Running set plays or sets occur on lots of other sports, but the idea mostly comes from basketball, that Western Hemisphere pastime in which coaches call timeout and draw up the play to win the game.
Derby is slightly different. While our sport does draw on a rich history dating back to the Depression era, most of the sport draws its inspiration from the 70s-style bank track where body slamming and elbows to the face won over strategy.
But, since the sports rebirth in the early-2000s, teams and leagues have been making strong headway to legitimize the sport, and thus the introduction of sets.
When I first started, spectators would ask me if we had plays or not. At the time my answer was "no," but only because we hadn't developed as strong as a team yet and trying to get 25-30 players to follow a "play" was nearly impossible. As we improved we started to incorporating different set plays and it started to improve our game.
We worked as a team and recognized the benefits of having goals. From here we can continue to evolve.
This summer we're working on a specific goal to incorporate a new style largely credited to Pitchit Davis, who with some help is credited with helping several teams break the wall to become great.
With any system of sets, I have a few rules of thumb:
1. Don't introduce more sets than your players have the ability to learn. This generally means more than one. The larger the group of players the less likely everyone is going to understand. Keep it simple. Multiple moving parts makes it harder to learn. Learn it, then move on.
2. Practice, practice, practice. It's incredibly hard to introduce a set in the middle of the game. But it does happen. Use practice time to run sets over and over again. Start out playing against imaginary opponents, then move to using players being dumb or playing stupid (simply skating bodies on the track) and finally graduate to full practice.
3. Don't give up on a set just because people don't understand it. Walk them through it. Explain it. Tell your players why it works and why it doesn't. Players will never develop trust in you if you constantly throw away your ideas.
4. In scrimmage and bout situations, if your team fails executing a set. Try to break it down for them when they're done. You're the coach or captain: You should know exactly what happened. Draw it out for them. This may mean not having an eye on the game for a jam, but it can be crucial for your team to know where they went wrong.
5. Likewise, if they execute a set properly reward/praise them immediately. And once they come off the track from that jam. And again on the bench. AND again at the after-party. (Oh, we're not done.) When you have practice again, praise her again. Positive reward/praise builds confidence and ability than negative or none at all.
(My formula is: Immediate positive praise > positive praise > constructive criticism > nothing > negative comments.)
Never (ever) criticize a player in front of everyone unless you immediately follow it with a solution, or if you want to make sure everyone understands the whole situation.
Never be: "WHY DIDN"T YOU CALL THE JAM WHEN I TOLD YOU TO?!" when you can be: "Hey, Why didn't you call the jam?" Then give you're skater time to reply. If she didn't see you, then you need to make sure she's watching for you. If she thought she could score points, then explain to her why it was/wasn't a good idea.
I never get upset if a player chooses to make up her own mind. However, I will ask her the reasoning in her choice and we'll talk about it.
"Well, just execute him!"
Executing a set play in a bout provides one of the best highs a coach can get. Watching it all come together in one moment culminates hours and hours of practice.
In high pressure situations, sets can give your team the edge it needs to accomplish its one goal.
During a bout, don't run a set trying to put your five newest players in the game. If we've learned anything about roller derby it's no matter how many times you practice it when you're in a bout, you're going to forget it.
Make sure everyone on your bench understands the set, but most importantly make sure your next line has it down pat. Get verbal and visual confirmation that they understand. If someone isn't comfortable running the play, get someone it the line that is.
Don't get mad at the players if it simply doesn't work. A coach who takes out self-frustration on their players won't be a coach for long.
On the fly
Just like executing a set play, being able to draw one up on the fly (meaning in-game situations) uplifts you when it happens.
Drawing up plays during a game is one of the few times when everything hinges on your coaching ability. You're at the center of attention and your team is relying on you to formulate a plan.
A situation came up when we were playing a team from Des Moines several months back. Our front wall was dominating the top of the pack for the first half, and we maintained control and the point spread. In the second half, our opponents got wise and instead of trying to break up the front wall, just established a back wall that allowed them to control from behind us. We had very little ability to get behind them to help our jammers through.
I called a timeout, regrouped my skaters and drew up a plan that would help us break their back wall, while maintaining the integrity of our front wall.
It didn't work. That time. The game ended and we lost by 40 points or so. But I didn't let it discourage me.
We took that play to practice and worked on it and worked on it.
