Staff and Coaches

One not-so-secret formula of VbDC’s success has been its coaching staff. We’re proud that some of the best lead our training sessions. As in any profession, every coach is different and many have areas of specialisation: Because someone leads a pro club he or she isn’t automatically knowledgeable with the latest methods for teaching beginners; a coach with an inspirational appeal to teens may not have the experience needed to head a university team; we even know one cool and collected national team coach who privately confesses to becoming very apprehensive if asked to teach pre-teens!

We take care to coordinate our schedule with the coaches who are best suited to devise and deliver the curriculum. And we also take care in assembling the coaching teams for each camp staff. Rarely can a coach lead a camp on their first VbDC assignment. We research and trial coaches from around the world to join our summer camps as an assistant coach – not just to get to know them and for them to become familiar with VbDC –  but also to expose young athletes to the melange of different coaching philosophies and styles that they bring, and which can only be experienced when the training is offered at a truly international camp. 

That’s given us a unique perspective on coaching, especially on how to teach young, open and receptive athletic minds. There’s also a great serendipity to our approach. Coaches often drop in to observe our camps and meet the coaches delivering the curriculum. Some are colleagues and others just want an introduction, but it means that VbDC camps have become gathering points for some of the sport’s finest coaching talent and a forum where ideas and suggestions are freely exchanged. 

Here, in no particular order, are some of the coaches who have worked with VbDC over the years.   

Coaches

Gordon was head coach at our very first summer camp in 2005, and she had already established her reputation as a name to follow in UK volleyball coaching long before then. A teacher and Volleyball England tutor, she knows how deliver a quality session, and as a Scouser, she does it with a no-nonsense delivery that serious young athletes quickly recognise. So much appreciated and loved, she has on occasion trained the children of young athletes who had been in her charge decades ago.

Hailing from Romania, Molnar is head coach of the Ireland national men’s team. He contributes a distinctly Eastern European style of coaching to our camps, blended with quiet observance of group drills followed by dynamic one-on-one instruction. Molnar expects athletic self-discipline when on the court, but off it supplies a steady stream of hilarious tales from his playing and early coaching years – and wherever he is, he shares an infectious enthusiasm for the sport.

Now an assistant coach at Baylor University, McDonald’s first association with VbDC was as a camper, and soon thereafter as an inspiring and effective coach of female athletes attending our camps. He played for the club we sponsor before marrying an American player also on the club roster, moving to the USA and becoming a member of the Georgia Tech University coaching staff.  Soon afterwards he was off to Texas, the Bears, barbecues and a new puppy.

Sister to Will, cinematographer and incredibly capable with intermediate and young volleyball athletes. She has coached at VbDC camps in England and Belgium, and produced our first promotional videos, some of which are still used today.

If you watch VNL or Olympic volleyball you will know Lucas as the voice of English language volleyball broadcasting. The father of a pro volleyball athlete, and former coach on the national scene, his easy West Country-tinged dialect can also be heard in person when Lucas takes time from his broadcasting assignments to join us at one of our camps.

A former England juniors head coach, off the court Murphy is an athletic director and GCSE assessor. He’s also one of the most respected coaches we’ve ever worked with, not just for his tough-but-fair approach to athletes and their training, but especially for the way he encourages them to figure out for themselves how to resolve a problem with their playing technique rather than just giving them “how to” instructions.

The Don of English volleyball if there is ever to be one. Coming to England via Jamaica, then Toronto, then Rutgers University in New Jersey, he has been head coach of the England men, the England women, and one of the country’s perennially top clubs, Mallory. His insightful court lectures on technique are delivered in a Caribbean cadence that helps them remain in campers’ memories for years.

Klibi’s distant past of playing for the Tunisian national team and as a pro in the Middle East have not diminished his local fame, and when he visits his home town shopkeepers still offer him free ice creams and drinks. Before his knee became problematic and ended his playing, he had moved to London where he was on the roster of several of the UK’s top clubs. Today he is one VbDC’s most generous coaches for providing one-on-one assistance to campers.

Dr Loftus, if you will, as he is in the final phase of earning a PhD in sports mental health. Formerly coach at a US university, a former Scotland national team coach, current England men’s team coach and an assistant coach for the Great Britain team at the 2012 Olympics, no wonder Loftus is one of the most accomplished and respected coaches in the UK. At the net, on first hearing his Scots brogue one might first think “dour” but after a morning training with him, an athlete will know it’s really “wisdom soberly delivered”.

