Dr. Bruce Atkinson is the head volleyball coach at Delaware State University. Delaware State University is a NCAA Division I institution located in Dover, Delaware. Delaware State University is a member of the Mideastern Athletic Conference along with other schools such as Howard University, Morgan State University and Coppin State University.

Bruce Atkinson previously worked as head women's volleyball coach at Winthrop (S.C.) University from 2013 to 2018. His 98 wins at Winthrop are third-most in the 32-year history of the program. He began his college coaching career as head women's volleyball coach at the University of Texas at Brownsville, where he led the Ocelots to a Red River Athletic Conference championship and was named league Coach-of-the-Year after posting a 27-10 overall record and 10-1 conference mark during the 2006-07 season

 Bruce has an abundance of over twenty years of experience coaching volleyball at the highschool, club and college level. In this interview Bruce talks about his background in coaching, tips for recruiting, how to write a good introduction letter to coaches, and his tips for staying mentally and physically active. Bruce also shares some fun stories from his many years of overnight camping retreats he frequently takes his teams on. This is a can't miss interview. Enjoy!

Coach:

Dr. Bruce Atkinson: Head volleyball coach at Delaware State University

Topic 1: How did Bruce get into coaching?

Bruce worked as a sports chiropractor and played beach volleyball all through his schooling. One thing led to another and Bruce was asked to be an assistant at a highschool team and junior college team. He found himself focusing more and more on volleyball and decided to pursue coaching and teaching full time. 

Topic 2: Most rewarding aspects of coaching:

Bruce tells that the most rewarding part of coaching for him is getting to spend time with young student athletes. He would consider his favorite moments of coaching time spent building team chemistry. Bruce’s relationship with these athletes is very important to him and he estimates he still keeps in contact with 80% of his previous athletes he’s coached over the past twenty years. 

Topic 3: Most challenging aspects of coaching:

Bruce would consider the biggest challenge of coaching to coincidentally be what leads to the biggest reward: creating team chemistry. Bruce says that sometimes it can be complicated to take a group of individuals from all different backgrounds and blend them together to create that cohesive chemistry; however once the bond is formed it creates the biggest reward for him as a coach. 

Topic 4: Tips to stay physically active

Bruce says that he is a fan of simple workouts that require very little equipment and encourages athletes to remember there is a lot that can be done right in their house. Some workouts Bruce recommends specifically are planks and jumping rope.

Topic 5: Tips for staying mentally prepared:

Bruce’s tip for staying mentally prepared during this time is to spend some time breaking down videos. He recommends watching videos of collegiate matches on the internet or TV, he encourages athletes to really focus on watching teams' techniques. Bruce tells players to watch athletes specifically who play the same position as them and pay close attention to their techniques to implement in their own strategies later on.

Topic 6: Recruiting Tips:

Bruce reminds players that even though they are not allowed to visit campus or see coaches in person, communication and recruitment can still go on through phone calls, text messages and emails. Bruce tells that coaches have a lot of time to watch videos right now and encourages athletes to put together videos and send them to potential coaches. He also encourages underclassmen not to just sit back and relax right now but to reach out to coaches, work on a highlight video and an introduction letter, just to keep in mind that these coaches cannot reply to them. 

Topic 7: Do’s and Don'ts of recruitment communication:

Bruce says his biggest tip for communicating with coaches would be to create a good introduction letter and proofread it well. Bruce reminds athletes to make sure they are making the necessary changes before sending the letter to a coach. He tells that if he receives an introduction letter addressed to the wrong coach or school he almost always deletes it. 

Topic 8: Success, Talent vs Mental Toughness:

When asked about his opinion on what makes a team successful, talent or mental toughness Bruce told that he thinks both are equally as important. He says that along with mental toughness and talent he believes team chemistry to be just as important to a team's overall success.  

