The Team Concept...

A little over a week ago, the Ritzville Lions hosted the annual father-daughter night. It isn’t easy coming up with a program for this night, but we’ve had a lot of great ideas and they turn out pretty good.

On this night, we asked Brittany Kubik if she would be willing to talk to the daughters. Since she is the daughter of Lion Gary it worked out well for him to escort Brittany to the dinner.

For anyone who doesn’t remember, Brittany played on the last Ritzville Bronco volleyball team, which lost to Davenport in the championship game in 2001. She was a big part of the next two volleyball championships in 2002-03 in the B and A classifications for Lind-Ritzville.

The L-R girls with Brittany won the B girls’ basketball tournament in 2003 and would have a great run in the A classification before dropping the final to Colfax. That’s three state championships and two second place finishes in three years for Kubik and her high school teammates.

Brittany played for the Walla Walla CC and was on a NWAACC championship in 2005. She went to Lewis Clark State College (LCSC) for two years and played in the NAIA tournament as a senior.

Kubik has been the head volleyball coach for the Reardan Indians the last two years. The Indians have won both state championships under her tutelage. She has been the assistant girl’s basketball coach and Reardan has won the last two state championships.

Does Brittany Kubik have the Midas touch? What Kubik has is a love for small towns and small school athletics. She is very humble about the success she has had in her young life. And she credits the coaches and support that she received in a Bronco uniform. She also states that the coach she had at Walla Walla was very good and taught her a lot about the game of volleyball.

During her first year at LCSC, there was a real disconnect for Brittany. Her teammates were not fond of their coach and losing was the result. For her senior season, the Warriors hired Jennifer Stinson Greeny, the former Davenport Gorilla and WSU Cougar. What Greeny brought was a belief in team and it worked and the LCSC Warriors won their league and were nationally ranked.

Brittany talked about her first year at Reardan. She said that the Indians didn’t have a great previous season and few felt they would compete at the state level. But Brittany worked on team building and goals, which she felt the Reardan girls thought this idea was a little strange but as the victories rolled in the belief in their coach increased as well.

When they secured the 2010 2B state volleyball championship it was much easier for her to keep up with the team building program. What is important as a coach is to believe in your philosophy and make it work. Once it works it is easy to point to that success and those that bought into this philosophy will be the biggest proponents, which will make it easier to coach.

Brittany was asked several questions about sports and if she had any pointers about how to improve one’s game. Brittany basically said that spending as much time playing the game is always the most important part of improving anyone’s abilities.

Another question she was asked concerned playing multiple sports or only playing one sport to master that game. Brittany said that living in a small town is a real asset because an athlete can be involved with multiple sports. She stated that one of the girls she is coaching is being recruited by Pac 12 schools as a basketball player. Brittany told the group that the improvements this gal made as a volleyball player and the footwork she learned in the process helped her when basketball season rolled around.

It was a real pleasure listening to Brittany talking about how she went about her business as a coach to secure the kind of success that she has achieved in her early coaching career. She learned from many coaches as a player and has been able to utilize their influence, which means she paid attention and knows what works best for her teams to bring them victories.

Was Brittany the best player on her team? That doesn’t really matter because she was a solid team player understanding that as a team they would win but as individuals it would be much more difficult.

Brittany was the ultimate team player and now she is the ultimate team coach.