Mark Burik (00:01.432)
Hey everybody and welcome to the Better at Beach podcast. My name is Mark Burke and we are going to have a quick one today. So I want to talk to you guys about finding elite coaches and then also how to spot them. Me and Logan actually at our camp in Seattle had one of our late night talks about great coaches, who we would trust to run our program and
Sometimes the lack of quality coaching in different places. Before we get into that, how to find them, how to hire them, and then also how to spot great coaches and maybe recruit them. I just want to go through a couple of our upcoming camp dates. In October 3rd, we're going to be in Youngsville, Louisiana. October 10th, we're going to Long Island, New York. October 17th in Orlando, Florida. October 31st in Fort Myers. November 7th in Virginia Beach.
November 14th, we're finally going to Dallas, Texas. So if you want to check out Dallas, Texas, come along with us. And December 12th, we'll be in Houston at third coast volleyball. And, then we've got a small, 10 person max women's intermediate camp December 19th at my volleyball Airbnb in St. Petersburg. And if you ever want to run a private camp, so if you want to hire one of the better beach coaches to come out.
for a weekend, you could always book that property. You've got the swim spa on site. You've got the volleyball court in the backyard. It's really cool. And there are up to 11 spots. are two units, a studio and a three bed. And we also have another Airbnb about a block and a half away. So if you want to, yeah, book your own volleyball vacation, whether you want coaching or not, just a house full of your volleyball buddies.
get in touch with me, you can find me at Mark Barrack on Instagram, just shoot me a DM. Okay, so what were me and Logan talking about this weekend? A big part of what we were actually talking about was coach salaries and what people are making at the NCAA and at the national and international level. And one of the funny things, this has nothing to do with anything but
Mark Burik (02:27.566)
One of the funny things that we talked about is it kind of stinks that coaching the highest level players, the international players, the AVP players is some of the lowest and worst pay that an elite coach can get. Now, most AVP players, there might be 10, maybe 15 individuals that
Uh, any given day and the AVP player would call and say, Hey, I want you in my players box this weekend, or I want you to run a training. And there's good and bad to that. There's right and there's wrong, but at the professional level, there's not enough money for the players to have a full time living, no less than hire a third party to actually be what they're.
what they're worth or what could cover them as a full time. So a lot of times, AVP and professional players, they're hiring kind of part-time coaches just to run or lead a practice, borrowing an eye for a little bit. I know that some of the players that I work with, we just do film together because it's honestly too tough financially to give a third party a full-time living when you're not making a full-time living out of playing professionally.
So even though there are those that are equipped to coach at that highest level, they're probably going to be moving into juniors or NCAA, or maybe even opening a facility just to still be a volleyball coach and provide a living and a salary for their family. Here at Better Beach, we went a different way about coaching.
A lot of our players are, adult players, you know, between 25 and 55. And part of the reason for that was because when I moved out to California, I knew how tough it was to find coaches. Not very many people are marketing themselves or shouting from the rooftops that they coach adults. And if they have a junior's job,
Mark Burik (04:52.226)
they're not really promoting themselves for private lessons or extra training. So there's a lot of different ways in the beach volleyball world to make a living. And I think unfortunately coaching pros is on the bottom of that list. And that's what me and Logan were talking about. But then we said, okay, of the NCAA coaches, the people who are out there, know, comparatively, when we look at NCAA beach volleyball versus indoor,
the salary's absolutely pale in comparison. I think when I looked at it in maybe 2023 or 24, the highest paid beach volleyball coach was making as a base about 200,000 and that was one individual and the highest paid indoor was close to a million. So if you're choosing one of those paths and you're thinking about future financial
cushion over what your passion is, you might want to go the indoor route statistically. And then we looked at also like basketball and softball and other salaries and volleyball, volleyball as a whole still paled even in comparison to those. Now what's happening at the NCAA because of the rapid growth and because athletic directors don't really know.
The differences between beach and indoor. There are a lot of NCAA coaches right now that just don't belong in their spot for the growth of the sport to have somebody at the helm. That's important. You need to have somebody there. And then for the finances of the college, like, well, is it better to have a 1.5 salary than two clean salaries?
