At what age do you think young players should begin to specialize?

McCutcheon: I think 16 or maybe 17. I think one of the injustices clubs and coaches do to young players is that they make them specialize way too early in their careers.

One of the great coaching and system innovations that USA Volleyball initiated was specialization of players. In the 1980s we designed a way to play whereby the best passers on those teams passed, the best setter set, and so on. What people tend to forget, however, is that that system was designed specifically for those teams and for the 1984 and 1988 Olympic gold medalists, it worked wonderfully.

Now, to a certain degree, it still works today – however now we need “specialized generalists.” That is to say that we need athletes who can play a position (outside hitter, middle blocker, etc.) but can also play the entire game, i.e., they can all dig, all set, all block, etc, etc. The best time for athletes to learn how to do all of the fundamental skills is when they are young. So by making players specialize too early, we don’t allow them to learn how to play the whole game.

By the time the players are 16 or 17, they will have some physical maturation to go with whatever skill set they have and it will be clear what position they should specialize in. Until then, everyone should be doing a lot of everything.

Photo by Kent Horner

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