By RICHIE HALL
It’s become a different world for high school sports coaches over the past three months.
Because of schools being shut down to the COVID-19 pandemic, these coaches are unable to meet with their student-athletes in person. So, they’ve had to get creative and take advantage of technology to help their athletes prepare for the upcoming season. This is true for everyone, from long-time to first-year coaches.
One of these first-year coaches is Annie Phillips, who has taken over the head coaching position of the Noblesville volleyball program.
“This has always been my dream, to lead a high school program,” said Phillips. “I felt like it was a really good opportunity timing-wise, because I’m truly invested in the girls.”
If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Phillips was a Miller volleyball player, graduating from NHS in 2014. She went on to play college volleyball at Trine University, and served as the junior varsity coach last season.
“It’s special because I came through this program as well,” said Phillips, who is also a fourth-grade teacher at Stony Creek Elementary.
Phillips was announced as the new Millers head coach in February, back when there was awareness of COVID-19, but it wasn’t seen as a threat just yet. That all changed in March. Soon the schools were shut down, and they won’t be re-opening until July 1, meaning that coaches can’t work with their athletes in person until then.
“I had to completely uproot what my original plans were and get creative,” said Phillips.
Thankfully, this is the age of videoconferencing. People who probably hadn’t heard of Zoom before the pandemic started soon became regular users of the software, which has actually been around since 2012. But as people were trying to stay connected while staying at home, it became a popular way to communicate.
Noblesville volleyball has been using Zoom to bring its team together.
“We started with the seniors, and I had a couple Zoom calls with the seniors, getting ideas from them and getting this program to come together,” said Phillips.
The Millers seniors stepped up, with each of the five seniors forming her own group of eight or nine underclassmen. Phillips sends out weekly workouts to the seniors, and they lead the other members of the team. The senior leader picks a time, then she and her group work out together while using Zoom.
“Myself or one of the other coaches tries to hop on a couple of each senior’s groups, so they can see us and get to know us,” said Phillips.
“I’ve been really impressed with the seniors, watching them take on this challenge,” said Phillips.
For the workouts, Phillips said her athletes “do a couple from our strength and conditioning coach each week, then a couple volleyball-specific drills,” such as ball control or footwork. She noted that everyone on the team has attended at least one or two Zooms.
“For strength and conditioning, they’ve been doing a lot of body weight, movement, sprints, core workouts, jumping,” said Phillips. They do some circuits every week from the strength and conditioning coach.”
As for the volleyball drills, Phillips said the team started with ball control “and everyone doing the same thing.” But as the workouts continue, they will start to become more individualized, with setter drills and hitting drills as an example.
The seniors have also incorporated some fun into the workouts, such as different challenges. There’s also an Iron Miller club, where seniors nominate athletes that have gone above and beyond during the workouts. One of the seniors took it upon herself to start sending out a motivational quote of the week.
“They have been into it,” said Phillips.
The workouts have also been helpful in getting the freshmen prepared for high school volleyball. Phillips said the Millers have almost 30 freshmen on the team, with each senior having five or six in her group.
“I’m really excited to get them in the gym and see what they’re capable of,” said Phillips.
While the Zoom workouts have been fun, they also serve another purpose: Getting the team in top physical condition. If that is successful, then Phillips said “hopefully the girls will be in shape, and we can really get right into volleyball and not waste time with getting them back into shape.”
The target date for that is July 1, and getting back in the gym can’t come soon enough.
“We’re still waiting to hear from our athletic department for what that looks like for Noblesville,” said Phillips. “We’re just excited for any chance to get together and meet the incoming players.”