Brandon Joyner (00:01.114)
Thought you lived in Florida.
Mark Burik (00:03.66)
Hey everybody and welcome to the Better at Beach podcast. My name is Mark Burke. I'm here with my co-host Brandon Joiner and today we have one of our star coaches from our Better at Beach camps. He beat me down in Pottstown a few years ago. I've still got his number on the beach. We're not going to take too long to introduce him, but it's going to be a fun chat. Nolan Albrecht, what's up brother?
Nolan Albrecht (00:29.078)
What's up y'all, excited to be here.
Mark Burik (00:33.058)
You should be.
Brandon Joyner (00:35.552)
He's also beaten me pretty bad on the on the grass as well mark. So we're in the same category
Mark Burik (00:40.984)
Okay, so we're still on the recruiting trail. We're hoping that this episode brings him, puts him on our side.
Brandon Joyner (00:46.762)
Right. I'm just looking for a Pop Sound partner. That's it.
Mark Burik (00:51.057)
Aren't we all? Aren't we all? Guys, I do, before we get started, I do want to tell you, because all three of us should be there in April. I think it's Brandon April 6th to 12th.
Brandon Joyner (01:08.807)
Yes, Nolan will not be there though. Unfortunately, he's got plans
Mark Burik (01:13.392)
Ooh, all right. Well, April 6 to 12, guys. Without Nolan, we are running our Better at Beach training camp in Florida again. So we just booked the dates at the postcard in. It's going to be a six day event. We've got a number of other events. If you click on the link below this video, you will see all of them and
Nolan Albrecht (01:16.534)
disappointed I'll be in port school.
Mark Burik (01:39.648)
we'll give you a free drill book as well as a 5% discount on any of this just for attending our live streams and listening to our podcasts. So make sure you click on the link around this video. We've got a bunch of goodies there for you and it will also show you everything that we have to offer in terms of our online programs, in-person training programs and new and improved tools for coaches. And tools for coaches is something that I really want to start.
to talk to Nolan about today because he's been an NCAA coach. He has been obviously an elite competitor in two-on-two volleyball on the beach and on the grass. He's got his AVP accolade, so he's got, I believe, a high of a ninth in the AVP. And you know, a pretty eclectic background in terms of just indoor grass, beach, moving from the South and now, and Chicago over to Florida.
So we've got a whole lot to talk about with Nolan and I'm looking forward to it. So Nolan, do you like indoor beach or grass better and which is the best sport?
Nolan Albrecht (02:44.47)
Dude, I fall asleep at night debating which of those three I like better. I don't know, man. I just love volleyball in general. I think I'm probably the best at grass compared to indoor and beach. I'm the most frustrated by beach just because it's a tough sport to play. It's dominated by errors a lot. And then...
Indoor, I love the team dynamic. I love the fact that it's six people on the court all rowing together, plus your bench. And I like how, I don't know, as a coach, I love indoor the most, I think, because there's just more people to work on. But I think in beach, the mindset of it is really fun to work with. So if I can just sort of stay in Sweden on that answer and just kind of be like, I love volleyball.
That's what I would say. I like getting, Switzerland. Oh, well yeah, I'm going to Sweden this spring. I have Sweden on my mind, man. No. One of the two, I don't know. But yeah.
Mark Burik (03:38.3)
Don't you mean Switzerland?
Brandon Joyner (03:41.472)
Hey, Switzerland, Sweden. It's great. There you go.
Mark Burik (03:44.04)
Sweden hasn't been in too many wars either, so I think you're alright.
Mark Burik (03:52.544)
Do you think that there's a different athlete for the different sport? Like, what do you need physically to play indoor versus beach? What do you need mentally to play indoor versus beach?
Nolan Albrecht (04:06.11)
Yeah, good question. I think on the beach side, it allows for a lot of variation. It really is just maximizing your abilities, your talents, your skills, your mindset. So you can have someone like me who's 6'5", pushing 220, who can compete on the beach pretty well. And then you have a guy like Hagen, who's, you know, he's not even six feet. I know he was the last guest here.
And then you have a guy like Logan Webber, the first guest who's six, nine, and you know, he's pushing a buck 70. Like, so I think on the beach, it's more about like maximizing yourself. I think on indoor, there's a few more molds that you kind of have to fit. Like if you're an indoor hitter, you need to pack a lot of punch into the ball. And it is, it is like necessary. There's really no way around it because with the triple block up with the full defense behind you.
You just have to put 55 miles an hour on the ball to get a kill consistently. If you only do shots indoor, it's going to get picked up. But I think on the beach, it allows for a little bit more variance. You can be, you can win games from as being like being a great passer, putting yours, your partner up on two a lot. You don't really need to have an arm. I've played with guys who are like, Hey man, my shoulders hurting today. I, you know, I might just do a lot of poking Mark Fornicari.
And, you know, he's just gonna pass me up for a two ball all day long. And I can use my shoulder and swing. So I think, uh, beach can. Beach, you need ball control. That's a, that's a no brainer. Like you have to have ball control. Um, and I think on indoor, you have to have physicality, um, to, to like the max as much, as much as you can get. So yeah, that's what I would say. The difference in the athletes are.
Mark Burik (05:47.181)
Hmm.
Mark Burik (05:57.372)
What about headwise? Have you noticed any difference mentally between what works or socially or emotionally for an indoor player versus a beach player?
Nolan Albrecht (05:59.874)
Headspace.
Nolan Albrecht (06:10.119)
Yeah. Man. Indoor is like the ball will find you when you're not expecting it. Like it will always find the weakest link. Beach, it's going to find you whether you're having the best day of your life or you're not. Like if you have a hot hand on the beach, that hot hand will take you all the way through and you're going to be able to get a lot of touches because they can't hit it away from you. There's only two on the court.
I think indoor sometimes you can have an amazing game. You can hit a thousand. And if you're a middle and your team is passing bad, you only took five swings. You got five swings or five kills on five swings. You may have been ready to have 25, but you can't get the ball because your team's not passing well enough. So I think the mindset of an indoor player is a little bit of like.
A high tide raises all ships. So I'm going to play at my peak and it may not be my time right now to have a rock star performance. Um, it may be my time right now to be more of, you know, the, a sister, or it may be my time right now to just hold a block over on my, if I'm the left side hitter, I'm just going to hold that middle and let my right side go off. Cause all they've done is prep for me as the outside hitter. And so I can free up other hitters. I think on the outdoor side, you may not ever get a serve.
They may serve your partner the entire time, but you have to be locked in because it's happened to me so many times. It used to happen more where I wouldn't see a single serve until it was 18-18. And then the last five serves of the game would come to me. And as an indoor player, I'm like, wait, I didn't think I was really, I thought I was just going to be setting this whole game. And then the last five serves come to me and I'm in the setting mindset because I was a little bit immature on the beach side. And so I think...
having a more steel mindset on the beach and just like being able to be seven out of 10 chill while also being just sort of positively optimistic about like, I might get the serve, I might set, I might get a two ball. Yeah, I think that skill is a lot more necessary on the beach side, I would say.
Brandon Joyner (07:56.357)
Hmm.
Mark Burik (08:16.864)
You know what, one thing that I prided myself on in I think college and club was just getting people fired up, especially once I got into like adult nationals. You're out there late at night, you might have nothing left, but the ability for one person to go in there and get...
Brandon Joyner (08:34.598)
I'm gonna go to bed.
Mark Burik (08:45.368)
six other people just fired up without providing any skill, any kills, any digs, any serves. But like the fact that you can actually turn a match around just like that, because even if you affect two of them, right, even if you only affect 30% of your team, those two can take over a match so long as there's a half decent pass. And it's tough because if you got your one guy in a rut on beach.
Nolan Albrecht (09:08.877)
Oh yeah.
Mark Burik (09:14.952)
And no matter what, he refuses to lift up with you. They get stuck there. And then you don't, you can definitely have a negative effect. But the positive emotional effect from your group, I've always found that kind of lacking in beach, whereas I could not touch a ball and have an incredible effect on the game, on the outcome, and on the performance of my teammates just by, you know.
Brandon Joyner (09:21.355)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (09:44.128)
punching a few people in the chest and let it ride.
Nolan Albrecht (09:49.066)
Yeah, I would say the same thing. I mean, if you're a culture guy and you go and play two on two volleyball, you're gonna have good culture and you're gonna lose because you can't just be a culture guy when you're playing doubles volleyball because again, it will find you. You have to be a skill guy. You have to be a physical guy. You have to be a tactical guy. There is no supreme specialization.
