Zach Weinberg is the Assistant Women’s Volleyball Coach at Tennessee Technological University aka Tennessee Tech. Tennessee Tech is an NCAA Division I institution located in Cookeville, TN which is about an hour east of Nashville, TN.  Tennessee Tech is a member of the Ohio Valley Conference along with schools like Jacksonville State University, Southeast Missouri, and Murray State University.

Zach got into college volleyball coaching after working in the NBA, he realized that coaching was the career for him. This led him to Tennessee Tech where he’s been for 3 seasons now. Coach Weinberg has experience in the DI realm working for UNLV as well as Northwestern State before hitting up Tennessee Tech. Outside of college volleyball, Zach has also coached at the high school level and club level. 

Throughout our conversation, Zach shared some solid tips for athletes on staying active during the COVID-19 shutdown as well as how to keep the recruitment process going. If you’ve just started the recruiting process, he also gives info on the contact periods and when DI coaches can respond to players. After we learned about Zach’s coaching background, he tells us some great stories about some of his past teams and what makes a team successful. You’ll want to listen to it all here!

Coach

Zach Weinberg: Assistant Women’s Volleyball Coach at Tennessee Tech.

Topic 1: What is the Biggest Challenges To Face When Coaching?

Being on the court and coaching is a ton of fun, but as a player and a coach, efficiency is key. Making the most of the court time while being efficient is a formula for success, since play time is limited. 

Topic 2: How Coach Weinberg got into Coaching:

Coach Weinberg talks about what jump started his coaching career - he was working for the NBA with basketball team, Orlando Magic. Working with the NBA paved his way to coaching, as NBA job sparked his coaching interests. Listen to his story about both and how he ended up at Tennessee Tech.

Topic 3: Where Did Coach Weinberg get His Coaching Style From?

Zach has learned from multiple coaches that he’s worked with in the past and shares the names of the coaches and their mannerisms. He mentions that he tries to be his authentic self as a coach and keeps his energy high for his athletes.

Topic 4: What Are the Most Rewarding Aspects of Coaching? 

“AH-HA!” moments are some of the best moments. It doesn’t have to be something huge, but when athletes finally achieve something they have been working on, it brings joy to the whole team and coach. That moment and look on the player’s face brings happiness to any coach. Coach Weinberg says it is great to be able to help his athletes work through those times and contribute to their overall athletic career.

Topic 5: What Makes DI Volleyball Unique?

Scholarships are obviously a big thing. Being fully funded or partially funded will make a difference, but this is different from other divisions. We also are allowed to have a full spring season to be on the court and improve. 

Topic 6: Tips on Staying Physically Active:

Find a routine! We want you to try to stick with your Monday-Friday schedule and set times where you’ll put some physical activity into it. This could be workouts or getting touches on the ball with tasks like 100 sets in your yard/bedroom.

Topic 8: Some Recruiting Tips for HS Kids:

Silver Lining? Most coaches have more computer time now to read and respond to emails, so now is a great time to reach out and either start the process or keep the process rolling. Coach Weinberg also shares some info on dead periods and contact periods for coaches. Anyone after June 15th after their Sophomore year can get responses from coaches, but anyone can reach out to coaches, just understand the restrictions per division.

Topic 9: Do's and Don’ts with Coach Communication:

Zach shares some great tips on communicating with coaches. Some of those tips involve having the coaches’ name and programs correct before sending! Always know who you are contacting. He also mentions giving the coaches the basics in the subject line. Check out his other Dos and Don’ts!

Topic 10: What Makes a Team Successful: Mental Toughness or Talent?

Zach talks about his UNLV team that made it to the NCAA tourney. They were underdogs and wanted to prove others wrong. They worked really hard and definitely showed how mentally tough they were. Listen to the rest of the story here!

Zach Weinberg brings a unique background to his coaching style. Facing adversity and implementing mental toughness within his athletes is right in his ball park of success - I would watch out for him and his team on the court.

