Girls Volleyball Issues

I had a nice discussion with my mom about the 8th grade team I was training. In practice they were playing fine, no problems. They are aggressive, confident and doing the right things. When I get them to a game all of a sudden I am having girls volleyball issues. It is almost like they forgot how to play volleyball. I know girls volleyball issues come with coaching 13 year olds, but all of our games are away. There are no boys watching to create the girls volleyball issues that normally arise. You can read more about that in this article that discusses girls volleyball drama, which is boy related. One of my hardest workers in practices always chokes in the game. She becomes a complete spaz. This is the hardest thing to watch, all the time I have spent training them, mentoring them, teaching them out the window once the ref blows the whistle. I finally overheard my hardworking spaz player discussing girls volleyball issues with my Varsity coach, and she said "I am fine in practice but get so nervous in a game I can't focus and things get blurry and I forget how to play" Of all the issues to have extreme nervousness is never one I would have pinpointed. Apparently this girls volleyball issue is more widespread then I thought. My mom mentioned it happening to many girls teams in her area and hearing of it as a nationwide phenomena. I am not sure where the pressure on these girls is coming from but this girls volleyball issue is creating a lot of very nervous and stressed young ladies. They are much too young to be so scared that they cannot function on the court. The best way I can gather to fix this girls volleyball issue is to start having calm discussions with your team. Yelling and creating more pressure is not a good way to get young girls to relax about issues. Parents will need to get involved too because this is more then just a lack of heart or determination. Growing up is tough, but when something interferes with your ability to even participate in a sport you love, there is much more at work behind the scenes. High school girls have this problem as well plus a whole myriad of other wonderful ones that come with teenage girls.