Phil Dahlhauser, amazing blocker, like phenomenal attacker. What do you have to do? Work on his hands, became the AVP best setter of the year like two or three times, something like that. Because nobody wanted to serve in the ball. So he could have had the best mentality ever with his partner and been like, hey, I'm gonna get every block, you're gonna get every dig. But at the end of the day, you have to side out to win a gold medal. And so he worked on his hands a lot and became not just a good culture guy. And Phil is so chill and smooth and just like fun
play with and be around. But like, he can't just get by on that and his size. Like he has to also develop those hands. And so I think that's where it becomes like that well-rounded side. Indoor, I recruited culture guys. Like I recruited kids that I knew may not ever get into the starting lineup, but they wanted to play every single, oh yeah.
Mark Burik (11:06.844)
Really? You knew they would never start or that it would be like crazy hard for them, but you actively recruited them because you wanted them to build up the culture of your team.
Nolan Albrecht (11:11.116)
Yeah, I think.
Nolan Albrecht (11:16.19)
Oh yeah, oh yeah. And those guys always ended up finding their way onto the court, whether it was a serving sub or whether it was, okay, we had our libero get hurt, our setter got hurt, so we need to pull our backup libero to be the setter. Now there's an opening back here in the libero spot. We'll get you in that game because I knew they were locked in, the whole team trusted them, that kind of stuff. They, like, there were specifically two guys I know where they ended up having an intense impact on the success of our team because
The season's just so long. If you have a bunch of negative Nancy's out there, everyone's going to be upset, tired, worn out by April, you know, like the men's volleyball season is like January, sometimes December all the way through May. And that is a long, long season. It is definitely a marathon, not a sprint. And so you do have to have those culture guys around. And I think that's why beach coaches, like, it's really important to have a raw, raw guy as a beach coach, because even though during the game, you're not going to be screaming and yelling.
but throughout the traveling, throughout the prep, throughout everything, can like your coach provide that energy to you, to keep you going throughout your leagues, keep you going throughout the summer, like keep you motivated and like learning new things and hungry to learn new things. So yeah, I definitely, there was definitely a couple guys and I don't wanna drop their name for the sake of, you know, potentially embarrassing them. If I was talking to them one-on-one, I think at this point in their life, you know, they've graduated, I think they would know that they...
were definitely behind the power curve of our team, but they brought something to the table that was unique and something that there was like a piece of our whole puzzle that was a little missing. And I was like, I wanted to bring that kid in.
Brandon Joyner (12:56.215)
Were there certain things that you would look at, like at tournaments while you were recruiting that would like things that they would do that would speak to that characteristic?
Nolan Albrecht (13:07.986)
Yeah, so for me it was like, how are they on the bench culture? Like if they are on the bench, like are they dancing, screaming, yelling, hanging out, having fun, or are they looking over at their mom and dad like, why am I not playing? Like coach, oh my gosh, like why is coach not playing? Like there's that. But then it's also in the personal interview. If a 17-year-old kid in a Zoom conversation can make me laugh,
Brandon Joyner (13:14.543)
Okay.
Nolan Albrecht (13:34.226)
and like make me be like, dude, where did you come from? Like that is so unique. Like your high school experience already has been so cool. I already know that kid's bringing something to the table that's like, wow, like that is very well rounded. And it happened with a kid that wasn't from the United States where I zoomed with him and he was like, I wanna bring this style of volleyball to the team. And I'm like, what style of volleyball is that? Like he named his country.
And then he said, like, I want to bring this country style of volleyball. I was like, what does that mean? He was like, you know, it's like a lot of fun and it's like, we're, we're out there and we're, we're just like, we're having a good old time and like all this kind of stuff. I don't want to do the accent because I'll give away the country because. Yeah. So I think that's kind of where, where I saw that was like, if in a one-on-one conversation, he's trying to impress me and he's able to be so lighthearted and just fun and charismatic.
Brandon Joyner (14:15.492)
Hahaha
Nolan Albrecht (14:30.146)
That's one less charismatic energy I have to supply towards the team. Like he's already supplying that for me. So I can work more on the nitty gritty of the tactics or watching somebody else's technique and stuff. So I know it doesn't have much to do with improving your beach game, but I guess just in my history, that was something that was cool.
Brandon Joyner (14:50.138)
I mean, I think that's so cool to hear. And like, I mean, for any junior that follows us or is in the recruiting process, especially with how technological everything's gotten, it's like, it's a good thing to know that charisma and personal conversations are so important. You know, that alone can find you a spot on a team and can allow you the opportunity to work.
Nolan Albrecht (15:11.453)
Here.
Brandon Joyner (15:18.85)
your way in. I think it's kind of funny that you say that you, I think Mark and I were kind of those kind of people. Like, I don't know if skill wise we should have been given a chance to play on the, oh, I thought I was, dude.
Mark Burik (15:31.316)
You thought you thought you were the skill guy. I was like, I'm just pleased like get me get me a role on the bench for the first year. I'll get there. You're like state player of the year. What's up?
Brandon Joyner (15:40.022)
You're right. I was, I was a little, yeah, I didn't realize how bad Virginia was at the time, I guess. Yeah, I was a little surprised, but I do think that I had, I had a little personality and, and so like when you say that, I think I was kind of a product of that. So it's cool to hear. I like you sharing that.
Nolan Albrecht (15:59.632)
Mm. Yeah.
Mark Burik (16:02.94)
It's crazy because in beach, you know, you need 50% of your team. One guy is 50% of your team. One girl is 50% of your team. It is always said that if somebody's negative, if somebody's sour, they'll bring down a lot of people there. You know, you need in life, you need seven compliments for one insult in order to make you feel like neutral. So if you get seven compliments on a certain skill or certain attribute about yourself,
one negative from somebody will wipe out all of those sevens. So you actually like need eight to be net positive. And if you have one or two negative guys on a team, negative guys or girls, two or three, okay, maybe the rest of the guys can overcome that in terms of being positive and in terms of being fired up. But if anyone on your team on the beach, if just one of you is having an off day,
it's near impossible to get the team lifted again. And so it's interesting that you say that you think beach coaches should be more rah rah, should be able to like lift that culture and be buddy with them. Because more and more you don't necessarily see elite tacticians or anything as coaches. You see the coach that you know that they only hired because they love hanging out with.
You know, that's happened. Like maybe Rich Lamberne was that guy. Of course, he was a national team libero. But I think that Taylor Crabbe and Jay Gibb and Casey Patterson just loved hanging out with him because he was fun. And you could see it in their warm ups, the way that they were just loose. And he's always throwing a joke in there. And it's even now with try and came. I'm not saying that Travis is not an elite.
tactician. He knows more about beach volleyball than 99.9% of players out there. But I think that choice was made because we know each other. We're able to get along with like we love each other instead of picking somebody out from another national team who'd already been to the Olympics. They're picking somebody to take them to the Olympics who they know is going to ease tension between them and create an environment that's kind of goofy and smiley and Travis 100%
Brandon Joyner (18:12.461)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (18:30.476)
brings that along with the knowledge.
Nolan Albrecht (18:32.982)
Oh yeah, I mean that's an intangible that is like basically a tangible. Like can you soften a room? Like I know we look at extremes of one end or the other right? How do you feel at work or at school when you're paired up with a classmate or you're paired up with a worker who's just like, oh man our freaking boss gave us this assignment again and like dude I've already done four of these, I have three other classes I'm working on and you're like oh my
gosh man, we have 30 minutes to like discuss this. I don't really care about, like I do, and as a good human, I'll like listen a little bit, but once it gets to that point where it's like, all right, we're wasting time and I have practice or I have other things to do, how much can you take of that negative energy before you just kind of bail on them, right? So that's like the opposite extreme. Then the other extreme is like, they're so goofy that they don't care.
And they're just, you know, everything's a joke and you know, all of it is just like fun and we're going to go party after the matches are over. And like, I wasn't really watching the game because I was trying to flirt with this girl over here. Like there, there can be so many different ways of losing the focus. And then there can be that like over focus of like all these other things that are going on. And I think that good balance or in the middle is really important. And I think choosing a coach or choosing a program.
where you want to go play eventually, what does the culture of the team look like? Is it filled with a bunch of negative Nancies or is it filled with people who are just kind of normal humans that you feel like you could be a normal human around? You know, for me, when I chose which college I wanted to go to, I initially chose to play basketball in college because all of the volleyball schools that were recruiting me, you know, great coaches, great people, it was a good fit for other people.
