Kåre Mol: The players are the project leaders of their own careers. We, as coaches, are the helpers

As the 2024 edition of the #CEVCoachesConvention approaches (13-15 September, Sofia, Bulgaria), we are warming up for the CEV Development flagship event by getting to know better the three high-profile speakers that will share their wide coaching knowledge with the attendees. 

Kåre Mol, Atsushi Katoh and Ranko Rajović will be taking the floor in Levski Sofia Sports hall in less than a month, contributing to a great experience of the young coaches and physical education teachers, delving together with them into more details of Volleyball at grassroot level. 

Today, we speak to Kåre Mol, known for having excelled as a player, coach, and mentor in both Volleyball and Beach Volleyball. Mol, who is the CEV Beach Volleyball Coach of the Year in both 2019 and 2021, shares more about the beginning of his coaching career, the qualities of a good coach, the importance of trust and ownership and more.

Read on and stay tuned for interviews with Katoh and Rajovic. 

On the beginning of his coaching career

“My transition from player to coach was a coincidence. The team I was playing for, fired their coach. I was a player at that time, so I started acting as a player and a coach in a transition phase. My knee started hurting, and then I went 100% to coaching."

“I was 32 years old when I started coaching professionally. There are difficulties always - if you are a player, you have  to approach the situation differently than when you are coaching. When you are coaching, you are trying to get the best out of the athletes you are working with. It is not always so easy to be a coach and a player -  you have a different role, you have to be really adapting to what is good to your players, to work with them, You have to make decisions, you have to be a leader - but that is not a straightforward process going from playing to being a coach.”

“I have always been fascinated about the complexity of Volleyball and Beach Volleyball. I don’t consider myself a Beach Volleyball coach, I consider myself a Volleyball coach. I do both.”

On differences and similarities between Indoor Volleyball and Beach Volleyball

“In Beach Volleyball, you work much more individually - you get to interact much more with one person, or two. If you have a team, it is more about the team organisation and putting  the pieces together. We can dig much deeper when we have only two persons to work with.”

“If you work with 12 players, if you can dig into each individual to develop them, you can then bring good things from Beach Volleyball as well, including the technical things, because in Beach Volleyball, we have really all-around players. They must have all the skills, they cannot have any weak spots.”

“There are a lot of similarities and synergies between Beach and Indoor Volleyball.”

On the qualities of a good coach

“You have to be observant and adaptive to what kind of players you have. You have to talk to them, with them, because the most important part of being a coach is to get the best out of the group. You have to create joint dreams together with them. You have to seek for improvement, and you have to make sure you are not pushing everything as a dictator.” 

“We, in the Scandinavian countries, we cooperate with our team, with our players. We make them work hard, and we cannot do that by just making them do that or the other thing, punish them. We have to cooperate and make something together.”

On being the team’s leader 

“You have to understand how you can be the best leader, and that’s also by asking questions. To coach someone, you need to know where the people are, what they know, what their sights of the sport are. It is really important to ask many questions. And then you have to make decisions and be a leader. 

They will have different opinions, and you have to make sure they know the line. Meanwhile, you have to work with your ego - to force your ideas is not the right thing to do. I am also a stubborn, if I am really convinced of something, I will convince the players as well, but you have to make sure that you listen to your players and your visions align.”

On ownership of the career and helping each other

“You have to push your athletes with love. Everybody needs to be pushed to also make progress in things. From my point of view, I believe that you have to build a really strong working group - people who also kind of can accept that others can be more successful, but they all help each other in the process."

"The players need to have ownership of their own career. The players should own their own career, and the others are helpers for their careers to make progress. Also, the opponents, in this aspect."

On responsibility 

“The kids should take responsibility, they show ownership. But they learn all that in the practice. How to deal with losses, with mistakes - these kinds of things are really important in my training group.”

On trust

“It is really important to build trust - so we know what path we want to go, and what standards we are living to. Kids need to trust their coach, the system, and they should believe that they can improve in that system.”

On fun 

“You coach while leading by example. But sports is also about having fun, about the environment, where you can laugh, have joy when you are travelling,  but get serious when working on court. Sport is always serious, serious, so we need also to have some serious fun sometimes.”

On what to expect from him at the 2024 #CEVCoachesConvention

“I am one of the few coaches that have coached kids from really young age up to Olympic champions. I am aware of all the steps - what can motivate them, what struggles they might have in their careers. Myself, I have passion for two groups in our sport - the really young kids that are coming to our sport and how to attract them, and, the second one, how to take care of the very best athletes. I have some experience to share in this role, how to coach from young to top athletes.”