So a lot of these universities have taken their indoor coaches or maybe even an indoor assistant and they've just moved them over to the beach. And these might be people that have played beach for fun, know something about it just because they're so deep in the volleyball world, but they're not exactly somebody that I would put in charge of me or any of my pro practices back in the day. And
Mark Burik (07:18.622)
I think there's a lot of room for a lot of these now graduating AVP players, the people who are about to retire or are still in their careers to move into that. And the level of in-depth knowledge that these players get just through conversation, even if they're not hiring a coach, even just through the conversation and the detail of the practice against the highest level teams.
You learn things in a very in-depth way and you have to be so focused and meticulous on technique and strategy and scouting that it does equip you to become an NCAA coach. However, most schools won't straight away hire a head coach if they don't have NCAA experience because of all of the paperwork, the recruiting, the regulations.
Most teams require that you've got some NCAA experience and you know how to handle all of that admin stuff and run a full program as opposed to just coach. There are exceptions. Some people just get straight in, but it looks like a lot of schools would rather hire somebody from the indoor side who's got the admin experience. Then spend the time hunting down a true beach volleyball coach and
You know, some people lie on their resumes. They talk about how much they played beach volleyball and an athletic director or hiring personnel. They won't necessarily know the difference, which is unfortunate for a lot of these schools and a lot of these kids. So as we were talking, we were talking about the qualities of great coaches, what all the different ones on the ABP and the pro tour actually.
do for you how they run practices, the ones who have better statistical minds, the ones who have better strategies, the ones who have who just run better practices. And then, so this is a big jump. Then at our camps, we are also always hunting down great coaches, we are constantly on the lookout, we always have a job listing on our website. If you check out better at beach.com forward slash dream job, you'll see it.
Mark Burik (09:41.558)
And what we look for at Better at Beach first is a community person. Somebody who can engage with everybody, somebody who is immediately like without me asking them to going and saying hi to everybody, giving high fives, supporting people and building a community because beach volleyball isn't really that fun. If you don't have that community sense, if you don't have friends there, if you're not
laughing while playing and enjoying, it can become a grind. And then there's that whole social aspect of breaking into the better group or the better group kind of shielding you from playing with them. So for us, one of the biggest things that we focus on is our coaches, great people and community builders. And if they are, but they don't have coaching skills or knowledge first,
With our online coach Academy, we can get you there, right? We can build elite coaches through skills, knowledge, and train your eyes, but it's a lot more difficult to create a high energy, social, socially front person, then it is to actually build a set of coaching skills that we require. So at this, last camp.
And at some of the camps we go to, I got to work with one of our volunteer coaches, who's a Seattle coach. And he was one of those guys who asked questions. Everything that he thought he maintained curiosity. So he approached it as, Hey, this is what I teach. What do you think about it? And that's one of my favorite questions and favorite mindsets.
And then his court management. And if you don't know what court management is, it's where do you stand while you're feeding or running a drill? If the skill level or drill that you chose for that skill level becomes too complex or there's not enough success, how do you enter balls to keep the practice going? How do you keep players engaged when they miss? Can you throw an easier feed after a really difficult one?
Mark Burik (12:08.448)
And really focus on reps per minute. Reps per minute is huge for our camps, and any of our classes as well. And I think it's one of the biggest things that you can focus on in terms of progression. If you show up for two hours and you play with your friends versus you come to a camp or a class, and it is a training session where there's nonstop balls. You know, we, have 15 to 20 balls per court.
Hopefully more. Ideally you have like a hundred, so you never have to stop for a shag. How many touches per minute are you getting? We usually, you know, when you count the number of drills in a prac or the number of touches in a practice game with you and your buddies versus somebody on the outside is entering balls consistently, nonstop at a high rhythm.
The difference in a two hour session, we're probably getting four to five, if not 10 times as many touches in a practice setting than you would in a regular play session. So that plus feedback accelerates your, your path to the next level so quickly because
If you can get in a two hour session, if you can get five of your normal play sessions, and then you add on the feedback, which means that they're probably twice as valuable and we're increasing your focus on a very specific skill. Your game is going to accelerate. So we always tell our campers, Hey, in these three days, you're probably going to get two to three months better in these three days than you would on your own out here. And that's straight up.