They just weren't a good fit for me. I was walking around campus and it was 10 degrees outside. Everybody's got their hood up. Everybody's got their headphones in. Um, the team would only really hang out at nights and on weekends to party with each other. And I was like, I don't feel that hits me as a person very well. I think that I enjoy hanging out with people at 10 AM in the morning also. And I don't feel as though I need to be drinking all the time to have fun with.
Nolan Albrecht (20:52.79)
with my teammates and I want to be able to go hiking with them if they like, I want to be able to join theater. Like I wanted to do the more well rounded experience of college and none of the volleyball schools I felt afforded me that opportunity. And when I ended up going to school, I was so grateful that I had picked that and I'd had some good people. My family really helped me with that of just knowing that there's a lot more outside of your sport. And I think as a beach coach.
You can also remind your beach players of that. Like, hey, I know your server seat has been really sucking lately. And I know that like, you can't adjust to a float serve. You know, that was me for a few years here. It's like, serve me deep, serve me short. It was hard. I could pass the hardest serve out there, but the second you gave me a second to think, then I was kind of a little squirrely with it, right? And having a coach at that time would have been really helpful to be like, hey man, you are focusing on the 5% of the game that is your big struggle.
and you're only losing by two points to some really good teams. Maybe like do one or two things here, but just make some sort of a mental adjustment to switch that out. And I had somebody who, it was Aaron Lang. He's a grass volleyball player from Wisconsin. He's played some beach. I always played with my watch on because that's just what I did. And I was like a little bit like.
I don't know. It's like those sprinters that wear the jewelry. It was just like my thing, right? I was just like, I can be so good that I can even play with an Apple watch on. And it doesn't matter. Right. Yeah. Big Steve Jobs gave me a deal. Yeah. And so he was like, I was like struggling with it. He was like, what if you just like take your watch off, like make that little adjustment, like a little physical adjustment? And it's there. It's a physical manifestation of a mental.
Mark Burik (22:20.076)
big watch guy. Look at that guy wearing a watch.
Nolan Albrecht (22:41.514)
reality, right? It's like a physical switch. You just like, you don't need to wear the watch. Like that doesn't represent you. You're an all around volleyball player. Why are you being so, um, I can't even think of the word. Why are you being so superstitious about wearing that watch or whatever? And I was just like, Oh yeah, you're right. That's dumb. And I took it off, ended up passing so much better, right? Cause I just felt like, okay, now I'm like in that playing zone and I don't have to like change my whole technique about passing. I just needed to make a small little switch.
Um, Lang is an amazing bouncer too. He was our fourth at the pack a boat ride, which we won this year. And on the sideline of the whole tournament, he kept on feeding. He was like, you're big dogs. You guys are big dogs. Like the whole time it's like, and we were big dogs. We were the biggest fricking dogs out there, but he kept on reminding us like, don't let the small stuff get you down. You guys are big dogs. And like, that was our whole mantra for the whole tournament. And we ended up winning, which was cool. But, um, yeah, I think that's just kind of where that, uh,
Brandon Joyner (23:24.993)
Hahaha.
Nolan Albrecht (23:41.614)
Prudence of a coach, prudence of knowing when your team needs to get fired up, knowing when they need to maybe slow down, knowing when they may need to just make a small little switch, like taking the watch off. So, yeah.
Mark Burik (23:54.808)
I think knowing as a coach who you are as well as your players. I know about myself that I can do very dry, drilled work mode, like head down the entire time and just go without necessarily talking, without lifting up people around me. So that's the personal mode that I get into and that I can be comfortable working there. But then somebody next to me, they're probably going to get bored.
You know what I mean? It's just like, hey, at some point I need a joke or some communication from you or some ease. Like it can't be this constant grind mode all the time, which is like one of the modes that I pride myself on. But I realized that it becomes over time, a huge turnoff to anybody working alongside me. So I know that as a head coach, the first person that I would recruit, whether it would be for beach or for indoor.
would be somebody who is a true jokester. Like, will always throw in funny comments, always yapping and keeping things light. And that would balance me out. And I had a couple of those when I was like coaching high schools and when I was coaching some juniors clubs, I was like, I just gotta find somebody who will, you know, bring presents for the girls or like tie bows in their hair because that's what they enjoy doing.
You know, because if they're with me the entire time, they're not going to have fun. They will, they'll get good coaching, but they got to have fun and enjoy the process. And so I know that about myself. I try to go into that side and tap into it a little bit, but I would need that assistant, that person next to me, so that everybody's not all serious grind work the entire time. That can be exhausting.
Nolan Albrecht (25:25.363)
Did you enjoy that?
Nolan Albrecht (25:49.314)
Yeah, yeah, I ended up, I hired a volunteer assistant coach. He was a missionary on the school. So his role entirely, the reason why he was at Bellman Abbey was to assist people, assist the student athletes with their daily life, especially with their walk as a Christian. And we were a Christian school. So, you know, it kind of.
went in line with that. But one of the reasons he played baseball in college, he knew literally nothing about volleyball. But I wanted him.
Mark Burik (26:20.749)
Oh, he went from baseball to volleyball? That's a new direction.
Nolan Albrecht (26:24.57)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so that's, that was a interesting hire and he ended up using that. We ended up knowing that we needed to have a little bit more vulnerability with our team. And the thing that he shared, the thing he was vulnerable was about, he's like, I show up to the gym every day and I have no idea what's going on. He's like, I know the goal is to hit the ball in the other court and not let it hit our court. But he's like,
I'm trying to be this role of coach to you guys. And I struggle with just the basics of the game. And he would be the first person screaming and yelling, and then the ref would say like, double. And he would still be screaming and yelling for our team. Oh man, what are those bubbles?
Brandon Joyner (27:08.147)
Oh, look at you.
Mark Burik (27:09.684)
What just happened?
Brandon Joyner (27:13.141)
Dude, that was a great performance.
Mark Burik (27:15.924)
And wave your hand, what?
Nolan Albrecht (27:16.078)
What? How did that come up? No, I'm on my laptop. Anyway, balloons for Bryson. Bryson, he showed up and he was like, I'm here every day and what I can contribute I will, which is I will be here every single day. I will be somebody that you can turn to if you need a little pump up speech.
Brandon Joyner (27:18.35)
Are you on your phone?
Brandon Joyner (27:23.462)
Wow, you got filters for days. Yeah.
Mark Burik (27:27.198)
Wait.
Nolan Albrecht (27:40.618)
He played D1 baseball, he knows what it is to grind. You know, it's a similar length of a season for baseball as well as volleyball. And he was like, so in spite of my shortcomings, I wanna provide this fun, like just great experience and be someone that you can lean on if you need just like a mentorship or something like that. And I firmly believe he was one of the big reasons why we won the conference that year. It's just because we had, you know, I'm...
I can get stuck in the tactics or get stuck in like, oh, where's our team mindset? Or like the scouting of the other team. And my assistant coach who's another Virginia kid, Derek, who's now the head coach at the Abbey, he would get caught up a lot in, I had him do like a scout of our team all the time. So he would actually break down the things we were doing as if he was the other team's coach. He would also break down the other team and present the scout all the time. He was also big into recruiting.
So we're all up in this head space of like, how do we get better at volleyball? And Bryson's like, I don't know how we get better at volleyball, but I know that we're not gonna get better if we're not comfortable and if we're not bringing our full self onto the court. And I think that might be the one through line that is the most important for a beach indoor grass player is like, you have to bring 100% of yourself onto the court. And if you have bad relationships going on, if you have...
If you have anything that takes away from bringing 100% of Nolan onto the volleyball court, I will be less of a player because volleyball is super social, you're constantly communicating, it's super physical, you're constantly moving and then you gotta move again and then you gotta move again. And then it's also super tactical, you gotta figure out where the other team is, what your side is doing well. And if your brain is like only 90% there and your body is only 90% there,
that is a big difference from being 100% onto the court and being able to just like fully flow. So, I mean, that goes back again to sort of that, like that culture person on the squad and, you know, I guess talking about like what a culture person can contribute, but yeah, I just, I've had so many examples of that. Like John Wooden said that you can do so much more to hurt your team in the 22 hours outside of practice than you can ever do.
Nolan Albrecht (30:02.286)
to help your team in the two hours inside of practice. That was his mentality at UCLA. Like I can do amazing things for this portion of the day, but if this portion of the day is no good, it doesn't matter what I do in this two hours because you're a full person. Like it's not just about your training. It's not just about the time you're strapping on your shoes for an indoor or whatever. So I really took that to heart. And I mean, he's one of the best coaches of all time. So.
