Volleyball coaching board: buy one, or just use your phone?
You are about to order a coaching board. There is the plain magnetic board with little counters, there is the pricier version you draw on with a stylus, and there is the thought everybody has at that moment: doesn't my phone already do this? That is a fair question, and the answer has nothing to do with which device is cleverest.
Where the choice really gets stuck
A coaching board is neither expensive nor complicated. Yet the same question keeps coming back, because the comparison is almost always made on the wrong points: on what a thing can do, instead of on what happens with that thing in the hall.
A timeout lasts thirty seconds under most rulebooks. A fair chunk of that goes on players walking over, taking bottles off you and six or seven people who have just given a point away going quiet. What is left is twenty seconds at most to make one thing clear. Anything you are operating during those twenty seconds — the cap of a marker, a lock screen, a magnet that drops on the floor — comes off your explanation.
That is the yardstick. Not: which board can do the most. But: which board gets in the way least when it matters. Below, the three options sit side by side on four points, including the points where the cheapest board simply wins. This piece is only about the purchase; how you explain a situation in those twenty seconds without losing six people is covered in the tactics board in a timeout.
The three options, briefly
- The magnetic board. A panel with a volleyball court printed on it, magnets for the players, a whiteboard marker and a cloth or eraser. Often double-sided: full court on one face, half court on the other. Usually about the size of a slim book or a little bigger. You put the counters down, you draw an arrow next to them, you wipe it off.
- The LCD board. A screen you write on with a stylus; the line appears in a single colour on a dark background. There is a button that clears the whole screen in one go. The court is printed on the screen or sits under the drawing layer. There are no counters: you draw everything, players included. A small battery inside mainly draws power when you erase, which is why it lasts so long.
- Your phone or tablet. An app with a court you draw on with your finger. No extra kit, no second bag, and the device is already in your pocket. Against that: a lock screen, and the fact that a phone is small for seven pairs of eyes.
I am leaving prices out, because they vary too much between countries and shops to compare sensibly. The pattern is the same everywhere, though: a magnetic board is the cheapest, an LCD board costs several times that, and an app on a device you already own costs you nothing extra in hardware.
Point one: how fast is it in your hand?
This is where the phone loses, and there is no point talking around it. A board hanging off your bag on a cord or lying under your chair is picked up and it is on. A phone has to come out of your pocket, be unlocked — with wet or cold hands that does not always work first time — and then the right app has to open. Those are a few seconds you do not have in a thirty-second timeout.
There is one way to close that gap, and that is preparation: having the screen open before you call the timeout. Anyone who only opens the board when the referee blows is too late, whether it is made of cardboard or of glass. The same goes for the magnetic board: if the counters are still in their bag, you have lost the same twenty seconds.
The LCD board sits in between. It is always on and draws straight away, but you do have to have the stylus with you. Lose it and a fingernail is a poor substitute: most of these screens respond to pressure, and a finger presses too softly and too broadly for a legible line.
Point two: can the whole group look at it at once?
Six players, a substitute, sometimes a second coach. They stand in a half circle around you, and not all of them straight in front of you. That is a viewing-angle problem, and a phone is bad at it: small, and with a glossy screen that throws the hall lights back at anyone looking from the side.
A magnetic board has neither problem. It is matt, it is usually bigger than a phone, and from whichever side you look you see the same thing. LCD boards come in both sizes and generally do want a decent viewing angle, because the contrast drops away when you look at them at a slant.
A tablet solves the size but not the reflection. And a tablet in your hand on the sideline is a different sort of object from a phone in your pocket: you are back to a device you have to remember to bring.
Point three: power, cold and losing things
The magnetic board has no battery and does not break. That is a bigger advantage than it sounds, because the other two options each have their own way of letting you down at the wrong moment.
- The phone. It is flat by the end of a tournament day, certainly if you are keeping the score on it and taking photos as well. A scoreboard app next to your board on the same device means one empty battery switches off two things at once.
- The LCD board. The battery lasts a long time, but it is in there, and one day it will be flat without you having seen it coming. If you buy one, check whether the cell can be replaced.
- Both screens. A cold hall makes screens sluggish and batteries shorter of breath. A phone dropped on a tiled floor is a repair; a dropped magnetic board is a noise.