Truth. When we're able to give feedback and really make distinct changes and then get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of probably thousands of reps. Yeah, definitely thousands of reps in a weekend. We can accelerate your game months beyond what you could do on your own, especially in the difficult like social environments where people just want to play and they don't necessarily want to get better. Now I'm all for playing.
Mark Burik (14:26.455)
I don't want to mistake that. Like I like playing. I like being in game situations. And then if you're in the game for fun.
Training is difficult. You know, you're trying to make changes, you're getting uncomfortable. You're probably getting out of breath more often than not, because we want to get as many reps as we can, and we want to get the feedback and we want to make changes and making changes is uncomfortable. So that's why there's so few people out there who are willing to go through training sessions. When you compare that to the amount of people that are just playing and hopefully better at beach has provided.
an answer for those people. And we've always since the beginning, it was difficult for me to find a high level coach when I came out to California and definitely in New York. So New York, me and my buddies, Hudson Bates, Eric Lucas, Andrew Dentler, Eric Zahn, Chris Vaughn, Chris Frazier, Brandon Joyner. Now we decided one summer because we just kept meeting each other in the finals of every open tournament in New Jersey and New York. we're like,
You know, is this really going to get us to the next level kind of wiping the floor with everybody else and then getting to play the high level team in like one to 28 where you're battling the sunset and you might not even finish that tournament. So even though we were kind of enemies who knew each other at the time, some of us went to the same school, but others not. said, Hey guys, can we just commit?
to getting together to train a couple of days a week this spring and summer, you know, as soon as college ends and maybe find a way to work around your work schedule. And so that summer, we would travel on the East Coast. We would travel two, three, and four hours to spend one and a half, two or three days with each other and train, not just play, but like train. And a lot of us had coaching experience by that time.
Mark Burik (16:26.796)
So we're able to design a lot of drills that led to focus and led to higher reps. So we really utilize that time. And then that following year was when just about every one of us got on one of the pro tours and into the main draw. And I believe that that came from, yes, the progression of our game over time, but a dedication to getting reps, finding a high quality training group. And even if it took us.
taking off of work on a Friday, committing to getting there and being in a training environment where we can improve. If you don't have coaching experience and if you can't...
Wrangle up players who just want to train and you don't necessarily need the highest level players to play against. You just need somebody who is going to run drills, you know, elected chief. That person is in charge of the drill design and then rep, rep, rep, and make changes and help each other and find a focus point for our campers. We tell people that, Hey, we worked on so many things in these three days.
for the next three months, your job was to write down every key that you got or every little pointer that kind of made a light bulb go off and work on that for one or two weeks of your practice time and then move on to the next item on your list. Move on to the next item on your list. If you focus on too many things at once, know, all of, you chase two rabbits, they both get away, right? So we like to have that level of focus. And even though we're trying to teach
the majority of volleyball in just a three day setting. We know that we're going to get you more reps than you've ever gotten in that amount of time. But also you've got to write those keys down and work on them for a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months at a time. If that's what's going to make the difference. So what do you do if you actually can't, if you're struggling to find a coach, you know that you want to coach, you know that you want somebody maybe just to even
Mark Burik (18:36.802)
lead drills so that none of the players have to initiate the drill and you can get three to five times as many reps in your two hour session. There's a couple of easy solutions. I think AVP players really miss out on just hiring a college or a high school kid to say, enter this ball. That's a low cost way for you to get a lot more reps. Somebody build the drills who's got knowledge.
Or you can go over to better at beach.com forward slash coach, and you could check out our practice plans. We've got videos, we've got written plans. There's over 50 of them in there and they're divided by the skill that you want to work on. So if you just want something that you can open up or open up your phone and say, that's the drill that we're doing, show everybody on your phone. Cool. Let's run it. Then really, if you've got that knowledge or that practice plan,
You just need somebody who can enter drills and high school kids are available. If you trust a high school kid to babysit your daughter, you can trust a high school kid to hit top spin balls at you or throw balls over the net so that you can get five times as many reps in a two hour session. So I think a lot of ABP players actually miss out on that opportunity where a lot of people would be willing to enter balls for them.
but then they don't get a coach and then it becomes a sloppy practice because one, they don't want to pay for the higher level coach and do they just haven't thought about the opportunity of who can enter balls that we can give 10, 15, 20 bucks an hour to, help out them. They get to see a high level practice and they get to feed. So that's the lowest cost way, but I remember, I had a friend in Australia and she was.
She consistently ranked the national champion in Australia for trampoline, I believe. And she always finished like in the top 10 in the world in trampoline. And when she started making the move to volleyball, she said, well, all of my first money, all of the initial money that I had to dedicate to volleyball was finding a coach. She was in the gymnastics world.
Mark Burik (20:52.568)
Whoever is leading you through or teaching you is the most important thing that you can find and it is the fastest way for you to get better. I also know that from experience with growing a business and the real estate that I've acquired, having somebody who has done it before, who can poke holes in the wrong moves and create all of those shortcuts so that you don't spend years on the sidelines or years trying to do something,
that everybody else who's done it before, they already know it doesn't work or it's the slowest way to do it. So anytime you can hunt down a mentor or a coach and get them on your side, that will accelerate your learning curve massively. I'm talking like 10 times as fast in any endeavor. Okay. so if you can, you find
an elite coach to lead you through film, to maybe run your practice through a zoom meeting. I've done that before where we had it on film and I was running their practice and giving them little bits of feedback just based on strategy and ran their drills via the phone. And there's a lot of value for that. But if you're having trouble finding the people, so if you don't want to come to better beach for a camp, if you just can't.
You know, we're only coming to your town and you can't travel often enough to our three day camps. We are available on video or phone, so you can do it that way. And we also do video analysis. If you just record your matches and record your skills, we can help you out. But if you don't want to use this, how do you find these great coaches that know how to talk to you that have coached at every level?
so that they know all of the different pain points. And so they have a massive toolbox of cues that will help you improve. Because if a coach can only say one thing once, or they're a coach that says, this is the way it's the only way you must fix this or it'll break. Like that's not really an open minded or curious coach. If you look at pros across the board.
Mark Burik (23:11.926)
They all have slightly different technique, right? I get everybody. You can sort of see the difference in how they set a little bit, how they hold their platform. Some people take a split step on defense. Some people do not, blockers drop to different depths when they squat jump. So everybody's got a little bit of variance in their technique and an elite coach can recognize that and help you get to your body, your brain and your body's.
best version of you. We had a discussion about fixing a goofy foot approach or not. If you take a look at Phil Dauhauser, Avery Jost, Troy Field, Alexander Samoilovs, they're sitting there on the world tour winning international events. Are you going to tell that person, hey, this is wrong. You're taking a goofy footed approach. This is how much better you could be. Or are you just going to say, hey, that's what your body's learned up to this point and
To be honest with you, it'll hurt you when it comes to indoor a lot more than it will on the beach. But can I guarantee you that if you fix a goofy-footed approach and you turn it into right, left, right, left, can I guarantee you that that's going to increase your hitting percentage? You can't guarantee that. There's no stats. And so when I give that presentation at camps, I also tell them that. go, hey, you can fix it. Here's the benefits. Here's where you're going to get into trouble. Here's where you have to...
override certain things with that technique, but sports and volleyball are completely variable. So there'll be a whole bunch of different techniques and ways to win. And there are ways to win at the beginner level. And then there's ways to win at the intermediate and then the higher level and then the even higher level, like the open. And then you have to calibrate again to win at the pro level. So there are things that work at some levels.
where they won't work at the very next level, but then they'll work again at the next level beyond that. And so a lot of coaches get locked into what they think works instead of explaining the principles. And so for our systems at camps, we give you kind of a worksheet. go, this is your base. This is our base offense. Here's why it works for most people.