Mark Burik (30:26.092)
Mm.
Nolan Albrecht (30:30.87)
When I was coaching, I tried to mirror and do a lot of the things that he did. So yeah, that's just one way to go about it, I guess.
Mark Burik (30:39.84)
Were there any other coaching books or people that you followed or still follow in terms of figuring out how to be a good coach, how to be a good leader, people that you emulate, or people that if they came out with 20 books, you'd read every one?
Nolan Albrecht (30:55.862)
Yeah, Mike Shachefsky. The way that he, you know, the former Duke coach, the way that he developed his program and kind of rose up and he got a chance, I believe he worked under Bobby Knight first. I believe he worked with him or at least was coached by him. And he took a lot of Bobby Knight stuff. But the way he developed his program and included his whole family into the program, like he-
He preached the fist and each one of the fingers of the fist represented a principle. And if you combined all the principles together, it could pack a lot of force, right? I can't remember exactly what all of them are, but I know one of them is family. And so every recruiting trip he had, he would introduce the recruit to his wife. Oh, I'm getting a phone call. That's actually my former assistant, current head coach Derek Solow, who called me.
Mark Burik (31:52.024)
that.
Nolan Albrecht (31:53.366)
I should see if he wants to join the podcast. But yeah, so he would incorporate his family into it and be like, look, I'm influenced majorly by my family all the time. That's who you spend the majority of your time around. And these kids that I'm bringing in, I want them to be able to feel comfortable in the life that I'm living, in the program that I'm incorporating. So I think that was something that was valuable too. It's like whatever Coach K is doing in his personal life, it doesn't just...
Brandon Joyner (31:55.63)
Derek's a Richmond guy.
Nolan Albrecht (32:21.486)
stop when he's like wearing the whistle as the coach. It doesn't just stop when it's game day. Like that stuff keeps being involved with you as a coach, with you as a person. So yeah, he wrote a book. Again, I can't really remember it, but I read that book. And then he also, just his like interviews, the way he would address the media.
Whenever I had like some sort of interview coming up or anything like that I would just watch like a five-minute clip of like coach K talking about his team and just see what things he was emphasizing to the media because how you address the media is not how you address your team and how you address like Papers is not how you are coaching your team It is like a it is like a small scale like really cool PR way of saying everything's okay you should still donate money to my program like
come buy tickets, right? It's like, it's not really what's fully going on. And so yeah, I tried to mirror a lot of what I did after him. Maybe even including this little this little swoop up here because I know he had that for a while. Right there. But yeah.
Mark Burik (33:31.552)
And I like that because, you know, I've always kind of been the same way. If with your relationship, with your family, it's to the outside world, that you can't break us no matter what. Like we're going to fight internally. We're going to figure out our stuff internally. Um, but to everybody else, I don't, I don't need you knowing any problems that I have. I don't need to, especially when there's media and social media and everybody's ability to then like come and pick it apart, like social medias.
like sharks in a water. If they smell blood, they'll just go and attack. And then it's so easy to just fall into that. You know, one errant comment from some troll could like eat at you for weeks. And then especially if you have, you know, a young person or somebody who doesn't have the ability to say F that, like, I don't care. That takes a long time to build up that kind of, I don't know, shield or shell. And it will still...
have an effect because then you have to actually spend a little bit of energy to say, F that. You know, like it still eats a little bit, but then you just get better at ignoring it. And if you expose all of those problems, number one, you look like a whiner all the time. Number two, how much can somebody trust you if everything that they tell you somehow gets out everywhere? Then that person won't ever be vulnerable to you. It's okay to be vulnerable.
to people within your circle, but to the entire world? No, I don't believe in that. And you can send me to a psychologist and that's fine. I'll do it, but I'll be vulnerable with the people in my circle, but to expose my everything to everybody in the entire world and social media when it's so easy to attack everybody now? Uh-uh. We're always good, even when we're not.
Nolan Albrecht (35:24.562)
Yeah, something I would tell my guys and something I believe into as I'm playing a lot is like, who deserves my energy? Like you only have a limited amount and if you are directing all of your energy towards the fans, towards the ref, towards somebody that beat you two rounds ago that talks smack and that game's over but you're still directing energy towards them.
Brandon Joyner (35:24.599)
Mm-hmm.
Nolan Albrecht (35:48.866)
they do have a little bit of control over you in that because your mindset is a little bit locked in on them as opposed to what your next job is. And whenever I would pull the team in and if any of my former guys are watching, like they would know, I would say these 20 guys, myself, my assistant, Bryson, the athletic trainer, our strength coach, and all of you guys are the only ones that have an effect on whether we score points or not.
Like you guys here are the ones that we need to direct our energy towards. It's a little bench energy coming towards the court, little court energy coming back towards the coaches, it's little coaches giving some feedback and advice. Athletic trainer being like, Hey dude, he's good to go. You know, I wrapped up his ankle. He's fine. Get him back in the game. Like those are the only people that really should like deserve your energy when you're performing because you only have a little bit that you can give off socially to, to where it actually starts helping. And it,
you know, a little energy from them ends up combining to then get you here, to then get you here. If you start dissipating that energy to various places like the ref or even the other team sometimes, it can become, you know, the snake that bites its own tail. You just get in this bad feedback loop where you're just constantly trying to like, you're just constantly trying to like overpower the other person or other team, as opposed to just powering up yourself and your own teammates and your own culture. So.
Um, yeah, and again, that's another mindset thing, but I don't know. I guess I'm feeling that today. So, yeah.
Mark Burik (37:26.408)
Yeah, it's interesting that people who need to be in fight mode to perform, they shouldn't need the other team to pick a fight with them. It should be kind of Michael Jordan-esque, you know. They will always pick a fight, you know. They'll get themselves riled up. But if you feel yourself getting a little bit more intense because the other team's getting more intense, then you're absolutely right.
Brandon Joyner (37:26.752)
Thank you.
Brandon Joyner (37:45.631)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (37:55.36)
they are psychologically controlling you. And if the other team's actions, if the other team's crowd, the other team's parents has the ability to change your mentality, it's true. They have actual power over you and you're choosing to give that up. And you can train not to, you have to train if you wanna be excellent, not to.
And you should also know what environments or what mentality you put yourself in to be ultimately successful. Do you need to be in fight mode to be successful? Do you need to be calm? Do you need to be like high and energetic or jokey? This is the stuff that we go through with our players in our online program and in camps. It's what version of you emotionally and socially is the best? Okay, how do you put yourself there? But if you're allowing another team, another coach, fans to put you in a certain
a certain mental state, you don't have power over yourself and that's a sucky place to be.
Nolan Albrecht (38:58.026)
Yeah, what like as for you two as players, like I know I've competed against you guys. And with the experience that you guys had on the beach, I played you when I was kind of fresh to playing beach volleyball a couple of times and I played you later on. Earlier on, there was a little bit more chippiness or like just like you like digging in and like seeing like, okay, can this guy handle if I give him a little bit of like chatter? Can this guy handle if.
you know, as the experienced guys who played in main draws, can this guy handle some of this, like just banter, just good, I mean, none of it was dirty or any, it wasn't personal, you didn't know who I was. To then later on, I remember, I think Burek, I played you in Virginia Beach or Atlantic City, and it was a really good, it was like a three set match, you ended up taking it, but you gave me nothing. You did not chatter, you did not chip at me at all, you were playing with Shane Donahue.
Mark Burik (39:46.785)
Mm.
Nolan Albrecht (39:57.754)
And I think Shane chipped me a little bit, but like you did not, because I think at that point it was, it was kind of established that like I could, I could handle that and sort of give it back and it would fuel me. How do you guys like navigate through that as being a bit more experienced like beach players, like knowing when to chirp and when to sort of not.
Mark Burik (40:06.904)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (40:18.212)
You can always... I'm completely 100% down with the psych game. Like the mental game. If it takes me a couple of words to throw you off of everything you do, I don't consider that unsportsmanlike. I consider it unsportsmanlike when you start cursing at somebody. When it comes down to family and stuff like that, when you see it on UFC, that's not the stuff that I think belongs in volleyball. But if it just takes me saying, you suck.
for you to lose your mind, you know, fine. That's easy, that's your weakness. And whether you like it or not, and I've said this a few other times, whether you like it or not in terms of like sportsman-like conduct and whether it's right, it will 1000% always exist. And you have the choice to scream and say, it's not right, it's wrong, or learn how to defend yourself.
verbally, mentally, emotionally. You know, whether it's a block or whether it's a comeback, that's up to you. But you can't just continue to complain to the world and say, oh, well, they're nasty players and they shouldn't be able to do that. Okay, complain, but at the same time, put on your Kevlar chest plate and go out and do battle. It doesn't make sense to just sit there and try to fight against a world of people who will yap and who will dig into you.
and then continue to be a victim. Instead, just be ready for it. So whether you like it or not, you have to be prepared for it. And if it's easy enough for me to say a couple of things and you get all excited, or I say something a little bit, you know, a secret to my partner that's loud enough for you to hear it, you know, and I notice that that's a trigger, here we go. Great, I don't want to cramp at the end of the day. I'd rather have an easy match.
