Beyond the Game

Train Your Mind Like You Train Your Body

Athletes spend thousands of hours training their bodies and volleyball skills, but the mind needs training too. Learn how mental habits, emotional control, self-talk, resilience, and response to adversity can become competitive skills—and why becoming a stronger athlete starts with learning to control what happens between your ears.

Coach Mike DZ

The Parent Your Athlete Will Remember

Long after the trophies are packed away and the seasons are over, your athlete won't remember every score. They'll remember how you made them feel. This article explores the lasting impact parents have on their children through youth sports.

Sideline

Your Thoughts Become Your Performance

The voice inside an athlete's head can either provide useful information or create another opponent to overcome. This article teaches athletes how to recognize destructive self-talk, separate facts from emotional stories, and turn negative thoughts into specific performance instructions they can actually use.

Coach Mike DZ

Train Your Mind Like You Train Your Body

Athletes spend thousands of hours training their bodies and volleyball skills, but the mind needs training too. Learn how mental habits, emotional control, self-talk, resilience, and response to adversity can become competitive skills—and why becoming a stronger athlete starts with learning to control what happens between your ears.

Coach Mike DZ

The Parent Your Athlete Will Remember

Long after the trophies are packed away and the seasons are over, your athlete won't remember every score. They'll remember how you made them feel. This article explores the lasting impact parents have on their children through youth sports.

Sideline

Your Thoughts Become Your Performance

The voice inside an athlete's head can either provide useful information or create another opponent to overcome. This article teaches athletes how to recognize destructive self-talk, separate facts from emotional stories, and turn negative thoughts into specific performance instructions they can actually use.

Coach Mike DZ

Your Athlete Is Always Watching

Parents often believe they're simply watching the game. The truth is, their athlete is watching them just as closely. Every reaction, conversation, and response teaches a lesson that lasts far beyond volleyball.

Sideline

The 10-Second Rule: Don’t Let One Mistake Become Five

Mistakes are unavoidable. Staying trapped in them is trainable. The 10-Second Rule gives athletes a simple routine for the moments immediately after an error so frustration, embarrassment, or anger does not follow them into the next rally.

Coach Mike DZ

The Car Ride Home

Some of the most important moments in youth sports don't happen on the court—they happen in the car afterward. Learn why the ride home can shape your athlete's confidence, resilience, and love for the game.

Sideline

Control What You Can Control

Athletes waste enormous amounts of energy worrying about playing time, officials, teammates, rankings, opponents, parents, and who may be watching. This article teaches players how to separate what belongs to them from what does not—and redirect their attention toward effort, preparation, attitude, communication, and response.

Coach Mike DZ

Pressure Is Something You Can Train

Pressure is not proof that an athlete is unprepared or mentally weak. It is a normal response to moments that matter. This article teaches athletes how to become comfortable competing while nervous, create pressure during training, develop routines they can trust, and learn that courage is performing even when the moment feels uncomfortable.

Coach Mike DZ

Confidence Isn't Built by Winning

Many parents believe confidence comes from victories, praise, and success. In reality, lasting confidence is built by overcoming challenges, learning from mistakes, and discovering that failure isn't the end of the story.

Confidence Is Built, Not Given

Real confidence does not come from praise, rankings, playing time, or pretending you never doubt yourself. It comes from evidence. Learn how preparation, keeping promises to yourself, doing difficult things, and proving that you can respond to failure create confidence that doesn't disappear when competition becomes difficult.

Coach Mike DZ

Don't Rob Your Athlete of the Struggle

As parents, it's natural to want to protect our children from disappointment and hardship. But overcoming challenges is one of the greatest gifts youth sports can offer. Learn why allowing your athlete to struggle is essential for building confidence, resilience, and independence.

Sideline

Become a Sponge: The Best Athletes Never Stop Learning

Talent can open doors, but curiosity determines how much an athlete continues to grow. The best learners do not assume they already have the answers. They listen, ask questions, study other players, learn from different coaches, and search every experience for something useful. Learn how to develop one of the most valuable habits an athlete can possess: the willingness to say, “Teach me.”