Topic 9: Fun pre-season story:

Bruce tells that all of his teams always go on an overnight camping retreat and that many of his favorite stories and memories of a team come from these retreats. Bruce laughs and says one of his favorite memories is a camping trip they once took a team on where they made them catch their own dinner fishing. He thinks these trips are very important to the chemistry of a team and it's important to see how they all help each other on these trips.

Having a sense of belonging and familial bonds within your team is an impactful force for success. Coach Atkinson strongly implements this along with other strategies into his coaching philosophy which continues to make his team stronger and stronger.

Jess Gregory  

Hello, everyone. Thanks for stopping in again. Today we're going to be joined by Bruce Atkinson. He's the head coach over at Delaware State. How are we doing today, Bruce?

Bruce Atkinson  

Very well, thanks.

Jess Gregory  

Good, awesome. Well, I'm gonna jump in and I want to learn more about how you got into coaching and then how that sort of led to where you are now.

Bruce Atkinson  

Well, it's sort of a roundabout way. For me, coaching is actually a second career. For many years, I'm also a sports chiropractor. And so when I, even while I was going to chiropractic school, and afterwards, I was very involved playing a lot of beach volleyball and one thing sort of led to another and I was asked to be an assistant on high school team for a couple of years and then that I coach, chosen assistant For a junior college team out and I grew up in California, in California for a number of years, and I just found myself slowly focusing more and more and more on on volleyball and just decided that this is really where I want my life to take me. And so I ended up we had a few different clinics and I sold the clinics and went into coaching and teaching full time. I was sort of 5050 positions. I was started out as the head coach at a small NAIA school in Nebraska. And I had to add 50% responsibility to teaching and the other 50% was coaching. So I taught anatomy and kinesiology exercise physiology some of those courses and just slowly over time, I ended up going to Division Two and division one and going into 100% coaching full time. It's been a great decision.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah. That's awesome. So it sounds like you've kind of been all over the place that you've started on the west coast. Now you're on the east coast. So to work your way through. Can you talk about some of the most rewarding aspects of coaching then since you've been doing that and teaching for a while?

Bruce Atkinson  

Yeah, I think most coaches will say probably the most rewarding thing is just being able to spend time with these, you know, young student athletes. And you know, I think when I look back, I think my best memories are really having to do with building team chemistry amongst the team and, you know, being able to hopefully play a small role and then being able to achieve, you know, all of their their life's goals and not just earning their degrees but hopefully becoming successful in their careers and having families. It's extremely rewarding.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah, now do you have any players that reach back out to you after they graduate and just say, hey, miss miss you. And yeah, we're still playing you have that happen?

Bruce Atkinson  

Yeah, I would say I probably I stay in very close contact with probably 80 or 90% oh nine. But you know, over the course of the last 20 years or so it's quite a few. Yeah. But I'd say never a day goes by where I don't talk with, or at least text message with three or four of them. Yeah. And so yeah, and it's fun. And that's the nice thing about coaching is you go out and recruit. And once you've been coaching long enough, you almost always have a former student athlete that lives in the area, so it's nice to catch up and have dinner with him and get to know their family.

Jess Gregory  

Oh, that's very cool. Yeah. Yeah, no, I just recently before all of this pandemic, stuff kind of went down. I had a former player when she was in high school. I was her coach and she texts me was like, hey, Jess, do you want to play in a Like an adult League, and I was like, are you? are you texting the right person, because I don't know if these knees can handle it, but it was kind of funny to have them reach back out, after all this time, because it's been, you know, 10 years already that that we've coached. So it's always a nice experience to hear back from players. 

Bruce Atkinson  

It is it's actually been really nice in the, I guess now that I showing my age, but as I'm getting older, I'm getting more and more players that are being sent to me, who are the coaches of incoming recruits now and you know, this last year, we had one player that I had when I coached back in Hawaii, and she's playing for our team here in Delaware State and, you know, and so that's, that's a rewarding I love to see our former players that we've had go out and continue to coach you know, I was, yeah, one of the last tournaments we were able to recruit that was over at Capitol Hill in DC, and I think five former players were all coaching there. And so that was a lot of fantasy, then.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah, that's awesome. Now, on the flip side, there's definitely a lot of rewarding parts. But what are some of the challenges that you've noticed? throughout your coaching career?

