Cary Wendell Wallin: How to handle the stress of a big match

It’s getting close to crunch time for many teams who will soon be competing in tough matches in large tournaments and, if things go well, possibly even the Junior National Championships.

The bigger the match, the more potential there is for players to feel pressure, so Art of Coaching decided to seek out a clutch performer and ask for some advice. Our pick: Cary Wendell Wallin, Director of Player Development at 949 Athletics in Orange County, Calif.

Coach Cary works with all ages of kids, and a lot of them probably don’t even know what a ridiculously good player she was. As a hitter-setter in high school, she won multiple national player of the year honors while leading Arroyo Grande in San Luis Obispo, Calif., to CIF championships in 1990 and 1991. Then she went to Stanford, where she was an All-American. She started on two NCAA championship teams (1992 and 1994), the first as an outside hitter and the second as a setter/hitter in a 6-2 offense. In ’94, she was Volleyball Magazine’s NCAA Player of the Year, and in ’95 she was the AVCA’s Co-National Player of the Year.

Now that we’ve established her credentials, let’s hear what she has to say. In this video, she talks about managing pressure in big matches and shutting out distractions.