Full Transcript:

Jess Gregory  

All right, everybody. Thanks for stopping in again. today. We have coach Zack Weinberg here with us, Zach. How you doing? 

Zach Weinberg  

Good, Jess. How are you? 

Jess Gregory  

I'm not doing too bad. Yeah. How's the weather out there?

Zach Weinberg  

Oh, it's super nice today, thankfully. nice and sunny, mid 70s. You know, perks perks of living in the south.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah, absolutely. We're probably around 55 today, so I'll take it.

Zach Weinberg  

Not too bad for this time here. Yeah,

Jess Gregory  

All right, Zack. Well, I would like to learn some more about you even though I do know you and I have coached with you at some camps, but can you tell us a little bit about how you got into coaching?

Zach Weinberg  

Sure. So I got into coaching. Actually, when I was in college. I went to Ohio University and I was the student assistant for the women's seem there while I was playing on the men's club team. And so I really got my firstborn. In college coaching at a really young age, I was 18 when I got the job and started learning what it was like to coach in a division one program I did that for all four years I was at Ohio learned a ton. And the I kind of ran with it from there I got out of coaching for a brief year worked in the NBA for the Orlando Magic but then I I missed volleyball too much and got back into coaching been doing it since.

Jess Gregory  

That's awesome. I just want to know a little bit about how you got into the NBA. That's cool.

Zach Weinberg  

Yeah, so I added always been my, my dream growing up as a kid and I wanted to work in basketball. I went to like a sales combine thing my senior year of college and met with a representative from the magic. She offered me a job and it was too good to turn down wasn't much as selling tickets. And there's definitely I have a lot of respect for the people that still do that. That was not for me. I learned that in that year. And so I did it for a year got back into volleyball. Took a ton of experience from that I learned a lot about recruiting because recruiting and sales, you know, selling tickets, but yeah, volleyball is. That's more my Avenue than the ticket sales path.

Jess Gregory  

Cool. So after you were done with the Orlando Magic, did you jump right into the position you're in now? Or did you head somewhere else before then.

Zach Weinberg  

So after I left the magic, I went back home. I'm originally from southern New Jersey, just outside of Philadelphia. And I was the head coach of a high school program for a year. And then I got back into college. So I went to Northwestern states and neck initially, Louisiana was there for two seasons. And then over to Vegas. I was at UCLA for two seasons. And now I'm going into my third season now at Tennessee Tech.

Jess Gregory  

Awesome. Now, you've been there for a couple seasons. Are there any other coaches that you've kind of learned a coaching style from throughout all of those years, maybe even from, you know your time at the NBA?

Zach Weinberg  

Yeah, so I've kind of absorbed From a few people, the big one is Ryan deiss, who was my boss at Ohio. He's now the head coach at Marquette. I find myself even just like his same mannerisms that I watched him. He was really good at. I find myself doing those now and it's weird because I get to like look in the mirror and see him and me doing it's weird. But Shawn Kira coffee is my boss, state. Another one who I learned a ton from. Same thing, same mannerisms, the way that he talked to players I always respected and so I try and emulate that. And then just my coaching staff now, my head coach jet Wallner, there's just tuning clarity, we were really good mixed together. And I think we we kind of work well together. And so I like to echo what they're saying too, because we're cohesive staff that way. And so my coaching style has really learned I think my personality lends itself to some of that I'm very loud and outgoing. Kind of type in the gym, I like to have a really good time. But when it's time to work, we work. And that's kind of the base of my coaching style. Yeah. So that's that's learned from a number of people and then kind of how I naturally AM.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah, to kind of just take it run with it.

Zach Weinberg  

Yeah, I mean, if you're not your authentic self, and the players pick up on that pretty pretty quickly. You can't. This is probably one area, you can't fake it till you make it. I mean, you've got to be your authentic self, or you just don't come off as knowledgeable and as someone that's is likable and wants and wants to inspire people to play for them. So I think you've got to be your authentic self.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah, absolutely. I'll definitely see me on the court and you're entered super high, and you're always positive. So I'm sure that's something your players love about Jeff.