Not long after we played Des Moines, both our A team and B team traveled up to Dubuque, Iowa, to play the Eastern Iowa Outlaws. Our B team had established a solid front wall, and just as Des Moines did, EIO learned to just build a wall behind us.
Our front wall hit turn 3, with our jammer hot behind the pack, getting ready to engage the back (and EIO's back wall). I yelled for our play and on turn 4 we executed perfectly, the outside player turned in toward the inside track catching their mid-wall player squarely in the chest with a shoulder block and taking her out of the play opening up a giant hole for our jammer to slide through.
It was like delivering birth to a roller derby baby. We continue to practice these plays over and over so that in the heat of the battle we can execute them (the plays, not the baby).
Being able to draw up plays on the fly takes one of two things (if not both): Imagination or experience.
Being creative can help a lot in drawing up new plays. Chances are someone has already drawn up similar halfway around the country, but you have to be aware of what you're players are capable. Knowing what will work, what should work and what won't work can give you an edge in drawing up plays.
Experience can play just as big of a role. Seen a situation happen years ago? How did that coach resolve the issue. Having the knowledge that you know the play work doesn't always translate to your skaters knowing how to execute. But having the confidence that the play works, is nice. Many basketball coaches have the benefit of growing up in a system in which coaching and plays are heavily involved.
Ever watch the LA Lakers and the commentators are talking about Phil Jackson's Triangle Offense. Well, Jackson was an assistant coach for Tex Winter, who used it. But Winter got it from Sam Barry, who began to formulate the ground work back in the 1940s (guestimate).
We don't quite have the same equivalent in roller derby, but we do have other teams learning at an alarming rate. It's important to watch as much derby as you can, and to break down other plays so that you can learn from them.
Showing posts with label Eastern Iowa Outlaws. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eastern Iowa Outlaws. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Coach's notebook - Spanksgiving
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Besides an undying passion for journalism and roller derby, I also referee and coach for the Quad-City Rollers based in Davenport, Iowa.)
On Saturday, the Quad-City Rollers headed up to Dubuque, Iowa, to play a relatively new team, the Eastern Iowa Outlaws. We knew some EIO faces would look familiar as many of the skaters migrated from Cedar Rapids to build a new and fresh team.
The Rollers had played CR a couple of times before and had seen EIO play a few times.
We knew they wanted to come out hard and fast with their hitting game. It's a by-product of their system. Many of their skaters are taller and bigger, and they mostly all gravitate toward a hitting game. A team with a good hitting game can be down right intimidating and can take the focus out of any opponent with solid hits and crowd pleasing action.
EIO's B-team had beaten our B-team last month, and the victors proved that EIO had taken Cedar Rapid's hitting game and made it their own. With only 9 skaters on our team, we knew it would be a tough go-around with short rotations and several skaters pulling back-to-back duty. Thanks to some awesome efforts from our main B-team jammers -- Pissy Missy, Iron Rub'r and Mondo KO -- our Rock Island Line kept the game closer than their previous contest with EIO's second-team.
Even though our B-team was relatively new to playing with each other, they still managed to communicate and execute their defense/offfense when called upon. In the end EIO kept their lead and took the B-bout win.
For the main event, I knew we had to do a few things right:
1. We needed to keep an eye on the clock and manage our timeouts appropriately.
2. We wanted to minimize the things we couldn't control, while maximizing the things that we could.
3. In order to have a solid chance, we had to keep our jammers available to jam in big scenerios.
4. Defense, defense, defense.
In roller derby, the jammers are the only players that can score points. In order to use them effectively we had to stay true to goals 2 and 3. The game is fairly simple when both jammers are on the track, but when one or the other is penalized for an offense, it gives a key advantage to the lone jammer - she becomes the sole point scorer on the track. Power jams can make dramatic swings in the point totals. We were lucky that we kept our jammer penalties to a minimum, but when we had a star in the box, our pack made sure to prevent the opposing jammer from making too many scoring passes.
Likewise if our jammer is the only one on the track, we want to maximize the amount of time she can score while minimizing the amount of time it takes her to make a scoring pass. This gives us more points in less time. In one jam of the first half, Eastern Iowa failed to field a jammer by the time the jam started. This effectively gave us a 2-minute power jam as long as our jammer didn't go to the box. The pack went to work right away -- giving our jammer a quick start and keeping the pack controlled and slow to help our jammer earn several scoring passes.
