They should have spiked changes in volleyball rules

At the risk of sounding like Sean Hannity, the volleyball world is in danger of being ruined by liberals.

The past couple of years, every time I have attended a local prep volleyball match, I’ve been struck by how liberally the game is played.

(Reader alert: Nostalgic memory ahead.)

Growing up in Southern California, volleyball was a secondary passion, and throughout high school I played a lot, usually at 11th Street in Newport Beach.

But my high school also had a boys club team and that was where I really learned. Learned how to pass and set, but never how to hit (a St. John-phone book vertical didn’t help). Learned how to control the ball, how to set in back and forth, how to keep the ball from rotating.

Because if it did rotate, even a little, it was a throw.

Now it seems just about anything goes.

“It’s been watered down in that respect,” said Mt. Spokane girls volleyball coach John Reid, who played collegiately at Cal State Fullerton. “The frustrating thing is you don’t get your pure setters out there anymore. The kid who is really, really talented with their hands and can put the ball for the hitter.

“Now, anyone can put it up there. That’s OK, too, but it’s changed the face of the game.”

Reid saw this rule evolution firsthand.

“After I graduated from Cal State Fullerton, I went to Brazil,” he said. “I was in the Peace Corps down there, but I also had the good fortune of playing professional volleyball down there. The rules were completely different than what they were here.

“When they started calling the setting a lot looser (here), I knew it was going to happen, because that’s what international volleyball was doing in the ‘70s.”

With international volleyball leading the way, first the college game then the prep game devolved.

Which makes no sense to me.

Volleyball was invented in the United States. It is as American as basketball. Its invention is credited to William Morgan, an acquaintance of basketball inventor James Naismith.

Like basketball, the international game of volleyball was always different, more wide-open and offensive. The game in the States was stricter, more rigid, stressing defense, purer to my way of thinking.

“It was a more fluid game,” Reid said of our old version. “It was clean. (But) the international game changed so much we felt we had to jump on the bandwagon too, unfortunately.”

Instead of making the world change, we did.

Now, thanks to what Ferris coach Stacey Ward calls, “the old ladies at the National Federation,” high school players can’t wear glitter hair spray or clippies in their hair, but they can double hit the first ball.

“Some (of the change) is deliberate, some not,” Ward said. “All the way up to the international level, the rules makers decided that the offenses were ahead of the defenses, especially in the men’s game. So they decided that it’s OK to double hit the first contact.

“You aren’t supposed to be able to carry the ball, but they call the first contact really loose at all levels.”

Although the setting rule supposedly was never changed, Ward understands enforcing two different rules on two consecutive hits is really tough on officials.

So why not change back? No one can tell me the game is better than it was 25 years ago. The kids are more athletic, sure, but liberalizing the hitting rules, changing how we keep score, adding positions, none of that stuff made it more exciting. Heck, the rally scoring may make games go faster, but it took away some of the excitement by limiting big comebacks.

When it comes to this game, I’m positively right-wing.