One of the best-known coaches on the Dutch volleyball scene, and for decades a staple at the Stanford University summer camp programme in California. A teacher of students with special needs, Schimmel has worked with The Netherlands national squad, with the pro men’s team in Apeldoorn and with many local and regional teams in his home country. Very capable at capturing – and keeping – young athletes’ attention for courtside explanations of techiques and tactics.

Directors

Deb Pickens
Deb PickensDirector
Deb has been a volleyball player all her life, although in her high school years in Lamoni, Iowa and Blue Springs, Missouri, basketball competed for her sports attention, too. When she was offered a place on the Graceland University volleyball team, that became her main sport. After two years there she transferred to the University of Missouri, and played on the pre-Title IX varsity squad – when the team travelled to away games by bus and made their own uniforms.

She graduated with a degree in education, and started her career as a coach in the rural Grain Valley, Missouri schools, taking the high school team to the state playoffs in her second year there. She was soon recruited by an international school in England, and in 1980 she and husband Bob left Missouri to start a new life abroad.

Deb spent her first two decades building up the school’s varsity program, as well as raising two sons who played volleyball at a high level – one of whom managed to pay for most of his university degree with a sports scholarship and has, himself become a leading club and school volleyball coach in St Louis, Missouri. In recent years she has set up a “seamless” volleyball program at her school that enables youngsters to enter the sport at age 8, and work their way through to the varsity level by progressing through a series of linked interscholastic and club activities. The school’s club permits students, faculty, members, parents and alumni to all play in local leagues and tournaments.

Deb’s main responsibilities at VbDC involve sales and logistics, coaching, and managing the VbDC finances. She is also able to advise on scholarships to USA universities having helped several people over the years.

Bob Pickens
Bob PickensDirector
Bob had only had a passing awareness of volleyball as he grew up in Mississippi, but while attending the University of Missouri a chance meeting in a car park introduced him to a player on the Mizzou varsity women’s team who agreed to a date, showed him the game and eventually became his wife. After graduation Bob and Deb played in local leagues in the Kansas City area, and in 1980 he took a leave of absence from his job as a newspaper reporter and followed his new wife to Britain when she was offered a job as a volleyball coach at an international school. Soon after he was asked to edit a newspaper, and he and Deb have lived in England ever since.

During that time he has helped form a club in Farnham, Surrey, where they live, raised two sons in a volleyball-minded household who went on to play for the England juniors and England national league teams, and became involved in local leagues. One of his first activities was to join the Farnborough Volleyball Club, a small group of players in a work-based club at the Defense Establishment Research Association, and as the club’s chairman created a plan to take the club into the community, tripling its membership and establishing it as the major volleyball club in north Hampshire. He also became qualified to referee national league matches and obtained his coaching certificate.

Bob works with the South East Volleyball Association’s regional youth development programme by coaching beginning boys’ teams, and has chaired the Surrey Volleyball Association for two years, concentrating on efforts to revitalise the SVA’s infrastructure, bring new area clubs into its competitive schedule, and introduce a plan for junior development in the county.

Bob’s main duties at VbDC involve working on external communications and marketing, and providing logistical support for the growing number of camps, and helping as an assistant coach.

 John Biddiscombe
John BiddiscombeDirector
Like many people in the UK for John the exposure to volleyball in school was limited to only a few PE lessons. Badminton and squash were the main sports that he played, but in 1986 the desire to take part in a team sport saw him sign up for an adult education course in volleyball.

Fortunately within weeks of the course finishing a new club was just starting up in Guildford and he quickly signed up as a member. The club grew quickly and John volunteered as a committee member serving in several roles eventually becoming club chair person.

Starting in 2000 Guildford hosted several events for Volleyball England such as European Championship matches and Cup Finals which John was instrumental in successfully managing. Continuing his work with Volleyball England he served as Marketing Director on their board for 2 years.

John is active in local volleyball with roles on the committee of both the Surrey and South East region associations. He has played for Guildford in the National League, is a qualified referee and coach, having coached Guildford womens team in the National League.

He was active at the London 2012 Olympics as part of the team providing statistics for the indoor tournament at Earls Court, the highlight being to “stat” the Womens final between Brazil and USA.

John’s main duties with VbDC are as a coach, with a special interest in technology having had a series of articles published in 3-Touch magazine and also helping with the logistics of running the camps and managing the VbDC website.