By half time, we had a decent margin lead. Eastern Iowa would come out with a vengeance looking to make some major hits. I wanted our jammers to do their best to earn lead and score a point or two before calling the jam off - similar to "small ball" in baseball or basketball. By doing this a team can build a small lead and maintain solid clock control.
We were also falling into penalty trouble as several girls had two or three minors, so once they hit their fourth minor they would be spending time in the box. Notably two of our jammers were at 3 minors, so we couldn't risk jamming them and possibly losing the opportunity to score.
With Sassy Smalls starting the second half in the box, we had a tough decision: If we tried to give an intentional fourth minor to an eligible jammer we would be down to two blockers in the pack -- and our jammer was less likely to get many points out of it. We opted to set Lady Gotcha up for her intentional fourth minor right away, with Suzie Spew to get poodled at the next available opportunity.
Luckily Taco was clean on minors, and we opted to put our two strongest and fastest blockers (Sugar N' Slice and Mexican Monster) on the track -- with the orders to stay in front and keep the pack moving fast, to kill off the minute of penalty time.
It worked great other than Few Screws Lucy of Eastern Iowa made a couple of scoring passes, with a big point differential between her and Taco. Unfortunately, it was a mental error on EIO.
With Gotcha and Smalls released from their penalties, EIO called the jam off.
I immediately called for a challenge. Lucy was supposed to start the jam in the box to serve out the rest of her first-half penalty and therefore an ineligible jammer and negating any points she earned in the first jam of the second half.
It was a strategic move on my part -- negating a big first jam for EIO and springing one of my top blockers and a top jammer out of the box. Any momentum EIO had hoped to gain coming out of the locker room was gone. It was also a gamble -- since a team only gets one challenge a half, I was using mine incredibly early in the second half. It paid off. Lucy was sent to the box to serve her remaining time plus an additional minute for a major illegal procedure.
We would continue to control when our jammers were going to the box and keep a clean rotation, allowing a few other skaters to fill in if our main point scorers needed a break.
Frustrated, Eastern Iowa started losing blockers to the box -- at one point with a full box and one skater waiting to go in -- EIO tried to call a timeout with both of their captains in the box (which was actually something we opted to not fall victim to). They got a successful timeout, but it was no good, the captains were still unable to talk with the refs -- one of the afflictions of serving time in the box -- all the while I still had all three of the Rollers' timeouts available to me.
I knew the longer the clock kept running, the harder it would be for EIO to mount any sort of comeback. With that in mind, I wanted to keep our own timeouts to mininum, forcing EIO to call the TOs to stop the clock. I burned one when we realized we had fielded a jammer with three minor penalties, stopping the clock to switch out some players and set Taco up to intentionally earn her fourth minor by an illegal procedure/poodle -- so that she could begin jamming again with zero minors.
EIO would fail to field a jammer for a second time in the game, giving us another 2-minute opportunity for maximum point scoring. In both instances, we had Lady Gotcha on the track to give us the best advantage as the lone jammer.
Two other mistakes that we gratefully captialized on were: EIO at one point had earned lead-jammer, giving her the right to end the jam by repeatedly hitting her hips with her hands, but failed to call the jam off, instead opting to play defense as a jammer -- thus unintentionally running the very clock out that they needed.
Another mistake was the opposing jammer did not have lead, but upon getting through the pack waited there outside of the engagement zone looking to block our jammer when she came through. With lead fully secured, I coached Taco into just slowing down and hanging out behind the pack. Had the opposing jammer hurried and attempted a scoring pass we would have called the jam. But she didn't and we were able to burn about 1 1/2 minutes off the game clock.
The home crowd was pretty upset at some of our tactics, sometimes being confused on why we employed certain strategy. I kept my composer.
Our pack work was stronger than we had in the past two games. The Rollers worked hard at keeping the front cleared and their options open. The endurance training definitely helped, as the team was skating hard and fast to keep the opposing jammer at the back of the pack. As she struggled our jammers were at ease sweeping around and ahead. Our blockers stayed clean for the most part, in comparison with our last game. When we played Iowa City last, we lost at last three skaters to foul outs or expulsions.
This time around, Mexican Monster only had four trips to the box, and even some of our skaters that seemed penalty-prone stayed relatively clean. Eastern Iowa, possibly out of frustration, started stepping up their hitting and taking a few more risks, picking up penalty minutes in the process.