Bruce Atkinson  

I would say, you know, I try not to even really look at challenges. You know, I just think it's the way that it is, you know, but I think that probably the biggest challenges probably also the biggest reward is sort of what I touched base on before is developing that team chemistry. You know, I think that it's it's interesting to take a group of individuals who come from very different backgrounds and different geographic areas and our different levels of maturity, and try to put them all together and build them into one cohesive unit. You know, and I think that that takes a lot of work not only on the parts of the coaches, and Coaches down, but the players themselves and hopefully the upper classmen for each team. But I think once that cohesive unit is formed, that's what creates probably the biggest reward for a coach also.

Jess Gregory  

Awesome. Now you mentioned earlier that you used to teach kinesiology classes and things such as that so you probably have some great tips for kids that are staying at home can you give them some thoughts on the physical side of what they can do to kind of stay active during this time?

Bruce Atkinson  

Yeah, you know, I'm a big fan of very simple low low tech exercises anyways, and you know in this situation is unfortunate Is it is it is there still a lot that can be done? You know, I'm a really big fan of, of core work, as I believe most coaches are, it's so essential to for volleyball player, but things such as plants, and I love that jump ropes. And so, you know, we provide all our student athletes workouts that really work for the core and they have jump rope, rope proof, jump rope routines that will do a lot of times in the offseason, but throughout the summer months also. It's really simple. It's great for the cardio, I love that it's it's pretty low impact because you're really not leaving the ground that much, but it's working your explosive motion getting off of the ground very quickly. So it's trying to work a little bit more of the fast twitch fibers inside think that's something that can be done easily at home right now.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah, absolutely. Also, I think kids could probably if they don't have a jump rope, just mimic the motion. Get off the ground pretty quickly. So yeah, those are great tips.

Bruce Atkinson  

Funny. I have a player from Puerto Rico and she actually sent me a video that was saying it had a picture of her dog who torn up all these pillows and everything was laying all over the room in her jump rope was bitten into like four different pieces. So she had a video of her jumping without a jump rope and going through the motions. Yeah.

Jess Gregory  

Oh my gosh. Okay, gotta make the best of what you have, right? Yes. That's funny. Oh man. Now on the other side of that, so what are some tips that you might have for kids and how they can stay mentally prepared and sort of overcome this time as it is challenging not being able to finish up their club seasons and be on the court right now.

Bruce Atkinson  

You know, I think breaking down video is really good way to do that. And, you know, I think it can be both video posts that players former or previous matches are also you know, there are plenty of high level collegiate matches that are available online, still are airing on television or international matches and Really like, not just sitting there watching the game, but actually breaking it down, maybe identifying a player who is your same position, and spending a lot of time pausing or watching in slow motion, looking at their technique. You know, I spend a lot of time doing that, watching teams and trying to break down their offensive and defensive systems to try to give me ideas of things that I can implement for our own team. So I think that's something that's readily available to everyone. And I found that it's very effective in helping to increase the volleyball IQ of the players.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah, absolutely. Also, I think that's something that not a lot of high school kids have the opportunity to do with their teams just because they don't have the time. But when you get to college, you're going to you're going to watch video and you're going to break it down. So probably get a little bit more of an edge if they can get into that now. For sure, yeah. Now, I mentioned That this is a tough time for everyone. I know that you guys are all stuck at home, the players are all stuck at home. So I kind of want to jump into some recruiting tips for them, like in general, what can they do during this time and let's start with seniors and kind of give them you know, some hope going forward. Sure.

Bruce Atkinson  

Well, believe it or not, there still is a lot of recruiting going on. And it's just very different. And so obviously, at the division one level, we're in a prolonged dead period. And so we're not allowed to see anyone in person, they're not allowed to visit campus. But communications still can go forward. You can still talk on the phone, you can still text you can email in for seniors, you know, for anyone beyond June 15. After their sophomore year, they're allowed to communicate with the coaches that way. And so, you know, I would say that, for those who have already been recruited and know where they're going, definitely A great way to keep in contact and get to know your coaches better or hopefully your future teammates. But the ones that who haven't. You know, I think it's a very good time to really spend some time focusing on what schools you might be interested in looking at, you know, what levels you want to play at looking at? Where are those schools located, what size of school they are, do they have your major things like that is plenty of time to work on getting together videos and things like that and emailing those out to coaches coaches have a lot of free time to watch video right now. So, you know, I think that if you are a senior and you have not been signed yet, not lose hope. Everything has been pushed back and is a little bit slower right now. And so there are definitely still options for you. hopefully find that place for you to go and have Have a great college experience.

Jess Gregory  

Awesome. And now for those underclassmen, I'm sure this is probably a very quick tip for them, but should they be just hanging out? Or can they still be

Bruce Atkinson  

the same sort of the same things? You know, I think that they're just have the luxury of having a little bit more time. But you know, really, again, if you're below the age that you that coaches can't talk with you, there's no reason you can't reach out to them. You just have to know that they can't respond or reply to you. But you know, we get emails and messages from those who are younger, many times every day, and I love to receive it, I love to receive the video they send. And so again, I think it's a for the younger ones. It's a really good time to work on maybe a highlight video or finding some uncut video that can be sent to coaches working on some type of an introduction letter that you can send them out, you know, and really focusing again on, you know, which where you want to go to school. You know, I think, I mean, being a division one coach, it sounds funny, but, you know, I think a lot of a lot of players only say that, you know, what's your goal, I'm only going to play division one. And I think that's a great goal, if that's truly what you want. But, you know, one thing that I've, the longer I've been out and the more levels that I've coached at, you know, every year you see a lot of players who have the ability to play at division one level, but choose to play Division Two or division three NAIA Juco. Not not just because from the athletic standpoint, but maybe just the academics or the overall college experience that someone's looking for. And so, you know, I've always been a big believer that if you truly want to play college volleyball, then there's a place for For you, you just have to put a little bit of effort to find that place and you can definitely find it.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad you brought that up because I know a lot of times, especially coaching at the club level, there's kids that that's all they want to do is play division one, if they don't go division one, then they kind of give up that dream. But there are tons of programs out there if you just put in a little extra effort to find them. 

Bruce Atkinson  

Absolutely. There's so much to be gained from playing college athletics, regardless of the level you're at, you know, just the it's there's a reason that so many companies go after college athletes to put them into the workplace. You know, they just develop the the organizational skills and, and the team management skills and you know, the team bonding abilities and things like that, that you're gonna be able to develop those same skills, whether you're at the smallest of school or the biggest unit. versus so it's there's so many benefits.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah, that's awesome. Um, now you mentioned that staying in communication with coaches is a great idea. Can you give any like fun do's and don'ts of email? Since you probably have gotten a ton over the years?

Bruce Atkinson  

Yeah. You know, it's funny because I think one thing you really want to keep in mind is, I mentioned before you, I think it's a good idea to develop a good introduction, letter. And, you know, you don't want it to be real long, but you want a couple of paragraphs introducing yourself. But something you really, really want to make sure is that you're addressing it to the right person. You know, it's very common, you know, I get it all the time. My name's Jeff considered, I'll say, you know, hey, Coach Smith, it's always been a dream of mine to play for you or, you know, a coach at Delaware State and, and they'll say, you know, it's always been a dream of mine to play for XYZ University. That's not my own. And for me, personally Those ones I almost always just delete. Because I feel like, if the individual isn't conscientious enough to be able to proofread their work, then they may not be the place this might not be the place for them. And so, you know, all coaches know that you're probably cutting and pasting, but make sure that you're making the proper changes and reading it over before you send that out.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, you gotta, you gotta pay attention, those little details, because they'll come in handy when you get to college. So awesome. All right. Now I'm gonna switch gears just a little bit. I'm sure you've had some successful seasons in your long coaching career. So if you could think back on one of those and kind of give us your thoughts on whether the talent of the players or the mental toughness of the players kind of made the difference there.

Bruce Atkinson  

You know, I think it's really they're equally important. I think also So, what I touched on before that team chemistry throwing that into the mix, you know, I look back and the best teams that I've ever had had that nice combination, where, you know, they did really well. They were physically very good players and mentally they were strong and they were committed to working out into becoming better. And they had a really tight, cohesive unit and that they were really good friends both on the court and off the court. And I think everything came together. And over the years, I look back and there's been there been teams that I've had that on paper look like this should be a great team and then for whatever reason, everything didn't mesh well together, and they end up underperforming, but I've had other teams that you go into the season going, boy, we're probably missing that one piece to really be successful, but they just worked hard. Hard they were committed to both their academics and their volleyball. They were very committed to having a strong team bond. And they did way better than they ever would have, you know, anyone would have thought of going into the season. And so I don't think you can really separate any of the three in my mind.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah. Nice. All right. Now, last question for you. Can you think of a specific team that you just have a fun story about? Whether it wasn't being successful or kind of pulling things together or whatever it was? Do you have any of those memories you can kind of share with us I know kids love to hear those.

Bruce Atkinson  

Um, you know, one thing that we do of all all of my teams and I've done this actually even back when I was an assistant coach at a at a junior college, we would always go on an overnight retreat. first before we even roll out the first volleyball and a lot of the best memories I haven't All are from these different retreats and you know one of the things I really like to do with teams and it's it's something that usually going into it probably 80 or 90% of it hate the idea, but you end up loving it is to take me on a camping trip.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah, I thought you were gonna say that, haha

Bruce Atkinson  

I love it you know I so you know, I think of some of the teams that we haven't had in Hawaii and we go out and just lay out the tents and then all of a sudden they had to put together these tents that maybe one or two had ever done that just to see how they work together as a team and you know, one year we went out with basically no food at all, but just a bunch of fishing rods and heavy. We had backup plans but we didn't let them know that at the time. And they caught them dinner and only one individual on the entire team had ever cleaned a fish before. And so her ship you know her cleaning these fish and teaching your teammates how to Do it and how to cook them and, and then we'd sit around the bonfire. We talked about the experience of fishing and putting together these tents and things like that. And I think it was really helped us in that beat was one of the closest teams I've ever had. But I think it helped a lot because we sort of identified problems that potentially could happen on the quarter, you know, who were the ones that who are the ones that actively engage and start putting up the 10th, who were the ones that were very active, but they weren't necessarily leaders and doing it, but they were great followers in which they became the silent leader, who are the ones that stood back and just complain the whole time. And we'd sit around and we would talk about this and how to communicate with each other once we get into these situations on the court. And I think it really helped the team bond together a lot. Yeah, that's one of the things that we're seriously considering doing with this team this upcoming season also.

Jess Gregory  

Yeah, I definitely think you should, and I knew you were gonna say camping because I've done that with teams too and never fails that they're like, oh, coach, really do this? And then by the end, everyone's like, Can we do that next year?

Bruce Atkinson  

Yes. 

Jess Gregory  

So yeah, that's awesome. All right. Well, I really appreciate you sitting down with me today, coach. Those are all the questions that I have for you today. And I'm sure all of the athletes checking this out are gonna love all the tips that you gave. And hopefully once we're all back out there, we'll see you out on the court.

Bruce Atkinson  

Sounds good. Thank you so much.

Jess Gregory  

You're welcome. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai