Why Aren’t You Coaching? The Conversation That Started Aija Abele’s Coaching Journey (Part 1)

0:00This episode of Better Together is sponsored by Huntsville Hair Company, where confidence and community meet behind the chair, whether you're gearing up for a game day or you just need a little refresh, their team of stylists help you look and fill your best on and off the court. This is Better Together, the podcast that's reshaping how we think about volleyball development. We're dedicated to the deeper side of the volleyball journey, where growth means a whole lot more than just skills and stats. We're here to put players first and to build spaces where athletes and coaches feel truly supported, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. They deserve environments where they can thrive. Here, you'll find insight, encouragement and connection to help you grow on and off the court. We know the game is bigger than just points and wins.

1:01It's about building resilience, belonging, and inclusive cultures that last, where every athlete feels valued and empowered. Each episode is hosted by Corinne Jones, our director of player and coach development. Through honest conversations with athletes, coaches, and alumni, we explore what it really takes to develop not just skills, but character and confidence. Whether you're on the court, on the sidelines, or you're simply just passionate about investing in the person behind the player, we're here to learn, reflect, and grow with purpose because we're truly better together. Let's get into it. All right, on today's podcast, I have a fellow coach with me, Miss Aya Abella. Nailed it. Did I get it right? You got it. We have been practicing that for about five minutes before we started that intro. I have always just said, hey, Coach Aya, let's go.

2:02So before we got started, and Brittany, our producer, was like, we all just start the podcast instead of conversating because this is really good. Right off the bat, like, I don't think I realized how international you are. It's kind of a funny mix because growing up, always the, hey, we've got family. We've got family spread out all over. That was normal and figured it out. And I just remember as a kid, absolutely loving, to me, the coolest stories were people who talked about, like, oh, yeah, I can go to my grandparents on the weekend or just, we get to see all the family all the time, which to them, that seems totally normal. And to my sister and I and our family, we're like, oh, my gosh, that's so cool that you can just hop over, see your parents, or drop down the road. Yeah. So whenever anyone asks, like, oh, where are you from? Tell me where you were born and raised. I'm like, do you want the short answer or the long answer? We want the long answer, long answer. So two really defining aspects of who I am are a, that I'm a very proud Latvian American.

3:04And also that I identify as a native of Alabama, which are kind of two conjuncturing aspects where all of my Latvian friends know me as, oh, yeah, that's a girl from Alabama. All of my friends from Alabama are like, oh, yeah, that's one with a Latvian heritage. So it's a fun kind of juxtaposition, but all four of my grandparents, paternal and maternal, born, raised, grew up in Latvia, very small country in the Baltic States. So if you know where Germany is, then Poland, and then just go a little bit up to the right, there's a three Baltic States right by the Baltic Sea, Lithuania and Latvia, Estonia. So we're right there in the middle. Wow. Fun fact, it's about a third the size of Alabama. So very small you can drive side, side and day. Wow. So post kind of World War II Soviet occupation, they immigrated from Latvia, were in displaced persons camps in Germany. And how immigration worked at that time was, it was on a sponsorship system. And so either an organization, most often it was a church community, had to sponsor that family and say, hey, we'll take care of them, make sure housing, food, jobs for the first

4:08year so they can immigrate. And how that was in Canada versus the US was a little bit different. But those kind of two examples, I always highlight because that's where my family emigrated to. So my mom's parents emigrated to Canada in Toronto. So that's where they were able to find sponsorship. They created their life. That's where my mom was born and raised and lived until she married my dad. And then my dad's parents found sponsorship in Michigan, so kind of in the Grand Rapids Kalamazoo area. They found sponsorship there. And then when they got married, kind of traveled around, but they really landed in Southern California, Orange County area. So that's where my dad was born and raised. And when my parents got married, they also met through the Latvian community at a song and dance festival. But it was one of those like, hey, it kind of had been ships passing in the night before as my mom had played volleyball with one of my dad's sisters. And so it was like, oh, yeah, we know of each other, just hadn't really met before. And also pre-social media days where you don't know what everyone's up to, where everyone