With 3 minutes left in the game, the bout was out of reach for Eastern Iowa. Taco volunteered to jam in both the remaining jams, a testament to her confidence and her endurance. She earned lead, got a few points and waited before she called off the penultimate jam with about 45 seconds remaining in the game, assuring one more jam would unfold. As the clock started ticking down and the time keepers hand raised (a 10-second warning that the jam was to begin), I called my second timeout, to go over some last minute coaching.
If Taco got lead jammer, I wanted her to keep an eye on the clock only calling the jam once it ran to zero. If she did not get lead, the pack was instructed to skate as fast as possible minimizing any more points being scored by EIO (and as a side effect, minimizing the amount of points we could score). I also wanted to make sure she didn't pick up a third minor in the jam prior and we wouldn't endanger a fourth minor and a power jam for EIO.
Taco wouldn't be designated lead, but the pack new the plan and took off, keeping the jammer in the back for a long time. The game was over. We had secured our first win of the season and our first road win as a league.
On Saturday, the Quad-City Rollers headed up to Dubuque, Iowa, to play a relatively new team, the Eastern Iowa Outlaws. We knew some EIO faces would look familiar as many of the skaters migrated from Cedar Rapids to build a new and fresh team.
The Rollers had played CR a couple of times before and had seen EIO play a few times.
We knew they wanted to come out hard and fast with their hitting game. It's a by-product of their system. Many of their skaters are taller and bigger, and they mostly all gravitate toward a hitting game. A team with a good hitting game can be down right intimidating and can take the focus out of any opponent with solid hits and crowd pleasing action.
EIO's B-team had beaten our B-team last month, and the victors proved that EIO had taken Cedar Rapid's hitting game and made it their own. With only 9 skaters on our team, we knew it would be a tough go-around with short rotations and several skaters pulling back-to-back duty. Thanks to some awesome efforts from our main B-team jammers -- Pissy Missy, Iron Rub'r and Mondo KO -- our Rock Island Line kept the game closer than their previous contest with EIO's second-team.
Even though our B-team was relatively new to playing with each other, they still managed to communicate and execute their defense/offfense when called upon. In the end EIO kept their lead and took the B-bout win.
For the main event, I knew we had to do a few things right:
1. We needed to keep an eye on the clock and manage our timeouts appropriately.
2. We wanted to minimize the things we couldn't control, while maximizing the things that we could.
3. In order to have a solid chance, we had to keep our jammers available to jam in big scenerios.
4. Defense, defense, defense.
In roller derby, the jammers are the only players that can score points. In order to use them effectively we had to stay true to goals 2 and 3. The game is fairly simple when both jammers are on the track, but when one or the other is penalized for an offense, it gives a key advantage to the lone jammer - she becomes the sole point scorer on the track. Power jams can make dramatic swings in the point totals. We were lucky that we kept our jammer penalties to a minimum, but when we had a star in the box, our pack made sure to prevent the opposing jammer from making too many scoring passes.
Likewise if our jammer is the only one on the track, we want to maximize the amount of time she can score while minimizing the amount of time it takes her to make a scoring pass. This gives us more points in less time. In one jam of the first half, Eastern Iowa failed to field a jammer by the time the jam started. This effectively gave us a 2-minute power jam as long as our jammer didn't go to the box. The pack went to work right away -- giving our jammer a quick start and keeping the pack controlled and slow to help our jammer earn several scoring passes.
By half time, we had a decent margin lead. Eastern Iowa would come out with a vengeance looking to make some major hits. I wanted our jammers to do their best to earn lead and score a point or two before calling the jam off - similar to "small ball" in baseball or basketball. By doing this a team can build a small lead and maintain solid clock control.
We were also falling into penalty trouble as several girls had two or three minors, so once they hit their fourth minor they would be spending time in the box. Notably two of our jammers were at 3 minors, so we couldn't risk jamming them and possibly losing the opportunity to score.
With Sassy Smalls starting the second half in the box, we had a tough decision: If we tried to give an intentional fourth minor to an eligible jammer we would be down to two blockers in the pack -- and our jammer was less likely to get many points out of it. We opted to set Lady Gotcha up for her intentional fourth minor right away, with Suzie Spew to get poodled at the next available opportunity.
Luckily Taco was clean on minors, and we opted to put our two strongest and fastest blockers (Sugar N' Slice and Mexican Monster) on the track -- with the orders to stay in front and keep the pack moving fast, to kill off the minute of penalty time.