Against that stands the upkeep of the magnetic board: whiteboard markers dry out, and you notice a dried-out marker exactly once a season, always at the wrong moment. Magnets go missing, and four counters do not explain a lineup.
More important than breaking is bringing it, and that appears in no product description. A coaching board only works if it is there. A board sitting on the shelf at home because you came straight from work on Tuesday is not a board.
Ask yourself one thing: do you already carry something extra to the hall every week? A folder with your session plan, a clipboard, a whistle? Then a board joins them and it will be fine. Are you someone who walks into the hall with a key, a phone and a coat, then the odds are the board stays in the car after six weeks or so. That is not a character flaw; it is simply how it goes.
On top of that, a board is easily left behind in a sports hall — on the bench, behind the referee's stand, in the changing room. With a magnetic board that is annoying. With a pricier LCD board it hurts, and that is a reason to be honest about it before you buy one.
Point four: does the situation survive?
What you draw on a magnetic board or an LCD board is gone three minutes later. That is usually exactly right — a timeout is meant to say one thing, not to build an archive. But there are two moments when you regret it.
The first is the journey home. What you explained in the hall has evaporated for most players before the bus pulls away. If you can show the picture once more, you do not have to draw it again. The second is the return fixture against the same side, three months later. You remember about half of what went wrong back then.
For that you take a photo of a magnetic or LCD board. That works, but the photo disappears among a thousand other photos, and nobody finds it again in March. It is the same problem as with stats on paper: recording it works, retrieving it does not.
A board inside an app saves the drawing under a name you give it, with the team it belongs to. In Koach that button is called Save tactics board; you name the board yourself, and Share as image puts it in your team's group chat. Make the board from a scheduled match and the list shows, next to that board, that it belongs to that match. That is the side on which a screen beats a panel, and it is the only one.
In short: a board you pick up is faster than a screen you have to unlock. A screen is the only one that remembers what you drew. If you know about yourself that you will not carry the board every week, the board loses that comparison before it even begins.
The question that settles it
Put those four points side by side and there is no winner, but there is an order to the questions you ask yourself.
- Do I already carry something extra to the hall every week? If yes: buy the magnetic board. It is fast, it never breaks, everybody can look at it at once, and it costs next to nothing. There is no good reason to put an app on top of that.
- If not: what do I always have on me? Your phone. Then a board on your phone is not the prettiest solution, but it is the only one that is actually there on a Tuesday evening.
- Do I want to keep and share the situations I explain? Then the screen comes back into the picture, whatever the answer to question one. Some coaches have both: a magnetic board for the timeout, an app for whatever needs looking at again later.
And then there is a difference that fits on no board at all. An empty court always starts empty: you put the six counters down or draw them, and only then can you explain anything. An app that already knows your lineup can show the lineup as it stands right now — who is in which position at this moment, and where everybody ends up after the next rotation. That saves the seconds you would otherwise spend setting up. How that works is in the lineup app for 5-1 and 4-2.
One thing is true whatever you choose: the board does not decide whether your message lands. When to call a timeout and what to do with it is covered in using timeouts and in coaching from the sideline. A coach with an expensive panel and a muddled story still does not win that rally.
Frequently asked questions
Am I allowed to use my phone as a coaching board during a match?
Usually yes, but it differs by competition and by level. At higher levels there are rules about electronic devices on the bench. Check your own competition's regulations before you count on it, or ask the match officials — a board without a screen falls under no such rule anywhere.
What size of coaching board works for volleyball?
Small enough to hold in one hand, big enough that seven people in a half circle see the same thing. In practice that comes down to roughly the size of a slim book. Anything smaller and only the player next to you can see it properly; anything bigger and at some point you stop bringing it.
Can you erase a single line on an LCD board, or always the lot?
On most models the button clears the whole screen in one go. There are pricier versions with an eraser for part of the drawing, but do not count on that as standard. For a timeout it is rarely a problem: you almost always start again anyway.
Do I need a coaching board if I only coach juniors?
With players up to about twelve, pointing at the spot on the floor where somebody should stand usually does more than a board does. Turning a picture into the hall is an extra step for young players. From about thirteen or fourteen a board becomes usable, and it helps most with agreements that are about positions.
