Monday's Important Things : Power

Part Four of "Building a Better Varsity Player"

Part One: SPIN

Part Two: CONSISTENCY

Part Three: PLACEMENT

Part Four: POWER

POWER= All-District/All-State Player

Examples from Past Years= Deon Shafer, Warsaw; Preston Swain, NorthWood; Omar Turk, South Bend Adams

Examples from Our Team (Shots)= Mikey's serve; Jared, Luke, Daniel, and Matthew's forehands; Johnny, Jeremy, and Daniel's overheads

Power is the last of the important things to build a stellar high school player. I feel like I need to mention something here right from the beginning, because it is important to note. IF YOU HAVE NOT DEVELOPED SPIN, CONSISTENCY, AND PLACEMENT, THEN POWER IS USELESS. The parts follow in order. In other words, a player who is at stage four (like Omar) has the correct form, is consistent with their shots, can place the ball all over the court and hit with extreme power. So don't try to skip the other phases just to get to power.

Most likely, none of us will get to the Deon, Preston, Omar stage with our complete skill set this year. We'll be pushing for it, but unless we spend whole 8 hour days throughout the summer hitting, lifting, shuffling our feet, etc, we probably won't get all the way there. And that is okay. Our goal is to be the best we can work for, which is why I want to introduce the fact that these stage can work for individual shots as well as the all around game.

Let me take Ben Mast as an example. Hope you don't mind Ben! (P.S. This is hurried and not completely accurate. It's an example, give me some grace...)

Ben's Stroke Breakdown for This Season

Forehand: Definitely 3 and could get to 4

Backhand: Need to establish 3

Volley: Need to establish 3

Overhead: Need to establish 3, work to 4

First Serve: Need to establish 2, work to 3

Second Serve: Need to establish 2

So, if Ben works hard this summer, his goal should be to push all his strokes through these stages as best as he can. His forehand he needs to continue to work on placement while beginning to work in some power shots. His backhand he needs to establish placement, so most of his backhand work should be on working the ball to spots. He should not get too concerned about backhand power yet. And so on and so on.

Each of us need to determine where we are in our game. What is the next stage for us to work on? Getting to be a stage 4 player is awesome, it is a huge advantage, but we cannot be impatient with the whole of the sequence.

Just as a way of guiding our team this season, here's the stages that I think we had on the team that won Sectional last season, without names.

Stage 4 Players: 0

Stage 3 Players: 4

Stage 2 Players: 3

Stage 1 Players: 0

Now, each of those players had specific shots that worked at a higher stage. For example, most of our players had forehands that were 3-4, while most didn't have serves that were past stage 2.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that a team that is consistent and can consistently place the ball will win Sectional. And that's the goal. That's always the goal.