To not like volleyball is understandable. To some people, it may just not be their thing. But to not respect it is another thing altogether.  To not appreciate the craft, dedication and brilliance of the better players and teams in the world is a travesty. In this article, I try to explain why I feel volleyball is the Rodney Dangerfield of the sporting world.

Basketball players and fans tend to thoroughly enjoy a good alley-oop slam dunk. The act itself, when done right, takes the breath out of people who watch it. The players grimmace and smirk as they return to the other half of the court and the opposing team tries their best to shrug it off and bring the ball in again.

The alley-oop slam dunk happens over 200 times in a 5-set volleyball match. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not. There is no goal tending and the basket is 30 feet by 30 feet. In the big picture, Basketball and Volleyball are sister sports; A layup is an attack approach, a rebound is a volleyball block attempt, etc. Every muscle used to jump in basketball is the same used in volleyball, albeit volleyball players don’t wear bricks on their feet.

Now, I have a few basketball players on my team. But I wonder why I don’t have more. Of course, being a bottom tier of the conference team in my first two years has not helped. Winning brings numbers to a sport, the hanger-ons if you will. But you can’t win without a large number of good athletes. It’s a catch-22 that I live with every day of my life.

As respectability goes, Football is up there in the US. The cover athlete of a Madden football video game gets more press and talk show guest appearances than all the gold medal volleyball athletes combined. You get rewarded for aggression and hitting someone and it has gotten to the point that young people feel that if there is no contact, than its not a sport. Too many people, I assume, can name an obscure linebacker on a horrible NFL team and not know who Karch Kiraly is.

In the United States, girls volleyball at the high school and college level is at a good point. Up until Title IX, there just weren’t as many options for girls in sports as there were for boys. Parents of today’s high schoolers never grew up with boys volleyball, only girls volleyball, so they don’t help the stereotypes at all. They encourage Football, Soccer, Basketball, and Baseball, but avoid suggesting Volleyball. They treat it like the stereotype of their son joining the Theater group. This is not helping the number of high schools sponsoring boys volleyball as a varsity sport. California’s volleyball programs are successful because many parents of today’s California youth grew up playing volleyball themselves and they are thrilled to pass on the great sport to their kids.

What do the many people in this country honestly think volleyball players and coaches do? Do they think it’s some eccentric hobby like scrapbooking? It’s a serious sport. Volleyball players go on to play professionally overseas, get college scholarships, and represent the USA against countries that have proud volleyball traditions and win Gold! Even if they don’t, players tend to be high achievers in whatever they go on to do because they have to do a bit better than run into someone to be good at what they do. They also have to work that much harder to gain the very little respect they do get.

Enough of the complaining. Here’s a proposed solution:

• Volleyball players need to promote adult competitive and recreational leagues.
• Coaches at the high school level need to start intramurals at the elementary level, yesterday. If necessary, try doing something  like Australia’s idea of Spikezone or mini-volleyball. In order to do this, coaches need support from teachers who may be willing to donate some time to supervise the teams.
• Volleyball fans need to actually show up when the National team comes to your state to play other nations in the World League preliminary pool play. When these games are shown on ESPNU and viewers and the stations themselves see 100 people in the stands, they are not impressed and do not feel that they need to cover/watch it the next year.
• We need some kind of public push to create a new name for the horrendous play at picnics and family reunions. I propose the name, “Throwball!” With the excalamation point included to emphasize the crazyness. Calling this type of activity by the name “volleyball” severly damages the respectability of the sport.
• Volleyballers are going to hate me for this, but to build indoor volleyball, we need to stop concentrating so much on the AVP.  The general public thinks the bikinis and shirtless dudes playing volleyball is a joke. I know it’s not, but it’s not helping the stereotypes the way the AVP markets itself. This is not helping the growth of  volleyball despite what management thinks.
• When someone gets the investors together and creates another U.S. professional volleyball league, let’s support it and not find convenient ways to avoid going to matches in our area (e.g. ticket prices, etc.).

Volleyball is a very difficult sport to play. It is, unfortunately, a sport that looks easy to the casual observer. Picnics and family reunions be damned, volleyball is hard to play well. One person who is thought of as the star player at “Throwball” would be laughed off the court at most recreational volleyball leagues.

Think of it in this way:

1. Serve – The ball is thrown in the air and hit with force at least 30 feet, but not more than 60. All the while, the ball must be hit at least 7 feet 11 and 3/8 inches (men’s height) high or it will hit an obstruction. Then it must fall inside the opposing court to get a point called an “ace.” it’s tennis without a raquet and a higher net.
2. Pass – The ball must be “caught” by the player as it is coming from one direction and then “thrown” to another. But this has to happen in a split second or it’s a violation. It’s Baseball on TiVo at 4x speed.
3. Set – The ball must again be “caught” by the player as it is coming from one direction and then “passed” to another. The ball must be passed parallel to the net. This is the beloved Alley-Oop play. But again, it has to happen immediately or it’s a violation.
4. The Kill – The player must determine the velocity, height of the ball and approach it ready to hit the ball out of the air. At the same time, the player must see where the blockers are, where the backrow defense is. Then they have one chance to hit the ball, and hit it hard while at the same time ensuring the ball is hit high enough that it crosses the net and possibly the block but also comes down within the 30 feet by 30 feet court space on the opposing team’s side. As a sidenote, how can a sport, with a skill called a “kill” not be respected?

Picture “Hot Potato” on steroids.

These are just a few examples of the skill it takes to even be thought of as an average player, let alone an elite one. I didn’t even cover defense and many other aspects of the game.  The truth is, there is so much a player has to think about during a volleyball rally that the average observer has no clue about. Volleyball is a true team sport. A football, basketball, and baseball team can still win with 1 or 2 less-than-good players. The same cannot be said about volleyball.

Overall, the answer to my question in the title of this article is “It depends on who you ask.” But it should be “Yes!” and we can make it so, with just a little more work. Volleyball popularity has grown over he last 20 years, but it still has a long way to go.