In 2013, Vinci started a business called VolleyMetrics. As his career advanced in Italy and the U.S., he focused more and more on technology, analyzing video and building models to help improve player performance. Giuseppe Vinci began coaching volleyball in Italy when he was 16 years old. Young volleyball entrepreneurs like former NCAA star Zoe Fleck are also jumping on the AI bandwagon, envisioning even more ways for the technology to help improve coaching and player development, especially at the high school level. Beach coaches like Stein Metzger and Brooke Niles already have tons of experience using these systems to help analyze and coach their players, and they’re excited to see what comes next. In truth, programs featuring machine learning and AI have helped shape volleyball for years. Moreover, how will AI affect volleyball? After all, the goal on offense is to “terminate.” Can intelligent software really “think?” Will smart machines take away our jobs, rob us of our creativity, and destroy life as we know it? While we haven’t quite reached Skynet stage as of yet, it’s clear that AI has risen to become one of today’s hottest topics. In 1984’s celebrated movie “The Terminator,” Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as a fearsome Cyborg killer, transported back in time from a post-apocalyptic future controlled by an evil artificial intelligence (AI) called Skynet.
