well, you’re a practice player” which is an entire other ball of worms. So talk about what the outcomes are before they go in so the athlete knows “If I get an A, I get this; if I get a B, I get this.” And so your athlete knows what the outcomes could be before they walk in. That’s preparation. And then making sure that they understand that doing this is about being brave. And being brave is a fundamental life skill. Being able to do something that you care about even though you’re afraid is a huge thing that parents can do for their children that I don’t see many do.

Grant: The next piece—the advocacy portion—is rarely worthwhile after the fact. And this is what I tell my athletes talking to the refs. This is what I tell parents when they’re talking to coaches. This is what I tell athletes when they’re talking to potential coaches. Which is that your advocacy happens over a long period of time in front of things. If you want your young athlete to go and play at a new club team, you don’t want to meet those club coaches for the first time at tryouts. I think you as a parent have an opportunity to get out in front of things. Call the club. Talk to them. Get some real feedback. Have conversations with the coaches. Most coaches are usually open to having conversations about potential athletes. Where you see coaches close down is when they’ve already made decisions and you’re trying to shift what they do. So you have the opportunity for advocacy on the front end, but then you also have the opportunity to prepare your athlete to go have the experience.

Grant: And once they have an experience, your advocacy for the most part is over. And the only thing that you can do is provide context and model conduct. Meaning, “I see that you have been successful. Isn’t that fantastic? What’s next?” Or, “Hey, we didn’t reach our goals. I’m super sorry about that. Let’s go have ice cream and talk about what our next opportunities are.” And get out in front of it. But I think more often than not, the horror stories that you hear from coaches is when a parent is advocating post-decision, or when the expectations were not clearly conveyed. And that’s on our side. That’s a different conversation from a coaching perspective.

Grant: There’s quite a few different experiences that I’ve seen where coaches did not tell people what was going to happen in the tryouts, and then parents got stunned and shamed and unhappy and got negative consequences. You know, one of the things that I really wish that the coaching world would take into consideration is the impact that you have on young people. I mean, I know that it’s a business. I know that you want to get the right people involved because as you build your teams, you need athletes to play and it is a financial motivation to do so. But I think that in the world of HR we have learned—I’m not in HR, but in the times that I’ve been involved in HR—there were very specific rules on how you hired and fired people. And this is very similar.

Grant: If you’re going to hire somebody, hire them behind closed doors. If you’re going to fire somebody, either fire them in a group or fire them behind closed doors. But don’t fire them in front of the people who are hired. And don’t do it suddenly in the middle of what’s happening. You can do it suddenly, but do it suddenly after that, when they have an opportunity to break down in private because this is what’s going to happen. Yes, there can be kids crying in the car every single time. The ones that I’ve seen who’ve done it the best is: give them some time and give them a result with some distance from the practice or from the tryout, right? And it could be 24 hours. That’s what we did. We said, “Okay, you’ll know it within 24 hours whether you’ve made it or not made it. You’ll get an email. As of this time, you will know.” We guarantee that you were going to get this because we didn’t want to have it be really, really hard. We a lot of times would pull people and offer them in private and let that happen. But we never cut public.

Gabby: No, that’s hard.

Grant: That’s hard. And if you are experiencing that, I think it’s a good life lesson. I think as a parent, you can talk somebody through it. You can talk somebody about how to hold your head high even if you get publicly cut. But from my perspective, I want to make sure that athletes have an opportunity to continue even if they’re not continuing on on my team. And to cut somebody so hard in front of the people can be a walkaway point. And one of the few things I absolutely believe in is: never be anybody’s last coach. And I am never going to do anything to make them feel like they don’t need to go forward anymore. So that’s my opinion and it’s probably way too long.

Gabby: Okay, so… I love that you just move me on. You’re like “Okay. Next one.”

Grant: I know. Gabby’s job is to corral this guy.

Gabby: That’s my job is to move you on.

Grant: I’ve gotten pretty good at it.

Gabby: Yeah. She manages me like a very good sheep dog, pushing me one direction at other. It’s fantastic. And that brings us to Parent Question of the Week. This is actually super common because of course not everybody gets to make the team they want. There’s one top team and there’s all the other teams behind them. And so: What should a parent say to their athlete if they don’t make the team they wanted?

Grant: Oh. Good one. Yeah, the first one is: you face the person that you love and tell them that you’re proud of them. Period. Right? You start with empathy, which is that the job as a parent is to get them out and let them take a risk. And then turn to them say, “Hey, you took a risk. We didn’t make the team that we wanted to. That’s okay. We have more choices to make.” Because what happens if you get fired from a job? It’s not like jobs are over. You still need one so you go find another job. In this case, it’s the same way. Which is like, “Okay, we didn’t make this team. What are our options? What do we want to do?”

Grant: Acknowledge that it hurts, but more of this is to pick their head up and put their head down the road. Not to wallow in the experience that’s happening. Your job is to bring their head up and say, “Okay, what does the future hold for us now?” And that future could be let’s go play soccer instead. That could be let’s go try a different club team. Or you get offered on a lower team than you wanted. Now you have a choice. You have a choice of: Do you want to continue here? Do you want to go off and do something else?

Grant: You’re never going to be able to mitigate somebody else’s emotional content. But what you can always do is provide context and model conduct. And when I say model conduct, you can turn to them and say “I’m really sorry that you’re going through this. I know how hard it hurts.” But you’re going to hold your opinions of what happened. Like, if you think that it was total BS that your kid didn’t make the thing, you losing it in front of that athlete doesn’t necessarily help. Right? It actually provides a model that having a disappointment allows you to be internally negative. Whereas if you’re mad, by all means reach out to the coaches and say “Hey, I really don’t appreciate the way that you did this.” Because maybe they didn’t know. And if they did know, then maybe you didn’t want your athlete to play for them. But I never would recommend you show anger, frustration, anything else around your athlete’s decisions.

Grant: By the way, the same thing on a bad call when a parent gets hot at the ref because the call got blown. This is the advocacy after the fact and it doesn’t work. It’s not going to change what happened. It’s not going to change the game. It’s not going to change the outcome. The outcome has already decided. So you can complain about it, but don’t complain to your athlete who is trying to climb this particular mountain. Your athletes are climbing a mountain and your job is to be their Sherpa every single time. To guide them up the hill to say, “Hey, this may be the best path, but you get to choose it.” And to make sure that they have food, water, shelter, and the ability to recognize when things are going wrong and turn them back down the mountain when things are difficult.

Grant: Well, thank you so much for listening. We love being able to talk about this and if you’re able to just support us by subscribing to our podcast…

Gabby: We’d be very, very thankful. If you ever have any questions, comments, concerns, or you know, suggestions for things that you want to hear, you can reach out on our website or you can put it in the ether and maybe we’ll grab it.

Grant: Yeah, we don’t have phone books anymore. So there’s no phone book. Look us up in the yellow pages circa 1986. You can find it in your local pay phone. Oh, and remember: Calm down.

Gabby: It’s just a game.

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