Brandon Joyner (42:08.763)
Thank you.
Brandon Joyner (42:14.958)
Yeah, I think it's kind of interesting because I think throughout my career, I've gone through all the different phases. You know, like I was an indoor and then when I was just getting out to the beach game, I was that like chippy fiery, probably taking it a little too far sometimes with like talking trash or communicating with the other team. And then as I've gotten older, it's like,
I don't know, maybe I'm just tired. It's like expending that extra energy. Just sometimes I'm like, is this worth it? Um, but I do think that like, that's something I've, I've been thinking about like last year and this year. Um, because the guy I've played with a lot recently is a guy named Alex Diaz who is, he can get a little fiery. And when I feed off that energy and I kind of like.
Nolan Albrecht (42:48.878)
Thank you.
Brandon Joyner (43:13.946)
have his back and start to get a little fiery myself, then I can feel that like old Brandon coming out. And, but there's also times where I'm like, okay, the competitive nature that I have in that I love. But I also, I think as I'm getting older, I really do appreciate the respect for the game, you know? And I think it's just like finding a balance of
finding that fierce competitive nature while also respecting the game and even respecting the opponents. I don't think any person that I've played against has really at the end, maybe a couple, but at the end of it has been like, oh, Brandon doesn't like me. But I do think that, especially with Better at Beach becoming something big, I think I do think about being a positive influence on people and trying to make the way I play and handle situations, something that like...
I would want my kids to do or whenever that happens, if that happens. But like kids, I coach whatever. Yeah, so it's like, I think it's funny because I think I battle that every year. But I think it's I think it's like a natural process that a lot of players go through.
Nolan Albrecht (44:13.878)
Yeah.
Nolan Albrecht (44:32.023)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (44:32.68)
And it is strange because we're also both brand guys now. So we can't show up to a sand volleyball court and not have at least one person recognize us. So there is some part in your head that's like, okay, but also all your maybe potential clients or customers are watching, but okay, you should win because these are also your potential clients, customers. Okay, are they gonna think you're a jerk on the court? How much is this affecting your life? So.
Brandon Joyner (45:02.009)
Yeah
Mark Burik (45:02.072)
That stuff just plays in and you gotta block it out and compete how you used to. I will say that I was for sure playing my best volleyball when I was putting targets on people's backs, when I didn't know where my next 50 bucks or next month's rent was coming from because all I cared about was volleyball. You know, four to eight hours a day of playing, lifting, film, that was it.
Brandon Joyner (45:07.351)
Right.
Mark Burik (45:30.804)
That was my everything. Over time, it got to, I kinda need to build some type of future. I kinda, you know, I'm a little bit too smart to be like a beach bum scumbag, like just not able to buy my own dinner with my brothers because they chose one of the, you know, four dollar sign restaurants. It got embarrassing for me.
Brandon Joyner (45:46.554)
Hahaha
Mark Burik (45:59.62)
growing up and then being, you know, in my early 30s and being like, okay, yeah, you're pro, which means that you might make $3,500 to $4,000 three times a year. And then if you win Pottstown, you get a nice 10, fat 10 grand, right? But that's not really building. So I became obsessed, I think, looking back with building myself more as a person, building a brand, a company.
Nolan Albrecht (46:15.317)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (46:28.872)
And then I lost that like all out anger chip on my shoulder deciding to hunt somebody down until I beat them by watching every bit of their film until I know how to beat them. And I did it one by one with the guys who were above me. Like I started beating one and then the other and then like Billy Allen and then John Mayer. It wasn't consistent, but when I finally knocked off each one to get a victory against them, you know, it was like, okay, now I'm at that level. But I...
Nolan Albrecht (46:55.117)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (46:57.24)
stopped concerning myself with that because it wasn't paying rent. So it turned into something different for me. And then, yeah, a lot of coaching energy and business building energy instead of 100% volleyball energy. It's why would I recommend young guys find a way to bring in income, find a way to bring in the audience? Yes.
Cause if you go through a 10 year beach volleyball career and you haven't had a decent side gig to give yourself money and you don't end that beach volleyball career with a fan base of people who love you, you really have nothing left other than like good memories to build yourself forward, right? Like fan base, cool. You could sell to them anything you want probably for like the rest of your life.
because they love you, they knew you when, you've got great social connections and you can monetize a giant network. But at the same time, I would tell everybody forget about everything, live on couches, find a way to do it because number one, it's awesome memories. We have memories that none of my friends have, right? Well, actually all my friends are volleyball guys, but none of my friends that I went to high school with have.
Nolan Albrecht (47:58.605)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (48:07.206)
Hmm
Brandon Joyner (48:16.482)
Yeah.
Nolan Albrecht (48:16.79)
Thank you.
Brandon Joyner (48:19.462)
They're all in the memories.
Mark Burik (48:20.992)
Yeah. And everything else is a distraction. It 100% is. So if you're not willing to be like a Logan Webber who is just chucking all of his time into film and studying the best players, then there's going to be limitations. And other sports have the ability where you can be 100% at a certain level. We have the ability if you're like top.
three, top three to four teams in the United States, right? Then you have the ability to be 100%. And then if you're incredibly smart or you've got great sponsors, or you've got somebody who's helping you out with marketing you and being an agent for you, then bringing in sort of that side income. And USA Volleyball is helping because they've got the monthly stipends and they're paying for the gym memberships for some people. That does make it easier. And to be the best, there's no doubt.
that you've got to throw everything you have into it.
Nolan Albrecht (49:24.678)
Yeah, I mean, that's something that I've been figuring out as, I think, going along with what you guys said, when I was still coaching at Bellman Abbey, the thing I wasn't afraid of but I was watching out for was somebody just snagging a 10-second clip of me being an absolute idiot and then just posting it and saying, is this the kid that you want to go play for? Like, hey, recruits.
Mark Burik (49:50.145)
Hmm.
Nolan Albrecht (49:50.89)
This is the coach and I was a kid at the time. I was like 24 when I was the head coach. Is this the kid that like, would your parents, are you gonna send your kid to play for this guy who's screaming and yelling and being an idiot out there? Or do you wanna play for the guy that has the fire but directs it appropriately? Because no one wants to be with someone who is just and does nothing and who has no fight. Like that is not something that we look up to. That's just lethargy and you know.
just it's kind of pathetic, right? So you do want to be with someone who's like fiery, but they should have like that understanding of what arena is the appropriate one to fight in. And in between points, there can be a little bit of that chatter and all that stuff, but like, are we working like fully on that, like fight that's during the game and screaming and yelling as you're taking a big swing. And then afterwards, you don't really need to stare him down because the ball bouncing up the sand and you know, hitting a pocket.
going 20 feet in the air, that's all the stare down that you need. Like that ball booming off their chest as you serve it at them. That's the only stare down. I like the ball left the mark. I don't need to leave any more mark. Like they know that the next ball is coming right back at them in the same exact way. But yeah, that full life commitment, it is tough in the beach volleyball world where it is now with sort of the lack of a consistent streaming platform. So that, you know, with sponsors, you can say, hey,
Brandon Joyner (51:01.286)
the
Nolan Albrecht (51:18.702)
we're getting this X amount of people watching our matches when we play and that's the amount of eyeballs and each eyeball is worth a dollar amount kind of a thing to where if it's hard for people to even watch the AVP and even find out where it is, becomes a pretty big struggle to actually like sell anything really, unless you do have that like personal intimate like social media following or something in that effect. So.
Yeah, public image is definitely something that's important and that will last way longer than our bodies will last out there on the beach. So I think us three do, I would say of all the people who do like care about how they are viewed, but also play with a lot of passion. I feel like we do a pretty good job. I don't know if I'm like just patting us on the back here, but like I think for anybody that's watching and wants to watch.
Brandon Joyner (52:10.405)
Yeah.
Nolan Albrecht (52:14.158)
clips or highlights or whatever and see like a good way to like play with some fire and passion and still not look like an idiot. I think you could watch any three of our like clips and kind of get some advice on how to do that or just kind of get some tips and tools and stuff.
