Penny Lucas-White 3-Pack

with Penny Lucas-White,
Alabama State University Head Coach;
6x Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) Championships;
2014, 2016 SWAC Conference Coach of the Year;
Air Force Head Coach from 1996 to 2009;
University of Memphis Head Coach from 1991 to 1995;
1994, 1995 Great Midwest Conference Coach of the Year;
played on the USA National Volleyball Team from 1985 to 1986;
played for LSU and then professionally in the US & Europe

and

with LaToya Clark,
Alabama State University Associate Head Coach;
Coached 4 SWAC Setter of the Year award-recipients;
5x Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) Championships;
Leon High School (FL) Assistant Varsity Coach & Head JV Coach from 2011 to 2014;
played collegiately for Jackson State;
3x MVP and 2x All-SWAC Tournament performer

Alabama State's Penny Lucas-White runs her team through a ball control practice session while focusing on growth and being intentional.  She discusses the value of failure in the growth process and demonstrates how to push your players through drills that develop ball control in all phases of the game. Then Associate Head Coach LaToya Clark details the essentials to training great setters!

Encourage your players to grow through failure at practice

Lucas-White shares her view on the growth path throughout a season.  She shares that growth is the only guarantee that tomorrow is going to be better because of how intentional we are in what we do today.  Lucas-White reminds us that there is no failure in failure; there is only growth in failure.

Control the ball to control the game

Lucas-White demonstrates a set of drills that focus on ball control.  She shares that the team that controls the ball has the best chance of controlling their outcome.  These drills build from setting to passing to tipping and hitting to allow your team to improve their ball control.  Lucas-White pulls in her team to readjust priorities and set new expectations as they demonstrate a variety of drills.

Develop grit and mental toughness that translates into matches

Lucas-White explains how to set goals in these ball control drills to push your players to maintain focus and their communication in order to work as one team.  She focuses on how the game is not about you as it's about the team, and when you make a mistake you have a team of people to support you.  Using this philosophy, she pushes her players in a drill that builds pressure throughout in order to develop mental strength.

Setter training

Training a setter is one of the most challenging jobs for a coach.  While it's easy to work on the hands and contact position in a controlled setting, we all know that in the game, nothing is controlled and that's when the setting breaks down.  

Getting your setter ready for game time

With this series of drills the setter is put in more game-like situations and is pushed to get to the ball and execute the set.  Through repetition the setter will feel more comfortable during an actual match.  In this video, one particularly excellent, useful drill to take to your own practices is one that has the setter come from base to setting position and then must move to recover after a bad pass.  Once that ball is set the coach immediately enters another ball more on target for the setter.  This creates a little chaos on the court much like you see in an actual match. It is excellent!

One of the more challenging obstacles as a coach is to find effective ways to train players in game-like settings.  This gets especially difficult when you are doing single position training, like setters.  The group of drills in this video does a terrific job of replicating a game-like experience and helps prepare the setter for the chaos of the real game.  The video starts with good warm-up drills that the setters can and should use for their daily routine. During warm up, Coach Clark talks about proper hand placement on the ball for better and cleaner contact.  The second half of the video goes over on court training that will work with the setter's footwork that will put them in a position to achieve more accurate setting.

Coach Lucas-White provides a structure where you can allow your players to grow in these drills while still pausing to share where your team needs to push and focus.  She demonstrated positive feedback while still stressing the expectations the coach desires from their team.  Lucas-White sets a tone of growth and intentionality while allowing players to stretch into new skills and confidence.  And Associate head coach LaToya Clark puts forth an excellent setting overview to help you advance your setter's effectiveness in the games ahead!

74 minutes.  2024

with Penny Lucas-White,
Alabama State University Head Coach;
6x Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) Championships;
2014, 2016 SWAC Conference Coach of the Year;
Air Force Head Coach from 1996 to 2009;
University of Memphis Head Coach from 1991 to 1995;
1994, 1995 Great Midwest Conference Coach of the Year;
played on the USA National Volleyball Team from 1985 to 1986;
played for LSU and then professionally in the US & Europe

Alabama State's Penny Lucas-White opens the door to a team practice where you will get a helpful dose of effective drills to build team chemistry and offensive timing. 

