My Profession - The Game

By Vyatcheslav Platonov

During his lifetime, Vyatcheslav Platonov wrote several books, mostly of the autobiographical / memoir type. His last book, however, was intended to be a handbook for aspiring coaches and as such it contains much of the collected, practical coaching wisdom he accumulated during his many years at the highest level of international volleyball. He specifically discusses developing your own style, building a team, the qualities of a successful coach, training and preparation, and coaching the game.

For the first time ever, this book is now available in English. It is available in uPub format here, and also as a hardcover book.

This book is a unique resource for any coach and a vital addition to the professional library of every serious coach.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781291698930

Book preview

Footnotes

Foreword

Dedication

Dear Reader, thank you for taking an interest in the life’s work of my late husband.

I hope that after reading this book you will have a better understanding and appreciation of both coaching and our great sport of volleyball, and it will help you in your choice to make it a career.

Also, I would like to thank Valery Walter Lebedew and his sons Mark and Alexis for the effort involved in undertaking the translation, editing the manuscript, and distributing the book to the general public. I appreciate their efforts to make this book available to the English speaking members of the world wide volleyball family.

It pleases me to recognise that that this way, Slava’s work, the work of the most successful volleyball coach of the 20th Century, is being made available to a new and wider audience that will appreciate his life’s motto, which is also the name of the book: My Profession - the Game.

Valentina Ivanovna Platonova

October 2013

Saint Petersburg, Russia

A Word from the Translator

or

How I Met Slava

My first meeting with Slava Platonov was in 1977 at the World Cup in Japan. I was then the co-founder and Secretary of the fledgling Australian Volleyball Federation and unbeknown to me at the time, in the middle of a forty year involvement with the sport. My mission was to attend the Asian Volleyball Confederation Congress as the Australian delegate and bring back to Australia as much volleyball knowhow as I could gather. He had come into the onerous job of Head Coach of the National Men’s Volleyball Team of the USSR earlier that year, when he had taken over a team demoralised by the unexpected and bitterly resented loss to Poland in the gold medal game at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Previously he had achieved notable successes as Head Coach of the Soviet Youth Team, followed by a two year stint coaching Kadissia to the Championship of Kuwait.

I was a New Australian of Russian origin, fluent in the language and history of my historical motherland and had heard and read about the legendary Russian teams of the 1950s and 1960s. Thus the decision to be a Russian team ‘groupie’ was easy. How to achieve that in a foreign land and with, then, few contacts in the volleyball world, was a serious challenge.

The brand new super-fast bullet train took me from Tokyo to Hiroshima, where the Soviet team played its group matches, and I made sure I was accommodated at the team hotel. The next step was to engineer a meeting with the head coach and I was understandably apprehensive about that. The cold war between the Soviet Union and the western world was still alive and well. Although I associated with the Soviet delegation at the World Championships in Mexico a few years earlier, here the situation was different. I knew that in those days any contact between Soviet citizens and foreigners was frowned upon by the party officials and travelling groups were invariably accompanied by a party functionary. None of the above detracted from my zeal to meet the top man in Soviet volleyball, and I had come a long way for just that purpose.

Having noted where the Russian team had their evening meal, with more than some trepidation I approached the table and introduced myself, hoping that something in there might hold some interest for the man opposite me. I need not have worried! Platonov seemed to be genuinely intrigued to meet a Russian speaking volleyball fanatic from Australia in the middle of Japan and the next fifteen or twenty minutes of conversation lay down the ground work for a friendly association, I could not honestly call it friendship, which continued over the next decades. Within a few minutes his warm outgoing manner put paid to all my apprehensions and since we both had a lot in common – namely volleyball - the conversation was free and easy. When I mentioned the city of my birth, he immediately said: Ah, we have somebody from there, and called over Oleg Moliboga, one of the star players for introductions.

For the next few days I was in volleyball heaven. Superb volleyball with great players like Loor, Zaitsev, Savin, Kondra, Dorokhov and others, an occasional few words with Slava, not to forget the priceless, autographed team pennant to take home for my sons. Back in Tokyo for the finals my euphoria continued, right down to the World Cup victory celebrations with the team management.

Our next meeting was again in Japan at the World Cup in 1981. Again there were opportunities for a few meetings in between his onerous duties, enjoy the brilliant artistry of his team, which by then was the undisputed leader of the world volleyball elite and at the end, again join in the victory celebrations. To understand fully this experience, it must be remembered that this was the time before worldwide television, computers and instant replays and the only way to witness and enjoy world class elite sport, was actually to be there.

A few years later, my son Mark in his final year at university chose for his project: interviews with world ranking coaches on the subject of their thoughts on volleyball. We decided to try Platonov. He answered my letter saying that he would not write a dissertation, but rather send us a sound tape, which we received a short time later. Father was not quite as thrilled as son, since it fell to him to translate a one hour tape from Russian.

My last meeting with Slava was in Moscow in 1995, on the occasion of the World League match against the Netherlands. He had been enticed to return to, what he called, the electric chair or the coaches’ bench for the third time. In comparison to our previous meetings, this was a different world. The Soviet Union was no more and the Russian Federation which emerged from the chaos was floundering in the commercialism of the western world, trying to find its collective feet. Volleyball players were not immune from the changes. The nation’s top players, instead of being mainly concentrated at the Moscow CSKA (Central Sports Club of the Army) with all its facilities and being readily available for national team duties, were now spread across European leagues as, in many cases, highly paid legionnaires. The match in the famous Dynamo Stadium was a disaster. The great teams of the past had become just a memory. The team that crashed to a heavy defeat against the Dutch was deficient in all those features that were so dear to Platonov’s heart – technique, tactics, discipline.

After the match I met with Slava and his assistant coach, the incomparable setter of the great team of the past, Zaitsev. Slava was pleased to see me again and pour out his collected grief, as if to justify the heavy defeat of the evening. He had less than a week to prepare the team assembled from all corners of Europe, and some of the top players did not come citing injuries. In reality, they preferred a rest after a hard, paid league season instead of more hard matches, this time unpaid, representing their new motherland, the Russian Federation. Slava remembered the old days, when he was in complete control of his squad, not only on the court, but also to some extent in their private lives. In a Soviet Union, bedevilled by never ending shortages, it fell to him to use his status and connections at government level, to provide the comforts of life, not only for his players but also their extended families. Requirements such as correct diet, accommodation, transport, taken for granted in our society, had to be secured the hard way, by knocking on doors for as long as it took to succeed.

We parted, this time forever. Slava continue two more years with the national team before returning to his beloved Automobilist, St Petersburg, which kept changing its name to Baltic and Spartak, as required by changing sponsors.

In 2005 the most successful volleyball coach of the century succumbed to a nemesis which had tortured him for many years. Twice previously surgeons saved his life endangered by a duodenal ulcer and warned him that the real cure was rest and a less stressful profession. This time their skills were in vain.

He lived just long enough to see the fulfilment of a dream for which he worked and fought for many years and that was the establishment of a volleyball academy. Now and for many years into the future, The Platonov Volleyball Academy in St Petersburg will serve young volleyballers to carry on the profession of their late master.

It may be argued that his greatest achievement in a system where often seniority and connections took precedence over skill and excellence