Zach Weinberg  

Yeah, they've come to appreciate that. I like to keep that kind of, you know, they've got to earn it. It's not gonna be fake. But yeah, but the energy I think helps them.

Jess Gregory  

Nice. Now, when you think about some of the best parts of coaching for you, what are those what The most rewarding aspects of what you do.

Zach Weinberg  

The single most rewarding aspects for me is seeing the light bulb go off and kind of an aha moment on something that you've been working on for maybe an extended period of time. You know that the first time that you hit a shot that has not been in your in your arsenal before, and you've been working on working on it, and you get it in, whether it's a practice or a match, and just kind of that, that look that like the player will shoot me and I'll shoot them because we both know it just happened. And you can see what that that glance they just gave you look like and it was just how excited they were. I love that. I love being able to work with student athletes during some of the most formative years. I mean, the 18 to 22 age you learn so much about yourself and who you are as a player and as a student as a person. I love being a part of that show them. So really those two things are two of my absolute favorite things about my position and the way that I get to work with student athletes on a daily basis.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah. Awesome. Now on that flip side, then Are there any sort of challenges that you've noticed? Whether you overcome them or not? But what are some of biggest challenges for you?

Zach Weinberg  

So and that is, we're just me with my life coaches. So we want to coach volleyball, and we want them in the gym all the time. And obviously, we can't do that, because they have to go to school, and there's hours that we can have them and not so it's, for me, it has been, how do I get the best of what I want to tell the players in the shortest amount of time that we have them to get what I want out of them onto the court. So it's always just been finding the most efficient ways to do things. Because at the beginning of my career, I was not very efficient. And I had all these grand ideas and had no idea how to execute them to the level of things to be executed. So that has been a challenge for me. Up until now it's figuring out how to how to do those things in the most efficient way possible.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah, you got to take advantage of the the time you have on the court because it is It is limited especially for division one you guys only have so many hours you can be out there, huh?

Zach Weinberg  

Yeah, for sure. I mean, we, if when we're in season we get 20 hours and it sounds like a lot but really it's, you know three hours a day of practice maybe an hour video on some days and it's really not that much we've got a we've got to get better watching video at ourselves that video much higher opponents we have to practice get ready for our opponents practice the things that we're not good at to get better at that there's just so much that has to happen during that time. Yeah, so yeah, it's it's really maximizing the amount of time that we have and, and not wasting a single moment. Mm hmm.

Jess Gregory  

Cool. Now, you've been in Division One then for a while now and then you also did High School. Have you done any other divisions to your

Zach Weinberg  

I have not done Division Two or three. In college. I've only been division one. I had one year of high school and then I coached club for two seasons. 

Jess Gregory  

Okay,cool. So then can you tell us a little bit about what makes Division One unique since you've been in it for most of your your coaching career Yeah,

Zach Weinberg  

Division One is unique because I mean, scholarships are a big thing. We're fully funded programs, we have 12 scholarships to offer. And that's a big piece of the division one bubble, I guess is that there are academic and athletic scholarships available. We have the athletic ones to play with. We have a more extended spring than some of the other divisions. So we actually get to play volleyball for most of the spring semester, which is different than a lot of divisions. I think like d3 gets like two weeks, or something like that. And it's a crazy short amount of time to get better at things D one, we have two different segments where we get to be on the court for up to four hours a week with them for a couple weeks, and then we go back into a 20 hour period. So it's just like we're in season, and that's the majority of our spring. So that's a big difference. And I think just the time commitment every every student athlete has a big chunk of time that they are devoting to build their Sports and academics. But in Division One, the season is longer. We start earlier, we finished later, there are just there's a little bit more travel involved because it's not quite as regional. Some of the other divisions, our national championship is all over the country not quite as regional. So more travel means more Miss classes. wellness classes means you have to be even better with your time management, you have to be even more organized. Because if you're not organized, you're gonna miss out on something. And if you miss out on something, your grades are going to suffer. And if your grades suffer, then you're not gonna be eligible to be on the court. So they all work hand in hand. So those are the big things, at least from a division one standpoint that I've seen over the course of my career, that kind of separate them from the other divisions. Nice.