5:09will go to school, all those things. So when they got married, my dad was, he had gotten a job that had him stationed in Germany for a little bit. So when they got married, moved to Germany, Germany, to France, to loose France, so Southern area, that's where I was born. We were there for about a year and then back to Germany for about a year, a little over that. And then back to the States where we were in Michigan for three, three and a half years, for my little sister, Lee, it was born. And then my dad got a job in Huntsville, Alabama. So we moved to Madison and kind of the track that we were on, it was a, hey, everyone to three years kind of move. And if you see my parents and especially my dad, pretty fit bald guy who always wears black half leisure, everyone assumes like, oh, yeah, military, we're moving all the time. No automotive, but trails the same path. So we had moved to Huntsville and we were actually supposed to move again based on, hey, just kind of things happening on, mode of industry and kind of for better reasons, my parents

6:13absolutely fell in love with the school system that we were in. So we were in Madison City schools. They loved it and realized, okay, with my dad, as much as he was traveling, there was no point of us moving anywhere for him to just be on the road all the time, which he was. So then from 2005 on, so really from kind of kindergarten, first grade, I've been in Alabama. All of my school years have been here because that's where I remember beating you in high school. Yeah. Doing your thing as a setter for about Jones, crazy, isn't that like, that feels like a lifetime ago that we met, but also so fun to be able to share those aspects as well as yes. We've continued to grow and develop as individuals, but also you may have seen me as crazy little, hey, I'm trying to study. I don't know what I'm doing trying to help. I love it. You're like, I'm trying to say you were a phenom during your time. You were a phenom during your time. I loved when I saw your name pop up on my lesson schedule and stuff. I'm like, okay, this is going to be a good hour. Yeah.

7:14This is going to be good. So fun. But yeah, so that's really that basis of, hey, moved around a good bit when we were younger and so much of my identity is that I grew up in a Latin American household and very plugged into the Latin American community and that heavily overlaps with the story of how I got plugged into volleyball and fell in love with it and still a huge motivation on love for the sport and also having those roots where, okay, sure, I wasn't born here, but native to the North Alabama area and also have a passion for growing the sport specifically here for being a product of the volleyball community and the 256. Now how many languages can you speak? Fluently two. So we speak Latvian at home and then English, of course, was our kind of like school language. But like we were talking about earlier, there's some things that, of course, like how they're Spanish. We have our myths of like the Latvian English kind of language. It starts in one language and it's in another and everybody in the circle knows.

8:15And that's not something we're really conscious of until one of my friends were like, you've switched in and out of whatever and we're like, I miss the little part of that. We did that. So that's part of it. But so those are the two languages we speak as a family and then with my dad having most of his work is all in German and then having lived in France for a little bit, German more so I can listen and understand kind of have a grasp concept enough where I can order food on my own, feel comfortable. But if it's like a more in-depth conversation, the conversational skills aren't there and then French a little bit less. Those are on my bucket list for like the next year or two, I'm like, okay, I should brush those on. I'm going to get this down. Yeah. Well, and even from a, I absolutely love traveling when not traveling for volleyball. If I could do that professionally for my life, that would be so fun. Man, is there a job for that life? There's a job for me. We just need you to travel around the world. We don't need you doing things. I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. I'll be your assistant. Yeah. Hey, I think we could get a really good like side business there.

9:15But just of course, it helps with traveling. It's a cool skill. But then also, I think something that I'm very conscious of and try to be is stretching your brain and the neuroplasticity as much as possible, like, hey, do the things that it's good for aging, especially as we see just kind of what the long-term effects of different lifestyle choices are. I think that's also something that I think about when I approach coaching as well is at this age, at an adolescent teenage age, what are the habits that we're helping them instill that will also be good foundational aspects for the other ranges of life and starting those good habits, even if they don't know that that's a habit. Yeah, they don't even realize you're kind of helping them do that. Yeah, yeah. Like, we're helping you when you're 50, you're going to really appreciate this lesson right here. Yep. Not 11. We wanted to take a quick break to think our partners at Huntsville Hair Company, the official sponsor of the Better Together podcast.