Mark Burik (52:30.453)
Yeah, there's fight, there's passion, and then there's douchebaggery.
You know, at some point it becomes too much, too over the top. You can be passionate and I think that's why giant brands also wait for a certain type of person to attach themselves to. Somebody who can be incredible in the moment that they need to be incredible athletically can win championships, but also that
everybody in the country would let into their living room. That's when you get the Nike picks for Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan. The vision of them was not that they were outright lunatics. Nike, I don't know if they ever got behind Dennis Rodman. I don't know if they ever got behind Allen Iverson, who that's a totally different story. He got a bad rap a couple times.
Nolan Albrecht (53:08.95)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (53:36.882)
You want to attach that brand to that special, special person who people love and can excel in that moment. And if you're a brand guy or if you're looking for companies to find you, that's something that, I don't know if you should be aware of it. Might just be luck of the draw. It might just be who you are, how people perceive you.
There are guys that are very good at being evil. And they have their persona and they still get brands. Will they ever get like a Nike? Maybe not because you're looking for every household in America, you know, and so they've got to take their largest percentage, but you still have to know who you are and not care after that. You gotta bring that.
Nolan Albrecht (54:30.625)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (54:32.128)
that personality that you have yourself in full, like you were saying.
Nolan Albrecht (54:36.822)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (54:39.924)
Hey, what do you think about doubles?
Brandon Joyner (54:43.439)
Oh, I was gonna ask you too.
Mark Burik (54:45.616)
Yeah, NCAA indoor head coach. Um, Brandon, you're also NCAA indoor coach. So now we've got the women who doubles don't count anymore. Good bad ruining the game.
Nolan Albrecht (54:46.066)
in. So.
Nolan Albrecht (55:02.799)
That would be like a great like TikTok clip right there like good bad you know just if you're trying to grow that.
Brandon Joyner (55:06.294)
Hahaha!
Mark Burik (55:09.061)
Editors, tick tick, hang on, I got the software, mark the clip, editors, nice, great.
Brandon Joyner (55:10.437)
coming next week.
Nolan Albrecht (55:13.902)
But well, I ruined it by saying that, but we can cut this out. But I would say, yeah. I would say it is a change that's already happened on the men's side. In college men's, I have not seen a double called in about three years. I mean, yeah, it's like officially not official. Like they don't really call doubles and they haven't been. So.
Mark Burik (55:16.38)
No, no, no. Yeah, we do it in post.
Brandon Joyner (55:17.155)
It'll be cut out.
Brandon Joyner (55:34.086)
athletic.
Nolan Albrecht (55:41.302)
People are like, well, why are they doing it on the women's side, but not the men's? Well, it's just like, that's just been how it's been called lately because they know that the dominoes have been falling in this direction. Um, I think, man, I mean, it's not a big difference at all for in-system passing. So like if you're passing three, which is, you know, that means you have three options to set, um, you can set your outside middle, right side, or even, you know, back row, that's like a three pass. It.
it is not a big deal because it is better to have a clean ball out of the hands to find that hitter. And if it is a double, it probably will throw off the tempo a little bit. It'll probably throw off the location. And depending on which way the ball is spinning, like if you can send it with a hitter spin so that the ball is spinning towards the net, as you said it, I always like to hit that ball. I love the my liberos with their platform.
Brandon Joyner (56:34.32)
Yeah.
Nolan Albrecht (56:36.226)
would launch that ball up a little bit and send it to the outside with that topspin so I could just really easily get on top. So I don't know if setters can figure out a way to sort of like double it and add that hitters. Am I hitting? Yeah, Joy can do it. We'll work on it next game. Yeah, you're good at it. Yeah, you're good. I think it will.
Brandon Joyner (56:41.378)
or helper spin.
Brandon Joyner (56:54.154)
I think I did that. I did that naturally anyway. I missed out on this roll.
Nolan Albrecht (57:04.642)
system you'll see a big difference. I already know now like if the pass is let's say the pass is 20 feet off the net and the ball is on the right side line there's almost no one that's willing to take that ball unless you're incredibly strong and willing to take that ball with their hands especially on the women's side and send it across the court because it's a really challenging ball to not double to add all that pace as if it's a high pass all that kind of
A lot of setters will just default to setting the Bic, that middle back. And then you have a triple block if they're a really big hitter because they know what's going on.
Mark Burik (57:42.24)
Wow, so it might make more spectacular plays.
Nolan Albrecht (57:46.042)
Oh yeah, very much so. And I think it'll cause the setters to take more risks. What it will also do eventually in the long run is make setters more physical. These bad boys are going to be a lot more useful as a setter because you're going to be able to chuck the ball from wherever the heck you are, backwards or forwards. If it's tight to the net, you can still go up and just kind of launch it without fear. We used to have to practice one hand setting.
Mark Burik (57:47.978)
Hmm.
Nolan Albrecht (58:15.05)
Now there, I mean, there's still kind of a use for it, but if that pass is low and tight to the net, if you can just get both hands on the ball, I mean, you can set it back like this, you can do whatever you want with that ball as long as you're not catching it and throwing it. I remember coaching against a team, it was a team we beat in the conference championship and their setter, they had already kind of stopped calling doubles mostly.
but their offense, they had amazing middles and they had one really good stud outside. And so whenever that stud outside was in the front row, they would pass the ball really tight and he would go up tight to the net and heaven forbid he's front row because he could just take the ball and dump it, but they would pass the ball tight and he would basically either set that quick to the middle here or push the ball all the way out or dump the ball.
and they weren't calling any doubles and the ball was not coming out clean. And I'm like, I cannot set up my blockers to defend this well enough. Like it is very, very difficult to block not only the setter, but then two hitters that are 20 feet away from each other. And I'm expecting my middle to get out there and close. So I think the setters will get a little bit taller, maybe a little bit more physical in the long run. Blockers will probably get.
shorter if this does have a big effect because they'll need to be faster laterally. So we might go back to sort of the middles of old where they weren't necessarily the tallest player, but they were fast laterally to get back and forth. We've kind of now the middle height has gone up.
Mark Burik (59:39.584)
Mm.
Brandon Joyner (59:40.751)
Huh.
Interesting.
Mark Burik (59:52.172)
Has it gone back up? I mean, there was a short period there where middles, where they started saying like, no, like our six, six middles are just too slow. Or six, nine middles on the guy's side were too slow. And it's not that taller people are slower. It's just that much more rare to find somebody who has incredible speed because a six, nine person is a lot more rare than a six, three person. So six, three, you've got to be supreme athletic.
6'9", you could be a middle of the pack 6'9", and still have that spot on the team, because you're not the extreme athletic specimen, but you've got the height. So I don't, I don't, the whole like tall people are slow is garbage. All people are slow. There's just the 1% that is, you know, at each at each height, that is actually really fast, really athletic and can do things. So finding a seven footer.
Nolan Albrecht (01:00:31.18)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (01:00:38.086)
Thanks for watching!
Mark Burik (01:00:47.64)
who is also crazy agile and fast side to side. It's just now you're trying to find 1% of a height that is 1%. Yeah. Wembley, right? Like this guy, is that his name, Wembley? The guy who's just posterizing seven footers? Like...
Nolan Albrecht (01:00:54.178)
They're in the NBA already. They're in the NBA already making millions. They're not playing volleyball. Yeah. The French guy.
Brandon Joyner (01:00:56.374)
Yeah, they're not playing volleyball.
Brandon Joyner (01:01:02.306)
Yeah, the alien.
Nolan Albrecht (01:01:05.598)
Yeah, I mean, there's there is some truth to if you have a taller middle, and let's say they jump with the middle and they get fooled. If they're already six, nine, they only have to do this little commit move and they're already back on the ground. And then they can make the move to get out. If you're six, two or six, three is a middle in order to get up off the ground to stop the quick, you're in the air not only on the way up, but on the way down.
Mark Burik (01:01:18.917)
Mm-mm. Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (01:01:24.974)
Mm-hmm.
Nolan Albrecht (01:01:32.674)
way too long to be able to land, recover, and then get out and block the pin. So like, there is that advantage of the tall middle to where it's like your time off the ground only needs to be this much for you to still prevent the bounce. And get outside versus yeah, versus the tall one. Right.
Mark Burik (01:01:46.168)
especially with bicks, like the back row of big balls, like that's such a huge thing to have somebody there who's on their toes or on their flat foot and still have six inches of their hands above the net.