Mark Burik (25:35.052)
And here are the ways that you could vary it or make it your own. Once you understand the principle and if you understand the principles, then you have a deeper understanding of what skills can actually help you progress or what strategies or what positionings on court. So if you can't find back to the beginning, if you can't find that elite coach here, just some easy ideas that you can do to get somebody on your court. one.
hire that high school or college kid on the cheap to put them through college, have them getting more arm swing reps and just have them rep you out, get more reps than you're currently getting. Number two, not many people are advertising themselves as adult coaches with a website, with an Instagram, making themselves super obvious. So how do you find those? Number one,
You start posting in Facebook groups saying, does anybody know any beach volleyball coaches or people who would like to run some private lessons? Go to Facebook groups, find your local WhatsApp group for volleyball and continue to ask the people around you if you think you can't find. But the other way is actually going to juniors clubs and schools, schools that have maybe a beach team or an indoor team. If somebody's coaching indoor and you're fairly new to beach volleyball, they might not, they might.
know more about volleyball than you do. Maybe they don't know the, you know, top of the top, like everybody's statistics and everything on the world tour. But if they know a little bit more than you do about technique, they will help you get to the next level. And if you're making changes and you have an eye on you and you're getting more reps, it's usually going to be better for you. It's pretty rare that somebody locks a technique into you that is then
harmful later because your body's going to learn how to get the ball where it needs to get No matter what technique you're being locked into so I don't want to
Mark Burik (27:45.358)
I don't want to say that you should find any coach and listen to exactly what they say, but if there's a coach that can get you more reps and you follow their way for a little bit and it's not working, then you can always just do a version of what they're saying. Well, if you can get on some of those websites, the local colleges, the local juniors clubs, and the local high school teams, whether it's beach or indoor email, those people.
Those are the coaches that are actually doing it for either a part-time or a full-time job. And if you're always one of the persons who's like complaining or struggling that you can't find an elite coach in your area, that's one easy way that you might have an opening to a better coach. Right. Go to the NCAA website and see if their coaches, their assistant coaches, or even their collegiate players would be available.
for coaching. And even though they're not advertising themselves, they might be that next best fit for you if they know more volleyball than you and they can help you run a drill and maximize reps. and then, yeah, at our camps with, this one volunteer, ran that we had, he was absolutely an incredible people person. He was curious. And anytime one of our players,
Like failed once or twice in a row at the drill. He created an easier feed, but got the point going so that the drills never stopped. our reps per minute were super high. So great coaches focus on reps per minute. Limit your feedback to one or two things per practice. Once you tell one player, one thing, you have one thing left.
to tell them, have them focus on for whatever session you're in, especially if you're working with them for a long period of time. If you get somebody just for an hour and a half, two hours, you can say, Hey, do you want to work on one specific thing or do you want my eyes to look at everything that I see that might be able to improve and then give you a list by the end of this? And then as the player, as a person paying for that lesson, you can make that choice.
Mark Burik (30:10.146)
Some of my players say, Nope, I want to lock this one thing in for this entire 90 minutes. I go, cool. some of them say, actually watch me play, see what you see. And then we'll make a list. Okay. So there's a few different ways to coach, but the great coaches are the ones that will ask those. And then they're not overwhelming you with so many different things, playing Monday morning quarterback, like only, only fixing the things after.
They saw the mistake. That's, that's a big error. Players should be chasing goals and knowing what they're doing instead of you looking back at a play and saying, this is what you did wrong that time. This is what you did wrong that time. This is what you did wrong that time. So now it becomes impossible for this player to succeed. If your eyes are only on the negative as a coach, you should be setting the course.
setting the goal and then helping them get to that one goal, maybe, maybe two per practice, if you can get there. And then depending on the environment, whether it's a fast clinic, a fast camp, or a more long-term relationship, there are different ways to lead that and to coach that. But coaches out there, you should definitely ask.
Hey, do you want me to look at your total game and come up with a list at the end or do you want to work on one thing? And as a player, if you get like one moment or one weekend with coaches, you can choose that too. And then have that steered, have the coach steer the practice the way that you want it to be steered. And yeah, this guy, the way he ran practices as a volunteer at our camps and the way he managed the court, he was a little shy cause he's like, you know, I'm kind of like,
I can win double A's. just don't know if I, if I garnered the respect that, that you guys do and you don't need a great player to be a great coach. want to reemphasize that just because somebody is a great player does not mean they're a great coach. And just because somebody has only won a or double A tournaments that does not necessarily disqualify them.