At the same time, Lucas-White shows how the other side is learning to read the attacks and work to keep the ball alive. In this competitive environment, Lucas-White is able to build team chemistry that pays off throughout the season! 

Utilize this drill to develop creativity in your setters

Coach Lucas-White demonstrates a 6v6 drill with various elements of scoring that grades the setter's ability to run an offense to attack your opponent as she tracks successful offensive kills across the whole drill.

Lucas-White provides feedback to the setters during the rally play as well as between rotations to determine where each setter is being successful and suggestions on improvement. Lucas-White discusses setter strategy within the action seen in the drill.

Train your passers and hitters to be aggressive in serve receive

Coach Lucas-White has her team run a 6v6 drill where serve receive is emphasized as each team tracks serve receive kills throughout the drill. She pushes the offense to attack aggressively while driving the defense to stop the attack. Lucas-White encourages the serving team to be aggressive to improve your serve receive performance.

Learn where your team is strong in each of the serve receive rotations

Lucas-White has designed her drill to have a timed element as well as a scoring element. The drill helps her track her strongest rotations and where to focus to improve. By observing practice, and seeing how Lucas-White makes adjustments you will get helpful ideas on how to give feedback to your setters, passers, and hitters.

Coach Lucas-White brings an upbeat and positive energy to coaching her team with visible enthusiasm while still demanding growth out of each player. In this Open Practice, the drills shown were early in the season and you can see her enthusiastic encouragement in the growth potential of each player; Lucas-White displays a great example for coaches as she encourages growth from one day to the next all season. This team ended up undefeated in conference play!

37 minutes.  2024.

with Penny Lucas-White,
Alabama State University Head Coach;
6x Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) Championships;
2014, 2016 SWAC Conference Coach of the Year;
Air Force Head Coach from 1996 to 2009;
University of Memphis Head Coach from 1991 to 1995;
1994, 1995 Great Midwest Conference Coach of the Year;
played on the USA National Volleyball Team from 1985 to 1986;
played for LSU and then professionally in the US & Europe

Alabama State's Penny Lucas-White takes you inside an early team practice session to focus on middles.  She starts with blocking technique to develop timing while showing how the entire team works as a single defensive unit.   Lucas-White demonstrates transition options and three different hitting tempos for the middle.  She finally shows a scrimmage drill to focus on the middle play.

Train your middles to use their eyes and feet to be more effective blockers

Lucas-White shares a drill to teach your middles to keep their eyes on the opposing setter before exploding with good footwork to transition to the hitter.  She demonstrates the footwork and uses her team to show how the middle block and floor defenders work as one unit to stop the opponent.  Lucas-White explains where to focus coaching emphasis to improve your middles' blocking efforts.

Transition from defense to offense with a variety of attacking options

Lucas-White discusses alternate "home" positions that allow your middles to transition into offense more effectively while learning to attack from various starting points.  She shows how to hit various middle hit tempos while her players demonstrate transitioning and attacking options.  The video shows side and end camera angles to help coaches see various aspects of the attacking technique to help you understand how to train middles as well as the setters.  

Watch a variety of middles execute blocking and hitting techniques

Lucas-White uses various players on a rotational basis to show different options adjusted for individual players.  She consistently rotates four different players and provides general and specific feedback to help other coaches learn the middle techniques.   Lucas-White explains areas of focus for training middles with their blocking and hitting skills.  

Coach Lucas-White brings an upbeat and positive energy to coaching her team.  She pushes her players with key phrases and feedback that is explained in the video.   Lucas-White shows how to keep an entire team involved while focusing on the middle play and keeps the action going throughout the practice.  She breaks down specific feedback for coaches watching the video and then utilizes that information within the drills. This is a must-have video for every volleyball coach!

36 minutes.  2024.