Nolan Albrecht (01:01:57.742)
Yeah. So that's what I would say is all of that. But I don't know, Joyner, what do you think about it?
Mark Burik (01:02:04.428)
Do you think, Joyner, that the thing that they say where, oh, well, if they doubled it, it's probably not gonna be accurate anyway? I've always thought that was the most bogus thing to say, and it's just like, no, that doubling or not doubling doesn't have any effect on accuracy. It's just how you touch the ball and how you send it. I've always thought that was bogus, but do you think that if somebody doubles, it's gonna hurt them anyway, because they'll be...
Brandon Joyner (01:02:04.82)
with the
Mark Burik (01:02:32.894)
less accurate. I've always thought that was bogus.
Brandon Joyner (01:02:37.626)
I don't know. I think it's tough. I personally think, like I was a setter. I set at what I consider to be a pretty high level and I would say the worst thing about my game was actually my hands. Like I was the person that was probably doubling the ball more than setting clean. I was just good at deciding who to set and I think my accuracy was still okay.
Mark Burik (01:03:03.572)
Roy Ball was perfect and never set a ball without spin. Like one of our country's elite setters was always set in spinnable.
Brandon Joyner (01:03:06.359)
Right.
Brandon Joyner (01:03:12.93)
Mm hmm. Yeah. And so I think like, I don't really think it's going to change the like, like you're saying, Nolan, the end system game, I don't think it's gonna we're gonna see these weird things or setters are starting to put spin on the ball. And I think we probably will see some like, pretty daring setters that are like, starting to go up for options. And then instead of optioning, like throwing the ball around.
I think that that's something we'll start to see even if it's starting to happen from like the back row where and Something happens where they're trying to get a little creative. I think that allows for that and I think it's fun I think that's how we like evolve the game Two situations where I think it's definitely we're gonna see a lot of change is I'm thinking about like transition balls where the ball is like
Mark Burik (01:03:40.216)
Oh.
Brandon Joyner (01:04:05.818)
touching the ceiling and some of these really high gyms, but it's a good location dig. And as a setter, you're just like underneath it, waiting for the ball to come down. And you're just like, oh, like those are really some of the only times in games where I would be like really stressed about the set, you know? But now it's like, if I can just grab it and throw it to a new location, I think that relieves that a lot. And then the other part is like middles.
Mark Burik (01:04:33.62)
Yep, everybody holding their breath when middle's about to say.
Brandon Joyner (01:04:34.206)
I think middle, dude, I can think, dude, I can think of like so many situations in college where, and I'm not going to shout anybody out, you know who you are, but anytime somebody dug a ball to a middle, we would almost start laughing before the center even set the ball or before the middle even set. And so like, I'm a little sad that we're going to, we're not going to see that anymore. But at the same time.
Nolan Albrecht (01:04:50.05)
Oh yeah.
Nolan Albrecht (01:04:56.558)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (01:05:00.514)
I think it's gonna be interesting to see. I hope that there is some creativity with it. If it's just normal volleyball, but we're not calling the clean touches, then that doesn't really, I don't think the rule change really did what it's supposed to do. But if these setters start taking some risks and start spreading the court on sets that they normally wouldn't, I think it could be cool.
Definitely see some more like maybe some Sports Center top 10 type plays, type sets. But yeah.
Nolan Albrecht (01:05:35.658)
Yeah. I think there's also, I think if you're working on just like the forward and back axis, it doesn't like, that is pretty easy for a lot of setters to get that clean ball. But when you start adding the back row axis where you're going directly, like sort of backwards to the right side back row or to the BIC, instead of hitting the middle, you just like flick it over. That's pretty challenging to do with your hands and good setters.
Brandon Joyner (01:06:01.947)
Mm-hmm.
Nolan Albrecht (01:06:05.122)
can be here, show middle, show middle, take the ball in and then flick it to the back row or flick it back to the right side back row. And to do that without spin as the ball's coming in this direction and then to kick it right back out the other direction without spin, it's pretty challenging to do. That's probably the most doubles that I ever see is like not working on the forward and the back, but working on the ball coming in and then adding some side to that set, you know, setting the 10 foot line area. And that will be never called.
Mark Burik (01:06:31.467)
Uh.
Nolan Albrecht (01:06:34.43)
And right sides, you know, normally that right side back row tempo, if you're trying to go fast into that ball, you can literally chunk it back there and big old right side is going to be able to take some good swings on it. So I think the tempo might get faster for the men's game even. I mean, it is already blistering fast. And if they allow for this to happen, it'll get even faster. I think the women's game might get faster. You're still kind of limited by the physicality of just how high above the net they get when they contact.
Brandon Joyner (01:06:52.006)
Mm-hmm.
Nolan Albrecht (01:07:03.946)
ball at the NCAA. You know, the average women's, you know, big 10 outside hitters probably contacting the ball around like 10-3 to 10-5, you know, if they're a physical player. And the net is 7-4. So it's three feet, three feet higher than the net. On the men's side, a lot of the big outside hitters in college are contacting the ball like 11-3, 11-5.
Mark Burik (01:07:20.117)
Yeah.
Nolan Albrecht (01:07:32.882)
and the net is eight feet. So now you're looking at three and a half feet or three feet, five inches of like clearance over the net. That's a lot of words, a lot of math there for us here. But there's just some more variance that you can have and you can go quicker on the men's side than you can on the women's. So I don't know how fast it'll get, but it'll be interesting to see. I don't hate it. I don't like that we're trying to take judgment out of the mind or out of the refs.
Brandon Joyner (01:07:33.23)
Yeah.
Nolan Albrecht (01:08:03.943)
I personally think that college refs do a pretty good job. I think at the junior level, it can be a challenge to find enough refs that know the rule consistently.
Mark Burik (01:08:15.372)
That's for sure where it's going to make it way nicer. Like if they, the first place that they should have done this is, is the junior level. This is what we always say at our camps. Like no one at our camps is allowed to call doubles. I, and I firmly believe that until double A on the beach, you should not be allowed to call doubles. Like we're, we have generations of players who just don't even try to handset.
Nolan Albrecht (01:08:18.314)
that will help when they eventually.
Brandon Joyner (01:08:18.405)
Yeah.
Nolan Albrecht (01:08:23.337)
Yeah.
Nolan Albrecht (01:08:36.449)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (01:08:44.372)
because they're so afraid to lose points. And people say like, oh, you know, just don't do it. Just don't do it. And then somebody's played volleyball for 15 years and they've never handset in a match because of it. And it's like, what a sin to our entire volleyball community that we've created a situation like this. And I think it's trash. And I understand that it's a rite of passage for you to finally learn how to set, but you've left out all the people that aren't willing to lose those points and now they don't have that skillset. And now the entire
Brandon Joyner (01:09:03.256)
Right.
Mark Burik (01:09:15.26)
country, the evolution of volleyball can't accelerate. And that's always bugged me. I think that A, if you're a tournament director, do me a favor. Try it for one season. A tournaments and below, do not call doubles. And then watch your community just accelerate in terms of skill because people are actually attempting it.
Nolan Albrecht (01:09:19.063)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (01:09:35.662)
Right.
Brandon Joyner (01:09:39.754)
Yeah, the arguments are still going to happen because people have opinions, but you are going to see the level of play is going to increase so much. Like, and that's where like the drama you're okay with the drama. Like that's what we see it at our camps all the time. It's like by day one and day five, day six, whatever. Offenses are so much cleaner. And the main reason is just because people like get out of their own heads of not of trying.
not trying to handset because they're scared of getting yelled at by their local self of like self regulated ref is on the sideline having a beer in his hand talking crap. Terrible.
Nolan Albrecht (01:10:22.446)
Yep. I think saying that it will remove judgment calls from the ref is only partially true because we're also going to like they still have to call the lift and also you're not allowed to send the ball over the net with a double. So how many times now is it going to be like okay indoor I'm setting the outside ball had some spin and ended up going over
Blocker touched it first. Wait a second, like, wait, are we doing intention now on the indoor? Yeah, so like, that's where it's like, to remove judgment from referees is just removing their ability to referee. You cannot remove judgment from that position.
Mark Burik (01:10:54.612)
Yeah, is that really intentional?
because
Mark Burik (01:11:07.34)
That rule should be like the beach rule is, you know, if you're attempting to set your teammate and you doubled it and it goes over the net play should continue just like on beach like if you're not square, but you're attempting to set your partner if it goes over the net. That's fine. I think I don't know I haven't seen that the rule written out word for word. But that's what it should be. You know if okay if you're going to like.
Brandon Joyner (01:11:07.45)
Yeah.
