The ball to get boys volleyball as a sanctioned sport had started to roll last fall. Then, according to CHSAA, that ball was dropped.
Representatives for the Colorado Boys’ High School Volleyball Association (CBHSVA) have long pushed to get the sport, which is played at the club level by 38 teams, into the varsity fold. In February, CBHSVA was invited to CHSAA’s equity committee meeting. It was the sport’s next rung along the sanctioning ladder.
“Well they didn’t show up to the meeting,” said new CHSAA commissioner Paul Angelico. “The whole ball got dropped.”
Boys volleyball was not to be sanctioned, at least not in the near future.
CHSAA last sanctioned a new sport in 1998, when boys and girls lacrosse were added.
Things have changed slightly since then, but the first official step, according to bylaws, is a survey of member schools conducted by “parties interested in adding” the sport. From there, a proposal is made to the association’s equity committee, which looks at its feasibility from the standpoint of finances, equity (i.e., Title IX), transportation, coaches’ education and what season the sport would take place in.
The final step is having a league make a formal proposal to CHSAA’s Board of Control meeting in the spring.
CBHSVA asked for CHSAA’s help with the first step of the process, with hopes that more schools would answer.
Rhonda Blanford-Green, CHSAA’s associate commissioner who conducted the survey along with Bethany Schott, the association’s volleyball contact, said 157 schools responded. When asked point blank if they would consider adding boys volleyball, 86.6 percent said they would not, including 54.8 percent who came back with “definitely not.”
Only 2.5 percent of schools who responded said they would consider adding boys volleyball.
“There’s nobody that wants to do it,” Angelico said. “It was overwhelming.”
Despite those results, CBHSVA was invited to CHSAA’s equity meeting in February, but a representative never showed up.
It appears as if the survey had dashed the hopes of CBHSVA officials.
“Had we attended that meeting,” said Josh Crosier, the outgoing CBHSVA president, “we would’ve said, ‘Hey, here’s a survey that said that athletic directors weren’t interested in boys volleyball but we want you to add boys volleyball.’ They’re going to say, ‘Well, it has to come from our athletic directors.'”
Angelico said he was open to meeting with CBHSVA again, but the survey is a major stumbling block.
“Now that that survey has gone out, and it has not shown the interest for it, I don’t know that it’s going to go very far, to be honest with you,” Angelico said.
Boys volleyball “is on the back burner,” Blanford-Green added.
Budgets among main concerns
The bottom line, the survey said, was the bottom line.
On this, CBHSVA doesn’t disagree.
“Unfortunately, and surprisingly, very few ADs said that they wanted it to be a varsity sport” in the survey, Crosier said. “It’d be a demand on their pie that’s already shrinking.”
Added Angelico, “Let’s face it: in this day in age, with the way the economy is, this is not the time to ask.”
At the forefront was the fact that some schools have recently cut athletic teams. How would those same schools justify adding a sport?
“We are in a budget crisis,” Blanford-Green said.
Crosier estimated that because most schools already have the necessary equipment from their girls’ volleyball programs — nets, balls and the like — the cost of adding a boys team would be a little over $1,000 per team. Adding a new program would take new uniforms and additional insurance for the school.
“From our point of view, it would seem to be an easy sport to implement,” Crosier said.
It’s become a fundamental split between the two camps.
“That’s not part of the financial piece,” Blanford-Green said of the actual equipment already being in place. “These schools already know they have the equipment.”
Among the biggest factors would be the salary needed to employ a coach and travel expenses to road games.
League needed to spur sanctioning
Perhaps most surprising from the CHSAA survey was this: 36.9 percent of the schools said they wouldn’t support the sport even if it was sustained financially by parents.
Should CHSAA decide to make boys volleyball a varsity sport, its season would take place in the spring.
But among the concerns was the fact that — because of the monster that is Colorado’s spring weather — baseball, soccer and track teams often are forced inside to practice. If boys volleyball was suddenly occupying that gym, the other sports would have nowhere to go.
Also at issue was Title IX, which, among other things, pushes for equality in numbers between boys and girls sports at the high school level. Adding boys volleyball would also likely require adding a girls sport. A partner there could be rugby.
CHSAA said it wants to see growth in boys volleyball before sanctioning it. (Case in point: Blanford-Green said the sport likely to be sanctioned next would be co-ed bowling, which has over 60 club teams. The sport will state its case for sanctioning to the association for the second time in January. It’d be a winter sport.)
Proponents of boys volleyball feel the sport will have a tough time growing without sanctioning.
“If it was CHSAA-sanctioned,” Crosier said, “the interest would quadruple.”
The association also wants to see CBHSVA take the proper steps and go through “the proper channels,” Blanford-Green said.
A petition signed by the sport’s proponents arrived at CHSAA’s offices on June 30, wondering why the sanctioning process was stalled. The official CHSAA response came from Schott, the associate commissioner: “Based on your non-appearance at the (equity) meeting, boys volleyball was not discussed.”
“Look,” Blanford-Green said, “there’s nothing in our office that says we don’t want boys volleyball.”
For now, CBHSVA’s quest for sanctioning is stagnant. It would appear as though only a league has the power to get the ball rolling again.
“I don’t think right now there’s a league that is ready to go forward,” Crosier said. “I don’t believe we’ve really even, frankly, come close to that happening.”
Ryan Casey: 303-954-1983 or rcasey@denverpost.com