Mark Burik (32:27.078)
As a great coach, there are a lot of coaches on the AVP right now that really never got past that double a low open level. And they are still running the show for some of the highest performing athletes out there. And so I want you to take that into consideration that just because you're better, you have a better performance than somebody, or they have a worse performance than you, over your career.
don't eliminate them as a potential coach to be able to run practices and give you that feedback. Hey, we all, I mean, even at the pro level, everybody's seen different things and heard different cues from different coaches. And it's why I personally love taking the time at our seven day camps to go and watch the private lessons that my coaches are giving to our campers because I can learn more cues and I can learn how they think about the game.
turn it around and kind of add that to my tool belt so that if the first five times I try to get somebody to do a technique the way I want them to do it, if they don't get it after those first five times, I've got another 15 tools or cues in my toolbox that I can give them to make something click. Okay, so it's not always gonna work. It's not gonna settle in with the first time you tell somebody to keep their arms straight. You might have to tell them that their needles duct taped.
to their elbow pits or that they are a robot and so they have to have them completely straight if that's what you're chasing during that time. Hey, there's so many cues. You can tell them thumbs down. You can tell them point to the ground. You can tell them point to the sky. Right, there's a lot of different cues that you can use that finally ring true with an athlete and the way their brain translates your words into their body. It's different for every athlete. So great coaches need a bank of cues that
work for a large group of people. And they need the patience to be able to see which one is going to work for that individual athlete. And I think that's what we really pride ourselves on in terms of the level of our coaches at our camps and our classes is we've worked with so many different levels and so many different people that we've got the ability to coach to the individual instead of.
Mark Burik (34:45.016)
This is my way that's a system coaching. And there are some coaches that do that and do that successfully. The only thing is you're going to eliminate certain athletes from that. And if you're building a program, okay. Find the athletes that will fit into your system, or you can diversify yourself as a coach with your cues and the way that you coach and, that in itself is the system, of course, but.
Then you can coach more athletes. And I think our coaches excel at coaching all athletes from all genders, all ages, all skill levels, while being amazing people and community builders. So if you think you're a community builder and you want to coach, or you already do, I already offered that person a job coaching our camps after seeing him for a day and a half as a volunteer coach.
at our camp, just think watching him on court through his feedback, through his questions and the way that he supported the players as a dude, anytime you want to work for better at beach, like we will get you to a camp. would love to have you, court management reps per minute, the ability to make different levels work on the same court, or across a few different courts to be able to coach to those levels, be a good person and
get those reps permitted up. It was fabulous to see. So Rand, if you ever listened to this, really appreciate the way that you managed the court and helped out this weekend. And if you guys are at home and you think that, you might want to coach for better at beach someday and be able to travel the country and see all the different volleyball facilities and volleyball places there are in this country.
Hit me up, go to better beach.com forward slash dream job and look at the descriptions for any of the roles that you want. There's a number of roles that we always leave available. It's just whether or not we're hiring at that time. And we'd love to have you. And if you don't think that you have the skills yet, we've got our online coach Academy. We could get you to those skills and we can have you as a volunteer at our camps until we think that your level is up there to run your own court and then build your way up to running your own camp.
Mark Burik (37:02.388)
And, that's how we've built what we've built so far and it's going pretty well. And I'm pretty happy with it. And for all the campers out there who have come and are listening, thank you so much. If you haven't, can't wait to see you at a camp. And if you're never going to come to a camp, I hope you liked this podcast and this YouTube channel. So give it a like and a subscribe, but that's how you find source and see elite coaches. So.
If you guys can think of any other ideas, go ahead and throw them into the comment sections, but Facebook groups, WhatsApp groups, ask your friends, ask somebody who's maybe one level above you just to run your practice. Ask anybody who's got volleyball experience to feed you for an hour to two hours. So that at least once during the week, you can 10 X your reps or
Go to local schools, local clubs, send an email to them and say, Hey, does anybody here have availability or would they be interested in doing a couple of private beach volleyball lessons for well, one off or an extended period of time? All right. Well, I hope that helps and I hope you guys are having a great day. That's all from me and I'll see you on the sand.