Jess Gregory  

Now I'm gonna pull from that where you said time management with kids now, obviously, they can't play club. Everyone's kind of stuck at home. And, you know, you guys are obviously on dead periods and all of that that have been extended. So can you kind of give some of our Players tips on what they can do to stay physically active right now.

Zach Weinberg  

Yeah, I think the biggest thing to do right now is to find a routine that works for you. If you are having some virtual classes through school, then you wake up just like you would in regular school day. You go through your school day, and in whatever capacity that is for you, it's going to vary for every kid but have a set time where you're going to go outside, you're going to touch a ball, whether it's with a sibling that doesn't play volleyball, whether it's with a wall, whether it's just you and your passing and sending the ball back and forth to yourself, ever team because if you say well today, I'm gonna go set 100 balls outside and you don't give yourself time for it. Well, the day might get away from you, you might go, Oh, well, I'll do it tomorrow. Well, that's 100 reps that you just missed out on, that someone else probably didn't. So it's going to be setting a routine for yourself and how you can get the best touches on the ball. find creative ways to get by Specific workouts in, maybe mom or dad has a pickup truck and you drop the bed, you jump from the ground into the bed of the truck. And that's just like a box gym because you don't have access to a box. Maybe you're sitting on the couch and you stand up really fast and then explode up. And that's kind of like a catchphrase and do a max jump, and now you're working on your vertical. There's ways to take this home can find that we're all coming to know and turn that into a volleyball related activity. So I think just finding the most opportunities to do a lot of unrelated activity in this crazy time is the best thing. That's the perspective colleges student athletes can do while they're on sidelines from their club season.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah, well, those are awesome tips. When you brought up the pickup truck, I thought you were gonna say push it down the street to college, so I was having flashbacks. 

Zach Weinberg  

As long as you don't live on a hill. That's probably not a bad thing either. I mean, if you live on a hill, I wouldn't go downhill. I probably wouldn't go up hill either. Might roll back but Yeah, yeah, if you're flat ground sure go push it.

Jess Gregory  

It's pretty good for the core. I remember pretty for

Zach Weinberg  

sure. Your legs will probably burn a little bit to be good for you.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah, exactly. Um, alright, so how about some mental skills tips, because if they're getting into a routine, that's probably a great time to add those in as well. Yeah. Any tips there?

Zach Weinberg  

I think from a mental standpoint, the biggest thing that we tell even our student athletes now is you have to be a student of the game. And that can come from watching footage of yourself from your club season, that can come from watching somebody else that's in your age range. Maybe it's a team that you've played against that has a really good player, and you just watch them for the match and you don't watch yourself. Maybe it's going on YouTube and watching our women's national team or men's national team. Do it at the highest level or professional matches. There's a ton of professional and high level volleyball on YouTube. I watch it all the time myself just for ideas of how we can run places. Different rotations. And just if you're an outside hitter, just picking outside and watch them for the entire six rotations, how they move situational, situationally shots they hit the way that they attack the ball the way that they pass with their platform. There's just so many different things mentally that you can do to zone in on how to get better at your position that hopefully carry over once you start playing, because you can't get mentally tougher on the court if you're not on the court. So how do you best learn about ways to handle it so that you can then apply it once you do get on the court? I think that's the biggest thing that can be taken away from this time right now, is that there are still ways to gain your mental game without physically doing it.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah, for sure. I mean, this is definitely a tough time for everyone that wants to be out there. I mean, I kind of think about those seniors where this was their last, you know, their last spring season with their club team but a great time to take that and run with it and kind of overcome and hopefully that makes him stronger when They get back out on the court.

