In Praise of Porches (part 2)
And of the people and conversations on them
The idea for this piece comes from two podcasts, one I listened to and one I was part of. While I am going to share some thoughts about the second podcast and about some other conversations I’ve had recently, I want to start with the larger idea that ties all those conversations together: the porch.
In part 1, I described what it means to be a “porch guy” and began to give examples of how porch guys engage in the practice of philosophy. In this part, I’ll give a few more ideas of what that engagement looks like and, hopefully inspire you to join me on the porch.
I’ll open with one more thing Mick brought up during the Weekly Buzz discussion, his hope that AI would make it possible for coaches to input their stats somewhere and receive suggestions on how to improve and/or win more. While I do think what Mick suggests is or will be possible, it highlights something that I only had time to mention in passing. AI, as we currently see it, consists of large language models, meaning they are designed to predict which words are most likely to follow other words based on their training data. Mick suggested that club coaches could take advantage of AI to gain insights about their teams but, as I pointed out and Tom later reiterated, the training data may not allow for accurate results. The data that is available for AI to train on comes from what’s available on the web, which is overwhelmingly college and professional match data. As I said several times during the podcast, I don’t believe that what is required to win in college or in the pros is the same as what’s required to win in high school and club. Club coaches could be misled by AI, not because it would lie to them, but because it would tell them how to win in a different place.
The last topic I want to revisit from the podcast is Jim’s comparison of serving strategy in volleyball to pitching strategy in baseball. I like Jim’s thinking about being able to change strategies. I don’t know if pitchers are the best way to make that point. The role of serving in volleyball is, in my mind, too different from the role of pitching in baseball. For a pitcher, having different pitches is the standard. Pitchers have different pitches because they gain an advantage over batters by making their different pitches look the same until it’s too late for the batters to respond. For a server, different serves is not the standard. I don’t think it’s the standard because there’s almost no way to disguise what kind of serve a player will hit and still have that type of serve be as effective. (The hybrid serve might be an exception, but I don’t think it negates the larger point.) Players can vary the direction and location of their serves while disguising their intent and I believe servers do use these strategies but, in my mind, the question is to what benefit? As we discussed elsewhere in the podcast, college teams often know how to hedge their chances of scoring points by serving certain players or certain zones in certain rotations. It may be disadvantageous to deviate from those choices, which I don’t believe is the case for pitchers. Could servers provide more value for their teams by varying their serves more? Maybe. I think there has to be much more discussion of what different serving strategies really are and what the potential benefits could really be. I think Jim’s comments bring that important topic to light and I hope his ideas encourage others to think more about serving strategies.
But enough about the podcast. I’ve also had a few other conversations that I believe illustrate the value of the porch.
I am currently having an email conversation with a coach about the balance between individual achievements and team achievements, specifically concerning how postseason awards are based on those achievements. How can individual abilities be highlighted for players on a well-balanced team, particularly in order to demonstrate their skills in comparison to a player who does everything for their team? Can you demonstrate if a player on a well-rounded team is objectively better than the only star on a different team? Can you make such a distinction using stats available to All-Conference and All-American selection committees? It’s a version of a regular porch conversation: should a league MVP be the best player, the player who is most important to their team, or somewhere in between? What makes a player valuable? How you answer the stat question depends on how you answer the question of value. What I’ve been saying to my friend is that usage stats may be the best way to bring some level of objectivity to the discussion, but those aren’t part of a college selection committee’s criteria. (Usage stats are those that take into account how much players are used over a similar amount of chances, like points per 100 touches.) So we’ve been talking about ways to do simple math on the commonly available stats to begin to show usage rates in an effort to bring more context to discussions that typically center on gross numbers and averages. It’s been a fun conversation so far and I look forward to continuing it. I see this conversation as being a good way to encourage the integration of more interesting stats into discussions in a larger community.
Next, as a result of my appearance on the Weekly Buzz, an old coaching friend reached out via email to ask me a question. In a lucky coincidence, we were both planning on attending the same college match a few days later, so we got to spend a bit of time discussing things during the match. My favorite part of our conversation centered on the distinction between coaching for learning and coaching for competing. We shared how much we struggle with asking players to change and grow while still constantly measuring their current performance. It is challenging to support players as they feel the constant pressure to execute and never feeling like their numbers can drop. How can they try new things? It is a vital question for all coaches who are trying to develop players while also trying to win at the same time. I hope we are able to continue our conversation and bring it to others on a porch somewhere.
Lastly, as part of my work, I’ve recently been able to have conversations with analysts at several programs about how they use VolleyStation software. The best part of these conversations is that the whole purpose of them is to bring them to the porch. As part of my job, I get to be a porch guy. I get to take these conversations about best practices and bring them to a larger community. I get to interact with others about subjects we all care deeply about. I get to be part of shaping the present and the future of those subjects.
There’s something important about philosophy that Manson and Holiday pointed out in their podcast: it isn’t something you know, it’s something you do. Holiday talked about how he doesn’t believe that he should say that he has read a certain philosophy book because it implies that he’s gotten everything he needs out of it. Instead, he believes that he should say that he is reading something, continuing his relationship with the ideas. That mentality is part of being a porch guy, because the ideas you bring to the porch and the conversations you have around those ideas make them live. The ideas I’ve shared on this Substack, on podcasts, and in one-on-one conversations need to be on the porch if they are to be worth anything. It doesn’t just take me writing or speaking. It takes others interacting with me and with the ideas.
See you on the porch.
If you’re interested, here’s the MasterCoaches episode:
After my appearance, I was reminded by a subscriber of this event: Sacred Heart suspends coach after sideline incident with player. (You can also read the university’s statement here.) I do not condone or forgive Bob’s actions on that day. My appearance on MasterCoaches was not intended to overlook his actions. (EF 10/29/2025)
And here’s a link to the Solved with Mark Manson podcast with Ryan Holiday:
As a baseball/ volleyball guy and analyst, I think you hit the nail on the head with pitching vs serving. Rotations also are a big point of contrast; teams are set up to receive differently with different personnel in different places, opening up new looks even if the same person/ area is served multiple times. Unlike the batter/ pitcher relationship where everyone is always stationed in the same place. Have you ever done work concerning targeting certain receivers repeatedly and aggressively in game? Throwing the same pitch/ same spot is usually a recipe for failure, but picking on poor receivers seems to yield results.