It worked great other than Few Screws Lucy of Eastern Iowa made a couple of scoring passes, with a big point differential between her and Taco. Unfortunately, it was a mental error on EIO.
With Gotcha and Smalls released from their penalties, EIO called the jam off.
I immediately called for a challenge. Lucy was supposed to start the jam in the box to serve out the rest of her first-half penalty and therefore an ineligible jammer and negating any points she earned in the first jam of the second half.
It was a strategic move on my part -- negating a big first jam for EIO and springing one of my top blockers and a top jammer out of the box. Any momentum EIO had hoped to gain coming out of the locker room was gone. It was also a gamble -- since a team only gets one challenge a half, I was using mine incredibly early in the second half. It paid off. Lucy was sent to the box to serve her remaining time plus an additional minute for a major illegal procedure.
We would continue to control when our jammers were going to the box and keep a clean rotation, allowing a few other skaters to fill in if our main point scorers needed a break.
Frustrated, Eastern Iowa started losing blockers to the box -- at one point with a full box and one skater waiting to go in -- EIO tried to call a timeout with both of their captains in the box (which was actually something we opted to not fall victim to). They got a successful timeout, but it was no good, the captains were still unable to talk with the refs -- one of the afflictions of serving time in the box -- all the while I still had all three of the Rollers' timeouts available to me.
I knew the longer the clock kept running, the harder it would be for EIO to mount any sort of comeback. With that in mind, I wanted to keep our own timeouts to mininum, forcing EIO to call the TOs to stop the clock. I burned one when we realized we had fielded a jammer with three minor penalties, stopping the clock to switch out some players and set Taco up to intentionally earn her fourth minor by an illegal procedure/poodle -- so that she could begin jamming again with zero minors.
EIO would fail to field a jammer for a second time in the game, giving us another 2-minute opportunity for maximum point scoring. In both instances, we had Lady Gotcha on the track to give us the best advantage as the lone jammer.
Two other mistakes that we gratefully captialized on were: EIO at one point had earned lead-jammer, giving her the right to end the jam by repeatedly hitting her hips with her hands, but failed to call the jam off, instead opting to play defense as a jammer -- thus unintentionally running the very clock out that they needed.
Another mistake was the opposing jammer did not have lead, but upon getting through the pack waited there outside of the engagement zone looking to block our jammer when she came through. With lead fully secured, I coached Taco into just slowing down and hanging out behind the pack. Had the opposing jammer hurried and attempted a scoring pass we would have called the jam. But she didn't and we were able to burn about 1 1/2 minutes off the game clock.
The home crowd was pretty upset at some of our tactics, sometimes being confused on why we employed certain strategy. I kept my composer.
Our pack work was stronger than we had in the past two games. The Rollers worked hard at keeping the front cleared and their options open. The endurance training definitely helped, as the team was skating hard and fast to keep the opposing jammer at the back of the pack. As she struggled our jammers were at ease sweeping around and ahead. Our blockers stayed clean for the most part, in comparison with our last game. When we played Iowa City last, we lost at last three skaters to foul outs or expulsions.
This time around, Mexican Monster only had four trips to the box, and even some of our skaters that seemed penalty-prone stayed relatively clean. Eastern Iowa, possibly out of frustration, started stepping up their hitting and taking a few more risks, picking up penalty minutes in the process.
With 3 minutes left in the game, the bout was out of reach for Eastern Iowa. Taco volunteered to jam in both the remaining jams, a testament to her confidence and her endurance. She earned lead, got a few points and waited before she called off the penultimate jam with about 45 seconds remaining in the game, assuring one more jam would unfold. As the clock started ticking down and the time keepers hand raised (a 10-second warning that the jam was to begin), I called my second timeout, to go over some last minute coaching.
If Taco got lead jammer, I wanted her to keep an eye on the clock only calling the jam once it ran to zero. If she did not get lead, the pack was instructed to skate as fast as possible minimizing any more points being scored by EIO (and as a side effect, minimizing the amount of points we could score). I also wanted to make sure she didn't pick up a third minor in the jam prior and we wouldn't endanger a fourth minor and a power jam for EIO.
Taco wouldn't be designated lead, but the pack new the plan and took off, keeping the jammer in the back for a long time. The game was over. We had secured our first win of the season and our first road win as a league.
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