Zach Weinberg  

For sure. I mean, it's a it's a bummer for the seniors. You know, we feel for them for their last club season for even their school year. I mean, we take the school for granted, but now they're, you know, proms are getting canceled, and graduations are getting canceled. And so, you know, we definitely feel for the seniors, our graduation got canceled here at Tech. And so it's affecting, you know, not just high school aged kids with college kids too. And so yeah, we feel for them, but we hope that there's still, you know, the high school age kids that want to play in college are still grinding away, getting better at the chance to do that.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah. Now, do you have any tips for them on the recruiting side, we can start with seniors, any tips for any unsigned seniors and what they can still be doing right now?

Zach Weinberg  

Sure. I mean, the best part of this time for them if we're going to take a silver lining from everything going on is that coaches can't go recruiting where most of us are not in the office anymore. We are really just confined To our computers and when we're confined to our computers, that means that we are watching video and we are going through the emails that we are getting. So now is the best time to send emails to coaches to send your most recent video to send maybe your not most recent video, but that is going to keep you Top of Mind of that coach because you probably aren't getting any new video at this point. So reaching out to coaches, coaches that are on your list coaches that may not be but you want to be on their list. There is no bad time to reach out to a coach. If you're a younger student athlete know the limitations of whether or not they can reach back out to you. But there is never a bad time to reach out to a coach say who you are, what you're all about your great grades in school and here's my video and I'd love to for you to evaluate me so I can hopefully get on your recruiting list and we can talk soon.

Jess Gregory  

Awesome. So you said something about how the players can be reaching out to you but kind of know whether or not they can just some general tips of how kids can contact coaches right now in a dead period and then in a contact period, which hopefully, you'll have soon. 

Zach Weinberg  

Yeah, hopefully so. So in a dead period, the coaches cannot go off campus and players cannot come on campus. So there can be no face to face communication happening. But a phone call can happen, text messages can happen, emails can happen of video conference like a FaceTime or zoom wherever all that can happen. So if you are of contactable age, which for Division One is June 15, going into your junior year, so basically all juniors and seniors right now, then you can communicate as normal with the coach even though we're in a dead period. So if you're younger than that, email is the best way because if you were to call them out of the blue and they pick up then they would very respectfully tell you you're too young and hang up on you. So email is the best way. For other divisions. They don't have those restrictions. So like I think NAIA. They can talk to anybody right now. So if you're interested in a school reach out to the coach because they can talk to you right now without without restrictions. So it's just gonna it's gonna vary a little bit based on division. But yeah, email generally is the best way to go. And then you can evolve the conversation from there.

Jess Gregory  

Now, emails, I always love to get the most random emails when I was coaching. Do you have any do's and don'ts for how sending out an email especially if that's the the most common way to contact a coach? Yeah, absolutely.

Zach Weinberg  

Do make sure you spell the coach's name correctly, and that you're sending the email to the correct coach. Because I know form emails are a thing and they're okay if it's an introduction, email, but you've got to make sure that the information is correct. You don't want to try and send an email to one school and realize you sent it to the rival schools name. That happened to us last week that that student athlete probably is not going to get looked at nice regard. If they're telling us that they want to play for our rival in our email to us. So do make sure that you have the coach's name and school correct. Do make sure that you include your name, your grade, your GPA, your position, and the most recent video that you have of yourself playing. All of those are, are really valuable pieces of information that we want to know right away, you can put those in the subject line, not the video link, of course, but the rest of that can go in the subject line and right in the body of the email, you can talk about yourself a little bit. Don't send an email, it says, Hey, coach, I am looking for a scholarship and want to know if you'll have me on your team. It happens all the time. It's just that's just not the right way to go about doing things. Recruiting from both the coach side and the player side is relationship business. We want to get to know you you want to get to know us start the conversation and we'll go from there. So those are my quick do's and don'ts on on the email part of it.

