{"id":12767,"date":"2015-06-10T09:00:03","date_gmt":"2015-06-10T08:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coachingvb.com\/?p=12767"},"modified":"2015-06-10T09:00:03","modified_gmt":"2015-06-10T08:00:03","slug":"i-now-coach-a-professional-volleyball-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/2015\/06\/10\/i-now-coach-a-professional-volleyball-team\/","title":{"rendered":"I now coach a professional volleyball team!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post is from June 2015 as I prepared to leave England.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This morning I signed my first professional volleyball coaching contract. I’m officially now the head coach of Svedala Volleybollklubb<\/a>, which plays in the top women’s division in Sweden<\/a>. This is the job I referred to in last week’s log entry<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you asked me back in the 2000s when I was coaching NCAA volleyball whether I would ever coach in Europe, let alone Sweden, I probably would have laughed. Admittedly, I was kind of ignorant about the global volleyball world at the point (not that I’m some all-knowing font of information now). Even when I started the job search back in December I wouldn’t have given very good odds of ending up in Sweden. One thing I figured out a long time ago, though, is life can take you in the least expected directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This job is a definite “who you know” development. One of the coaches I spent time with last summer<\/a> knew the Svedala coach of the past two seasons who had decided to move on. It was through this connection that I found out about the opening and was given the details for applying. It took a few weeks for things to play out. I exchanged a number of emails with the club’s sports director, who is also manager of the team I’ll coach, has been the assistant coach recently, and once coached the team himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The process started on May 5th with my initial indication of interest. It didn’t really get going until May 16th, though. That was when I was given an indication of the club’s situation and designs. I was asked to outline my coaching philosophy<\/a>. Being the naturally curious sort, I asked loads of questions about the club and Swedish volleyball more broadly. On May 24th, as part of being in the top 3-4 candidates under consideration I was provided with an outline of the contract terms. More Q&A followed, of course. I was then offered the position on June 1st and accepted on the 2nd.  Believe it or not, I didn’t have so much as a phone interview in the whole process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Per the contract, these are my responsibilities:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a) Participate fully in the efforts of the Club to reach the play-offs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

b) Actively lead the elite team’s practices organized by the Club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

c) Participate in sponsor related events organized by the Club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

d) The coach should also be prepared to participate in other club activities and be a part of the total coaching team at the club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

e) Be part of the Club’s general work in the community<\/p>\n\n\n\n

f) Wear specified sportswear with sponsor information during training, games and other arrangements conducted by the Club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

g) Be prepared to mentor other coaches in the Club<\/p>\n\n\n\n

h) Not use any drugs specified by the Swedish national Volleyball Federation (Svenska Volleybollf\u00f6rbundet) and FIVB to be considered as drugs or doping substances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you can see, not only will I be responsible for coaching the club’s top team, I will also be tasked to work with the coaches from the club’s lower teams. Naturally, there are the usual public relations efforts as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The club’s responsibility to me is as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Structured support surrounding practice and matches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Medical support in volleyball related circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Health and Care insurance at least compatible with national standards<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Accommodation in Svedala.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. A round trip flight ticket to Sweden (Copenhagen Airport).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plus my monthly salary, of course. As I mentioned in my comparison of professional vs. NCAA coaching<\/a>, in Europe it is standard for club’s to provide accommodation and transportation to coaches (and players). Sweden is a lower level league and Svedala is a small club, so I definitely won’t be getting rich off the salary. If you work things back out, the equivalent pre-tax salary is probably about in line with that of a low level NCAA Division I head coaching job. And like those lower level programs, the resources at my disposal will be limited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have actually already started performing duties for my position. I am going to begin a new coaching log<\/a> for 2015-16 to document things along the way. Look for my first entry soon. I’m definitely looking forward to the new challenge. I’ve never been to Sweden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning I signed my first contract to coach a professional volleyball team. Definitely a whole new chapter in my coaching life!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[172,268,308],"class_list":["post-12767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-n-r","category-volleyball-coaching-job-search-log","tag-head-volleyball-coach","tag-professional-volleyball","tag-swedish-volleyball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.coachingvb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}