Nolan Albrecht (01:11:32.713)
It should be.
Mark Burik (01:11:35.416)
tap it to yourself and then spike your own like one-handed set onto the other side of the court. Yes, they should definitely call that if you're mangling balls and then sending them as attacks. But if you're attempting to set, I think, again, that's an opportunity to not blow the whistle and let play go to the advantage of waiting blockers anyway. So I hope they quickly include that caveat in the same way that Beach does.
Nolan Albrecht (01:12:00.926)
Yeah, if anybody listening has any opinions or whatever, feel free to reach out to me on social media. Like I put a questionnaire on my story, like, give me your opinions. And I saw the wide range, like only boomers wanted to be like the old way, like all these people mad, like they're all the old school, whatever. And then I saw a lot of people who were like, this is ridiculous. I trained so hard. I trained my hands all day long.
Brandon Joyner (01:12:07.558)
Or just put it in the comments.
Nolan Albrecht (01:12:28.594)
And now we're just removing the skill entirely. So I think, I think it's just, anytime there's a rule change, there's just a bunch of flurries of it, of people having opinions about it. I think mostly it won't affect it, but I think maybe in five or 10 years, the game is going to look different. And I think people that can take advantage of that and train it differently with their club teams and, you know, looking at the recruits that will be able to run their offense because maybe they're more physical, maybe they don't have as good of hands, but it's like, that's fine.
Like I'll just take the big guy that makes the right decision and you know, the brand and joiners of the world.
Brandon Joyner (01:13:04.346)
Good luck. I do wonder if it'll affect the coaching of the skill of setting. You know, like, because I do think setting is a very technical, a very technical skill. And I don't think it would change it. Like, I think if you're a coach, you're still teaching your setters how to set well. And then you're adding in different ideas on how to run their offense. But...
Nolan Albrecht (01:13:05.504)
I'm out.
Nolan Albrecht (01:13:33.164)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (01:13:34.426)
Hopefully setter coaches are still teaching setters how to set well. I think that as long as that happens, which I don't see it going away, then I don't have a problem with this rule at all.
Nolan Albrecht (01:13:45.698)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (01:13:47.104)
Yeah, I think you're right. It's just gonna open up different moves, different abilities, just sort of like, you know, a longer, a longer ball handling in basketball. It's like, oh, okay. Well, if you can create all the side of the ball instead of just touching the top of it, great. Now, now you have different moves that you can make. Right. So. Okay. Hey, guys, we're gonna get going. My folks are here. But.
Brandon Joyner (01:14:05.007)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (01:14:12.64)
Everybody listening, I do want you to know that Nolan, this coming week, so this podcast is going to be released in two days, which is Wednesday, February 28th. And Nolan is going to be one of our master coaches on the Better at Beach Complete Player program. So what that means is that he's going to go through some video analysis with all the players that submit their videos in our private community. And
from our elite members. We're going to choose one person who he's going to do a 20 minute video analysis with, and we're going to do a 40 minute video analysis of one of Nolan's matches. So where he can see and you can hear him talk out loud, how he thinks, how he strategizes, where his mind is on his skills and on his tactics. So if you want to be a part of that, come on over to any of the links below. Look around this video and click on those links.
And just for signing up for our email list and getting that information, we're gonna give you our 36 best beach volleyball drills, three of my favorite beach volleyball workouts, so full 50 minute workouts. And you're going to get our fun YouTube playlist, which is the most commonly misunderstood beach volleyball rules. So it will help you solve a lot of arguments. And of course, a 5% discount.
If you are just joining our list, you're going to get a 5% discount on any in-person class or any of our online programs should you care to join. So make sure that you guys come along for the ride. And if you want Nolan coaching you and you want to get his masterclass, then you're going to have to join the Complete Player Program and you can find that link under this video. Nolan, we're going to wrap it up by saying what you think you're an expert at teaching.
So things that you excel in teaching. I know where we left you in the camp in Houston, and I know that the players loved it, and I saw immediate advances in arm swings and serves. So that was cool to see. So I would say absolute arm swing mechanics master, but where do you pride yourself in teaching?
Nolan Albrecht (01:16:30.282)
Uh, yeah, I would say definitely the third contact and the first contact. So whether that is your serve or like serve receive, um, finding good ways to better that ball, like if you're getting challenged on, on the other team, serve, uh, finding ways to get your platform there, get your body out of the way. I think I do a good job of training that. Um, I also just serving mentality, um, how to toss where the wind is affecting you.
what type of players you're playing against, all that kind of stuff. And then lastly, yeah, just the basics of the drawback of your arm, the contact point mindset, things you should be thinking about when you're swinging and things you definitely should not be thinking about. I don't tell you about like not thinking about a pink elephant, right? I think I'm pretty good about giving you good direct, A to B is a really, really good sort of thing there. And just like how your hand should look.
Brandon Joyner (01:17:20.4)
Hehehe
Nolan Albrecht (01:17:29.198)
how your body should follow the ball. I was lucky to get trained by a lot of Eastern coaches, coaches from China, Japan, Korea, and they coached a lot in metaphor. And so I think I can sort of tell a story through the arm swing. And it's normally a fun story. A lot of times it's the same story I've told many times, but to each athlete I train, it is a little different because their arm works differently, their body works differently and stuff. So I think...
Yeah, taking the individual person and adding 10 miles an hour to their swing and adding more accuracy to their contact and all that stuff I think is probably where I excelled the most as a coach
Mark Burik (01:18:07.416)
So if you want to add 10 miles per hour to your arm swing, join the Complete Player Program. Nolan will help get you there. And of course, you can come to any one of our in-person camps. Nolan's at a lot of them and we have a few coming up. So March 8th to March 10th in Hermosa Beach. That's going to be Brandon and or me leading that. So March 8th to 10th is women's A and double A.
Nolan Albrecht (01:18:10.346)
Guaranteed.
Brandon Joyner (01:18:10.722)
Sign me up.
Mark Burik (01:18:31.968)
March, or April 6th to 12th, we are back in St. Pete Beach, Florida at the postcard end. That is a six day camp. So start your spring and summer off right, April 6th to 12th. It is on sale now at St. Pete Beach. And we have a lot of bookings rolling in for our New York camp in Long Island, in Long Beach, New York. That is May 31st.
to June 2nd. That is a three day mini camp for all levels, all ages. If it's like it was last year, it's going to be fire. It's going to be fun. And we are accepting all levels for that one May 31st to June 2nd. And we are always accepting assistant and volunteer coaches. So the way we're running our program is online. If you want to learn to become a better coach from us online, we're going to give you all the tools.
all the resources, how to teach all of those techniques, and one video meeting a week as a coaching mastermind. We want you to check that out. Links again below. But we will always train coaches for free at our camps and clinics. So if you want to be a part of that, if you wanna see how we coach, and if you wanna be a part of the evolution of the game and help your players, we are stoked to help you. So.
Come on out, just let us know that you're coming to one of our camps, get in touch. You can email support at Better at Beach from any of the camps that you see. And essentially we will show you how to feed, how to run drills, what we look for in great coaches, what we look for in perfect practices, and how we teach the game ourselves. So if you are interested in becoming a better coach, we have a number of programs for you and we would love to see you in person at a camp. You can get a Better at Beach certified coach.
You can become a better at beach certified coach by completing our online program and then coming for free to any one of our camps and coaching alongside us. So hope you join that and hope you join the online program if you are just a player where Nolan will teach you how to hammer. And if you want to see him doing it live, check out the AVP events this year. And if he heads back out to win Wapakka or Pottstown, look for him on the grass.
Nolan Albrecht (01:20:51.179)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (01:20:51.436)
From me, from Brandon, from Nolan. Thank you guys so much for listening and we'll see you on the sand.
Mark Burik (01:21:02.872)
Cool. Nolan, thank you so much. And the only thing that you have left to do is just leave your browser window open. Don't close the tab, leave it open because it pulls the recording from each of our computers. So it needs like 20 to 30 minutes, depending on your internet to just pull that recording so that we get the best possible version of the podcast. So just when we head out, don't do that. And then next week, Tuesday at 11 a.m.
Brandon Joyner (01:21:04.334)
No.
Nolan Albrecht (01:21:14.645)
Okay.
Nolan Albrecht (01:21:25.915)
Okay, that's cool.
Mark Burik (01:21:33.133)
is the complete player meeting. It's pretty easy. You just screen share... Oh, I'm gonna stop the recording.
Brandon Joyner (01:21:38.722)
Is it 11 a.m.? I think it's.