Jess Gregory  

Nice Yeah, those those are some great ones. I always remembered getting the wrong school when I got emails. And I was like,

Zach Weinberg  

yeah, it's, it's hard, I understand why it happens. But it's hard to look past because it means that you didn't do your due diligence on this email. And if you're gonna miss a little detail, when you're trying to play for us what else you're going to miss in that time, you know, you're going to forget about practice, you're going to forget about weight. So you're going to leave your jersey in the visiting team locker room on the road. And all these little things say a lot about you as a student athlete. And even though you may not intend it that way, that's how we take it. So yeah, do your due diligence and cover your bases. Yeah,

Jess Gregory  

definitely sounds like just keeping in contact with coaches, especially now the easiest way is by email, um, you know, and just keep keep going until you hear no, and there's still time. Basically, there's absolutely still time.

Zach Weinberg  

Yeah, absolutely. Um, like I said, coaches aren't doing a whole lot right now in recruiting sitting at their computers and watching video. So yeah, there's actually Still time. If you're on time senior out there. Yeah, keep emailing those schools and you're probably going to hear a bunch of nose because as we wind down the school year, we are getting leaner. But there are absolutely schools out there still looking for pieces to the roster.

Jess Gregory  

Nice. All right. Awesome. Those are great tips. appreciate those.

Zach Weinberg  

Yeah.

Jess Gregory  

Cool. All right. I have one more question for you. I want you to kind of think back on one of your most successful seasons. Since you've been coaching for a while, there's got to be some in there. And kind of let us know if you thought that the talent side of the game or the mental toughness of the athletes helped in the success more.

Zach Weinberg  

Sure. So I guess my first season at UNLV, in 2016. We made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. It was the best season in school history. We started the preseason, 11. And oh, and we were we were getting votes in the top 25 at that point, but that team had a Big chip on his shoulder. We were not picked to finish very high in the preseason poll in our conference, really, we weren't expected to do very many good things at all. And then inside, we knew we were better than the respect that we were getting from outside. And so that team had a chip on his shoulder all year. And we were not the most physical team. We were not the most talented team. But we were a very mentally tough scene. We were very, we had some upperclassmen that had been through it. They knew what it took to win at that level. Our best player that time was our right side, and she was a senior who was very under recruited, she did not sign on at you and all the until late and she was a local kid. So she kind of always had a chip on her shoulder, but she was really mentally tough. And she kind of willed us to a lot of the success that we had through just staying the course and just being a really strong player on the court, both physically and probably more importantly, mentally So we had a lot of really mentally strong pieces that year. And I think it's why we had the success we did. So the talent side is absolutely important. You can't win without talent. But the talent can only take you so far, you need a great mindset to help get you over the top and push through those tough moments. And those long five centers that are back and forth. And in those grueling two days of, you know, a preseason, when you get double day of practices, and you've got a session of weights in there and your body is exhausted, you may only have 50% left in the tank, but you've got to be mentally strong enough to give 100% of that 50%. So the mental side is, I think, probably more important than the physical side, but they do have to work together.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah, that's awesome. That sounds like a that was a great season. You guys said you made it to the second round.

Zach Weinberg  

Yeah, we upset Utah on the first round, who was nationally ranked all year they kind of, I think expected to beat us and we surprised them a little bit and knocked him off and then fell to BYU in the next room which is there's nothing wrong with falling to BYU. That's a darn good program. Year in and Year out So it was good. It was a good year.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah. Sounds like it. Well, hopefully you have that great success this upcoming year too. And your kids are able to get that mental toughness going right now as as they're stuck at home as well. So it's not just for the high school kids. Those college kids can work on it too.

Zach Weinberg  

Absolutely. We hope they are. Because if they come back and they haven't been then we're not gonna be where we want to be. Right.

Jess Gregory  

You hear that guys? So you got to make sure you're working on the mental side.

Zach Weinberg  

Awesome.

Jess Gregory  

All right, exactly. I really appreciate sitting down and chatting with me. Um, I thought we had an awesome conversation. I think he gave some great tips for the kids at home. So hopefully they take it and run with it. But thanks, and maybe we'll catch you next time.

Zach Weinberg  

Yeah, thank you, Jess. I appreciate it.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai