7th grade team struggling with serving!

Question
QUESTION: I am coaching my daughters 7th grade team in their off season volleyball tournaments.  We have played 18 matches in the last two weekends and they have not won a single one of them.  They play to 21 and the closest they have been was 22 to 20.  This is all of our girls first year playing volleyball and they have come a LONG way from where they started with the school team.  We only have 8 girls and we do our best to play all of the girls equally.  4 girls serve 50% or less in (12% to 50%), and four serve greater than 50% in(57% to 85%) and this is where they don't seem to be getting better.  Do you have suggestions on how to improve serving?  I feel we could win maybe 1/2 to 1/3 of our games if we could serve better.  Right now we have to work so much harder because of how much they struggle with serving.  Winning isn't our main objective, but we want them to have fun and it's hard to have fun when you lose every single match.
This weekends tournament I set it up so that we served our stronger servers first, and we would get ahead 4 or five points, only to lose the lead and then lose our confidence.  
I'm just a mom trying to help my daughter and her teammates. We have a small school and these girls will one day be our varsity players.  Help me get them off on a positive note!!  Thanks!

ANSWER: Good evening and welcome to www.allexperts.com!

Thank you for visiting us tonight.

I have one big questions:   Are you allowing any of them to serve underhanded?  If so, then can you explain to me how the girls are executing the serve?  And they are still serving only 12% in the court?  Oh my. That's sad.  

If not, then you're at a crossroads.  You say you want your girls to be more successful, but yet you are preventing them from using an underhand serve..... a tool which may help them be successful.  

Here are some pointers on helping your girls overhand serve better.  

a) The most efficient way of serving is:  Left foot forward, then toss, step with left, serve."  It's pretty much the way you shoot a layup:  "Step with left, then shoot," or how you long jump, "Step with left, then jump"  A trained volleyball player never steps with the right foot while serving right-handed.  Would a softball player?  So, she steps with her left to throw the ball with her right handed.  

But I imagine your girls need more power!  Here are four ways I know to get more power:  

a) You can do the stroll.  Start left foot forward, then "Big right, toss, big left, swing."  You will have to practice this a lot b/c your toss will have to be adjusted.

b) You can also try the shoulder twist.  At the moment of contact, twist your shoulders as if something scared you behind your left shoulder, and you turned quickly to see.  This will cause errors, but it usually creates more power also.   So, it's not a really good solution.

c) Swing faster.  Many young vball players (and alkmost all the older ones) who can't serve well have a slow arm swing.  So, practice throwing softballs, footballs, basketballs, etc.  Practice throwing anything as hard as you can, and see if that doesn't help some.   

d) The final way is the easiest.  Make 100% sure that your arm is WAY back before you begin your swing at the ball.  Many girls who don't hit the ball far have an armswing like they're playing ping-pong.  Not even an 18 year old can swing serve a ball like that.  So, try this:  "Prepare, toss, step, hit," all the while NOT MOVING your right arm until you're ready to hit the ball.  

If you want more info on underhand serving, please let me know.  

Now.... for all this typing, could you do me a favor?  Would you visit www.coachhouser.com?  We just finished our 9th summer volleyball camp... that 27 in the past 3 summers.  There's a reason for that!  :)   When you visit us, I think you'll see why.  They're intense, fun, and incredibly inexpensive.  

Hope you have had a wonderful summer!
Coach Houser

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you so much for your prompt reply! I did browse your site and will visit again for more detals!

In answer to your question. Yes, they are allowed to serve underhand.  My daughter does, or she would be a 12%er, but underhand she's 75% which seems on par for the age and makes her the second most consistant server on the team.  :)  
The rest of the girls serve overhand.  When I asked one to try serving underhand she started crying.  None of them want to serve underhand.  I think it has something to do with the attitude of their school coach.

Sooo... I don't know if it would do more harm than good to try to switch them over?  Like I said, improving basic skills is our objective... along with having fun, teamwork, etc.
I just don't know how to teach serving. I can serve about 90% in myself, but it's been so many years that its just a natural fluid motion that I struggle to break down to a beginners level.  

Thank you so much for your advice.  I think throwing things, hard, will be a great help.  I noticed a couple of girls seem to sometimes serve off the wrong foot or have a strange little extra stutter step. So doing that should help with the footwork issus too. I also like the advice about the arm being WAY back to serve.    

I will take your advice into our next practice! I am very thankful for your time in reading and answering my question!

Answer
Good evening!

"the attitude of their school coach"?  Doesn't that coach want them to be successful?  have fun?  enjoy the game?  Come back next year?  90% failure IS NOT fun, will not keep little kids in the program, etc.  Oh, well. It's the school coach's loss, and another activity's gain.  

For those girls who just "have to" serve overhand, you may want to ask them:  "What's in the best interests of our team now?  What do your teammates need you to do?"  Many times, this will be the key to unlocking the right answer from a girl who is struggling between doing two opposites where one is best for her and other would be best for the team.  When given the option of "me or team," 99% of girls will choose team.  Boys.... haha.... I ask them differently.  :)  

Thank you for the long response.  It's great to help coaches who are now struggling with what I have also suffered over.  Please email me anytime you think my staff and I can be helpful at [email protected].  

Coach Houser