10:17If you've ever tried to juggle long tournament weekends, early practices, and honestly everything in between, you know how hard it can be to make time for yourself. Huntsville Hair Company gets that. Their stylist specializes in helping you feel confident and refreshed, whether it's a fresh cut, a color, or just a little self-care reset. We love their focus on confidence, connection, and community, the same values we talk about every week here on the podcast. So next time you're ready for a refresh, go check out Huntsville Hair Company and tell them better together seeing you. So let's talk about how you even began your coaching journey. You were a player in high school, then you went to Alabama, right? And then played club there, got your job, started doing adult things, talked about when coaching popped back in. Yeah. As I was reflecting, I was really thinking about one conversation that you and I had. And that was definitely a pivotal moment in coaching that I'll touch on in a sec. But my first real introduction to coaching was totally accidental, and I was unaware

11:21of it. Of course, as a player, there's the youth camps that you're doing, and you're gaining coaching skills in that aspect, and it's of course on a different field, but going to Alabama and playing club, I absolutely love my experience, and CVF is such a cool option that I think should be also talked about more of just like, hey, this is an option, considerate, think about it, especially for individuals that are really sold on a certain academic program or a certain state, big state school, something like that. And it brought so much joy and excitement, and I got to keep playing at a competitive level, still travel, all those things. And with that, my last two years that I played club, I served as team president, and that's they, instead of having a coach, and then the team, it's an elected group where you have president, VP, treasurer, because it is a student org. With that, there were aspects of that role that I knew what I was getting into. I had been a captain before at the NCVF level, at a high school level.

12:23I knew what it took to be a team captain, what your teammates need, how to facilitate. So that was a part of the job description. I was like, yeah, got it. The admin side of it, hey, making sure you're registered as a student org, paperwork, current registrations. I had done admin for other student orgs, so I was good at it. The part of the job description that I did not have experience in, and very transparently didn't know I was signing up for, because it's something that you just don't have a lot of visibility on was, there's no coach, you are the coach. And that was a looking back, very tough position to be both kind of that silent coach and a teammate, and especially when you're kind of coaching, writing line-ups, those kinds of things for people that are not just peers, but some have been friends that you've played volleyball with for a long time, and especially in situations where this is something we're doing out of enjoyment. This is not, there's not school funding on the line. There's not a coach's career and record on the line. It is more, hey, we'd love to play volleyball. We're doing this, and we're going for a good record.

13:24How do you balance that? Right. And I think that experience gave me a lot of tough lessons quick, and taught me a lot that I was able to open up my eyes and say, okay, you know what, these are things that I can take away and learn. If I want to coach going forward, it was also a totally different experience since it is college-aged girls. Yeah, now you're talking 19 to 24 kind of thing. And there's such... And even later. And even later that age. Yeah, because we had girls that were, I mean, we were 18 coming into college, but then you also have some girls that could be 24 or 25 in grad school, and because there's not necessarily a cap on how much time you're playing. So just the stages of life are so different from 18, you're coming in and I'm like, okay, I'm coming in. Fresh have a high school and club ball, and at 24 or 25, it's like, hey, okay, so I'm trying to figure out what's my career, something we're getting married, all these things. And so that was my accidental intro to coaching where I was like, I didn't realize I was signing up for this. And here we are, I'm going to be better for it.

14:25I hope. Right. And so then after I stayed at Alabama for my undergrad and grad school, and then after I graduated from grad school, I was familiar with United as a club program because I had some friends who were younger than I was in high school who ended up playing for United the years that it really started. So United and I, in high school, we're like ships passing in the night. As I was going to college, United was picking up, which I was so sad about. I wish I could have gotten the player side of the experience as well. But one thing that I knew United most for was hosting adult open gyms on Sunday afternames and evenings. And especially those last few years of college, whenever I was home for winter break summers, that was something I did because I had an old club teammate from Alabama who had also moved to Huntsville. I was like, hey, you're totally calm, it's a fun outlet, it's a bunch of adults that are washed up college players, retired club players, retired college athletes, trying to like, hey, it's a fun, really social thing, but also like obviously a good workout,