Coach Mike DZ

The Power of Accountability: The Greatest Gift You Can Give Your Athlete

Accountability isn't about blame. It's about ownership, growth, and learning to respond when life doesn't go as planned. Parents who model accountability help their athletes become resilient, trustworthy adults.

Sideline

Replace “I Can’t” With “Teach Me”

“I can’t” can become a stopping point in an athlete’s development. “Teach me” creates a path forward. This article teaches players how to respond when a skill feels difficult, how to ask for help without embarrassment, and how coachability turns weaknesses into opportunities for growth.

Coach Mike DZ

Failure Is Feedback

No athlete enjoys failing, but failure is one of the greatest teachers in sports. Learn how parents can help athletes see mistakes as opportunities to learn instead of reasons to quit.

Sideline

What Is This Trying to Teach Me?

Adversity does not automatically create growth. Athletes grow when they learn how to examine difficult experiences, identify what those experiences reveal, and change because of them. This article teaches players how to turn disappointment, failure, being benched, losing, getting cut, and being outplayed into information they can use.

Coach Mike DZ

Teach Your Athlete to Control Their Response, Not Their Circumstances

Your athlete can't control every call, every coach's decision, or every opponent. But they can always control how they respond. Learning that lesson may become one of the greatest gifts youth sports can provide.

Sideline

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

Growth rarely happens when athletes only practice what they already do well. This article teaches players how to intentionally seek productive discomfort, attack weaknesses, compete against better athletes, choose difficult repetitions, and understand the difference between struggling because they are failing and struggling because they are growing.

Coach Mike DZ

Stop Being Afraid to Fail

Fear of failure can quietly change the way an athlete competes. Players begin avoiding difficult skills, playing safe, protecting their reputation, and choosing not to take risks. This article teaches athletes to redefine failure, separate courageous mistakes from careless ones, and become willing to fail while pursuing growth.

Coach Mike DZ

Chase Improvement, Not Approval

Athletes naturally want coaches, parents, teammates, scouts, and other people to recognize their success. But when approval becomes the goal, athletes can begin performing for praise instead of pursuing development. This article teaches players how to build an internal scoreboard, stop comparing their journey to everyone else's, and measure success by whether they are becoming better.

Coach Mike DZ

Correction Is Not Criticism

Being corrected can feel personal, especially when athletes care deeply about performing well. But correction and criticism are not the same thing. This article teaches players how to separate their identity from their performance, recognize coaching as information, and respond to correction with curiosity instead of defensiveness.

Coach Mike DZ

How to Take Coaching Without Getting Defensive

Defensiveness often happens before an athlete even realizes it. An explanation, facial expression, crossed arms, or quick “but” can prevent useful feedback from ever becoming learning. This article teaches athletes how to recognize their defensive triggers, control the space between emotion and response, and turn difficult coaching conversations into opportunities for growth.

Coach Mike DZ

Your Coach Doesn’t Have to Say It the Way You Want to Hear It

Every coach communicates differently. Some are calm, some direct, some detailed, and some demanding. Athletes who can only learn from one communication style limit their own development. This article teaches players how to adapt to different coaching personalities, separate useful information from delivery, communicate when they need clarification, and recognize the important difference between uncomfortable coaching and inappropriate treatment.

Coach Mike DZ

Seek Feedback Instead of Waiting for It

Most athletes receive feedback only when a coach decides to give it. Athletes who take ownership of their development learn to go looking for it. This article teaches players how to ask better questions, seek honest evaluation from people they trust, avoid fishing for compliments, and turn feedback into a specific development plan.

Coach Mike DZ

Don’t Explain the Mistake—Learn From It

Athletes often become very good at explaining why mistakes happened without actually changing what happens next. This article teaches players to move beyond excuses and explanations by identifying what they could control, finding the lesson inside the mistake, and creating a specific adjustment for the next opportunity.

Coach Mike DZ

What to Do When You Disagree With Your Coach

Being coachable does not mean blindly agreeing with everything a coach says. Mature athletes learn how to disagree without becoming disrespectful, defensive, or destructive to the team. This article teaches players when to listen, when to ask questions, how to communicate disagreements appropriately, when to accept a decision they do not like, and when a situation deserves help from a trusted adult.

Coach Mike DZ