What if you had to board a plane every time your high school volleyball team traveled to an away game?

That's everyday life for volleyball players in Juneau, Alaska!

Coach Chijo takes the podcast onto a boat in beautiful Southeast Alaska for a conversation with Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears head coach Arnold Ibias and players Bree Powers and Nellie Stowers.

With only two teams in their conference and no roads connecting Juneau to other cities, traveling to compete is a major undertaking. The team flies across Alaska, sometimes stays overnight in school classrooms, and relies on community fundraising to support a volleyball budget of $65,000–$80,000.

The players share what it's like traveling almost every weekend, adjusting to life in Alaska, and building friendships through their unique experiences.

You'll also hear about the differences between volleyball in Hawaii and Alaska, the challenges of Alaska's long winters, what makes an athlete coachable, and Coach Chijo's approach to choosing team captains.

It's a conversation about volleyball, community, dedication, and the extraordinary experiences that come with playing sports in Juneau.

Just GO!

Wait… snow volleyball is actually a real thing?

Coach Chijo sits down with Coach Betül Çetin, an accomplished indoor, beach, and snow volleyball athlete from Türkiye who has competed internationally and now brings that experience to coaching.

Coach Betül won bronze representing Türkiye at the 2012 U16 World Championship in indoor volleyball. In beach volleyball, she became the first female athlete from Türkiye to compete at the Youth Olympic Games when she represented her country at the 2014 Nanjing Games, finishing ninth. She has also won more than 20 Turkish Championship titles, earned silver and bronze medals at the Balkan Championships, and finished fourth at the 2015 European Beach Volleyball Championship.

And yes — she plays snow volleyball too.

Coach Betül won the 2023 CEV European Snow Volleyball Tour and was runner-up on the tour in 2017.

In this episode, she explains what it's actually like to play volleyball on snow — from cleats and gloves to three-player teams and snowstorms.

The conversation also explores her journey from player to coach and back to player, what coaching taught her about the game, the challenges of playing-time decisions, good mistakes versus bad mistakes, and why she's returning to Türkiye to pursue professional volleyball again.

Coach Betül has coached athletes in Canada and the USA, focusing on athlete development, technical training, and performance improvement.

And there's a great connection at the end: Coach Betül shares how Coach Chijo's videos helped her when she began coaching in Canada — before the two unexpectedly met in Las Vegas.

It's a conversation about competing, coaching, learning, and following your passion for volleyball.

Just GO!

Sometimes you have to get out of the gym.

After running five volleyball clinics in three days in Alaska, Coach Chijo heads into the Alaskan wilderness for a completely different kind of adventure.

The trip includes hours in four-wheel-drive side-by-sides, glacier melt rivers, incredible scenery, and eventually a glacier.

Then comes the big question: Is Coach Chijo actually going to jump into the freezing glacier water?

This episode is a reminder for volleyball players and coaches to occasionally step away from the gym, get outside, experience something new, and make some memories.

And sometimes that means taking the polar plunge.

Just GO!

Why is high school volleyball different in Texas?

Coach Chijo sits down with Libby Pacheco from the Texas High School Coaches Association while attending the association's massive coaching convention in Houston.

Libby explains why Texas takes high school athletics so seriously and how having coaches working on campus changes the relationship between coaches and athletes.

They dive into Texas volleyball culture, why the level of competition is so high, the relationship between high school and club volleyball, and whether athletes really need to play club to be successful.

They also discuss multi-sport athletes, school size, facilities and resources, competitive parents, professional development for coaches, and the bigger role high school sports can play in an athlete's life.

It's an inside look at a high school sports culture that surprised Coach Chijo and gave him a few major aha moments.

Just GO!

How do you reduce drama on a volleyball team?

This is Part 2 of my conversation with Coach Blase. In Part 1, The Playing Time Problem, we talked about fairness, equality, winning, development, and why playing time creates so much conflict between coaches, players, and parents.

I ended that episode by asking Coach Blase what advice he would give young coaches struggling to handle playing-time issues.