15:27a good network. And moving to Huntsville after grad school, the social network was one aspect of adulthood that I was like, okay, still trying to figure this out. How do you make friends as an adult so much of your life up until that point? It's like, hi, here's your team. Here's your group of people. So here's your friend group. Like it's easy. And that's not necessarily the case in adulthood because you're going into a workplace where it's, hey, one of my work best friends could be someone in their late 60s, but that's also not a social network outside. So honestly, adult open gym on Sunday nights became really the highlight of my week those first few months as I was trying to adjust to full-time working and figuring out, okay, who am I as a post grad adult? Right. And so that was really an awesome constant for, I'd say probably that first year of just like, okay, hey, whatever's happening in the work week, I know. I've got open gym. Life was good. It's fine. Let's go. And there was one night that you were sitting in the lobby and we were coming out, of course, it's late at night, we're tired. And you just thought me, you're like, hey, why aren't you coaching?

16:31I think the greatest sign was I did not have a good answer to why I wasn't touching I was like, honestly, yeah, I don't have a good answer to that. So what you need? And so then you and I sat down, I think it was either the week or the following week. And in typical, this characteristic of myself comes from two aspects. One, naturally the pool of setters that usually fall into and the pool that eldest, born independent daughters fall into, where if there's something to overthink, I'm going to overthink it. So I came to you with this list of like, okay, here's every single aspect of coaching and notebook that was like three inches thick and you open that up and I was like, okay, this is going to be good. This is going to be good. I had done a lot of interviews and then you were, I've got some questions for you and I was like, oh my god, we've got to get her. And so there was like, okay, here's 20% of the things that I don't know what age group you're thinking of to put me with, but I know these are the aspects that I feel comfortable with that I would bring value to the table with.

17:31Hi, here's 80% of help. I don't know what I'm doing. I know that I don't know these yet and I, there's a lot of things that I don't know what I don't know yet. And so that was a very insightful conversation and I think the funniest response that you had in that conversation was, do you not understand how many of these coaches, not that they don't know what they're doing, but they're still trying to figure it out. They know a lot. I'm still trying to figure it out, we're all trying to figure it out. And so I think that was a really, it was a very pivotal conversation where I was like, all right, let's take a stab and that was, so then last year was my first year with United. This is my second year. So I was with 14 blue last year, 14 blue, 25. What a great time. Got really lucky. I got to hang on y'all's bench at the fully tournament last year. And what's some energy, so such a fun thing. It was, your assistant was Emily, right? And so great energy, y'all, I got to hang with y'all and I think it was a three-setter

18:33that y'all ended up winning. And such hype and good instruction along with it. It was a great balance that y'all brought. And I was, I remember sitting on y'all's sideline that day, thinking back to our time in the office. And I was like, yeah, she's a keeper, we keep her, keep her rolling. Yeah. And so it's been fun also with last year having 14 blue and then this year I'm with 16 black and our assistant Scott was 17 national. That was really the conversation that you and I had after last season. I was like, okay. So 14, all of the pieces kind of, now by no means was everyday easy and all sparkles and rainbows. There were definitely those days of like, all right, let's figure out how to have this conversation or Coach Betty and I, my assistant this year. We were talking about it the other night where we're like, it's a spaghetti night. It's a, hey, throw the spaghetti at the wall, see what sticks and let's roll with it. So we definitely had those kind of spaghetti nights last year of like, we put together what we thought would be a solid practice plan. It's not working out. How do we adapt? And so I think it was overall a really fun season because there was so much growth and

19:38that also comes with the 14 age group is they're coming off their eighth grade season. You're getting prepped for their first high school tryout. There's a lot of life development happening at that point and also a lot of firsts as far as like, okay, first time for a lot of players going through a huge growth spurt where that was I just remember a few tearful conversations with people like, I don't know what I'm doing tonight. I think I'm like, my body won't do what I'm telling it to do. Maybe you've been playing volleyball. You know how to play volleyball at 411. You are now five six. You've never played volleyball at this size. You've never played volleyball with these arms, right? Level set with yourself. We're going to figure it out. So I think overall it was a very positive experience and got blessed with also phenomenal parents that helped close that feedback loop as well as far as, hey, lessons that we were talking about on the court. They were also re-emphasizing at home and not necessarily skill conversations but those

20:38conversations of, hey, how do we talk to ourselves as athletes? How do we talk to our teammates as athletes? How do we build trust? How do I learn what physical tired versus mental tired looks like and had an awesome, awesome team of parents that it really is a joint effort in that aspect. And after that season ended, you and I sat down and was like, okay, what went well? What are areas of growth? But then also as a coach, like the day that I stopped challenging or growing or learning is the day that it's probably like, okay, that might be the tap out day. So I hope that my entire journey throughout various aspects of life, but specifically for coaching is always one of growth and development and challenging myself. And so that challenge was, hey, what would another age group look like? And so jumping into 16s this year is a whole different ball game in that you still have that love, that joy for volleyball with the girls. It's a different experience in that. Okay, they've had some high school ball under their belt. They face different challenges and they've learned a little bit more about themselves.

21:42But then there are some challenges that say the same with, for a lot of them, this is the first time all playing together. Some may have jumped up to age levels at a time rather than one or we've got, on this team, I've got a freshman and a junior. So like those are even though it's two years of life in school, those are hugely pivotal different moments of life, because I think of who I was as a 14 year old freshman high school way different than 16 year old junior me. And all of that is we're all an accumulation of storybook, all those different experiences we gather. So that's been fun seeing the difference between the two of them. But when you talk about really that energy, that is something I hope to bring to every single team. And of course, every single team is going to need a different type of energy from me and they may need. That's like a season long process of learning, hey, I've got one player who needs this, another player who if I do or say that same thing is going to crumble or what one player might find super useful from me and my assistant coach, another player may say, I don't, like,

22:42I don't need that. That's not fueling me. And that's kind of the art of coaching. That's where we're kind of getting into the creativity of the fact that you understand that is huge, that what one player needs is not exactly the same thing somebody else needs to be successful. And I think that was probably my biggest misconception going into coaching with United was I knew there was a character, mental aspect development and a skill aspect. And in my mind, I was like, oh, yeah, it's like 50, 50, kind of 50 percent skill time drills kind of strategic that volleyball IQ and EQ. And then 50 percent of it is the hey, more character development, okay, how do we carry ourselves off the court? How do we carry ourselves in between games? How carrying ourselves in school also reflects how we are 100% and all these kind of little things and also the aspects of like, okay, let's talk about fueling and hydrating and what that means my numbers on that so far off that 50, 50 was that was a sorry joke on my

23:46part. And really I look at it more as like it's kind of that 85, 15 percent where when I take a step back and look at it, really so much of that skill and strategy that we're verbally coaching or talking about in practices really is a mental aspect of it. And I think when you get in the age group like you and I are in, we're both in 16s and they have been coached some ever since they were probably 10. So they've been introduced to the skill, the execution of the skill and stuff like that. And a lot of times now we look at it, their mistakes are from some of it, yes, the skill execution. Some of it is the self talk, the volleyball IQ of why we want you to do this, this way and helping them understand those things. And that's a whole different level that to be successful, we're all trying to get to help them out with that. Absolutely.

24:46Thanks so much for spending time with us here on Better Together. We don't take your time or your presence for granted. Every listen, every share, every moment of reflection you spend with us helps grow a community rooted in care, curiosity and a shared love for the game. We hope today's conversation sparked something meaningful for you. Don't forget to follow the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. And if this resonated with you, we'd love it if you'd share it with a friend, leave a rating or drop a comment. You can also explore full episodes and show notes anytime at unitedvolleyball.club. And of course, follow us on socials, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok to stay in the loop. Special thanks to Huntsville Hair Company for sponsoring today's episode of Better Together. Their passion for helping people feel confident and connected makes them the perfect partner for what we're building here. Until next time, let's keep building, challenging and celebrating what's possible in the sport because how we grow matters and we're doing it together.