This episode begins with his answer.

And that answer leads us into a much bigger discussion about how coaches can proactively reduce drama on their teams.

Coach Blase believes better-informed parents and players can mean less drama. He explains why he regularly educates parents about what's happening in practice, questions the idea of closed practices, and argues that parents should be viewed as part of the team's support system rather than the enemy.

Then he shares an idea that even surprised me: having parents become cleared and participate in practices as assistant coaches.

We also discuss why coaches need to remain open to change, even after decades of experience, and why being vulnerable enough to receive feedback can make you a better coach.

Coach Blase shares how he had a parent track his interactions with every athlete during practice. What he discovered was eye-opening: some players received no attention at all, while others heard almost nothing but corrections.

That leads to another important lesson: You have to be the coach for all of your players.

Ultimately, reducing drama requires transparency, communication, education, vulnerability, and a willingness to do things differently.

It's not my team.

It's our team.

Keep learning. Keep growing. And remember, let's play volleyball because it's fun.

Just GO!

Playing time. Few topics create more tension between coaches, players, and parents.

In this episode, Coach Blase and I tackle one of the most difficult questions in youth volleyball: What does fair playing time actually mean?

Coach Blase shares the story of a parent who used a stopwatch to compare her daughter's time on the court with another player's and even counted how many times each athlete touched the ball.

That leads us into a much bigger conversation about equal vs. fair, winning vs. development, and how much control coaches actually have over an athlete's opportunities during a match.

I also share one of my own experiences coaching 12U. I gave a middle blocker an opportunity to stay in and play back row. The player enjoyed the opportunity, but her parents had a very different reaction.

We discuss why coaches sometimes play developing athletes even when it could hurt the team's chances of winning, why some positions naturally get more touches, and whether changes like unlimited substitutions would actually solve the playing time problem.

This is Part 1 of my conversation with Coach Blase.

Next week, we'll finish the playing time discussion and talk about how coaches can reduce drama on their teams.

Keep learning. Keep growing. And remember, let's play volleyball because it's fun.

Just GO!

Coach Mehdi played volleyball for 25 years in Iran, including years in the Iranian national-team system.

Now he's coaching in the United States and passing everything he learned on to the next generation, including his own daughter, Asal.

In this episode of the Coach Chijo Podcast, Mehdi takes us inside the life of an elite volleyball player. He talks about training three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon, living in national-team camps, playing professionally, traveling internationally, and spending long stretches away from his family.

Asal joins the conversation and gives us the player's perspective on having a former national-team player as her dad and coach. She's a 14-year-old outside hitter with a big goal: someday playing professionally in Italy.

She talks about training with her dad outside of regular team practices, being a leader on her team, staying positive after mistakes, and how much work she's willing to put in to chase her dream.

We also get into volleyball culture in Iran, Mehdi's career as a 6'7" left-handed opposite, playing against Japan, professional volleyball around the world, and his philosophy about setting big goals.

Mehdi knows firsthand that reaching the top takes an enormous amount of work. Now he's trying to teach that lesson to his own kids.

Watch the Coach Chijo Podcast on YouTube or listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast app.

What can an experienced coach learn from someone in their first year coaching high school volleyball?

Quite a lot.

Coach Chijo met Coach Cameron Humble at the Texas High School Coaches Association Convention in Houston. After learning that she had just completed her first season as the head volleyball coach at Orangefield High School, he wanted to know how she approached the job.

Coach Humble shares how she worked to change the culture of her program by giving players ownership, expecting upperclassmen to lead, creating competition in the gym, challenging her team against bigger schools, and building an environment where players support one another.

The results included an outright district championship, but this conversation goes well beyond wins and losses.

Coach Humble also talks about getting comfortable being uncomfortable, continually learning as a coach, developing confidence in the weight room, and the coaches who helped shape her philosophy.

After 33 years of coaching, Coach Chijo finds himself hearing lessons he wishes he'd understood in his own first year.

A conversation about culture, growth, leadership, and never thinking you know it all.