Post by My2Sense on Dec 28, 2003 14:30:17 GMT -5
Wolfgang said:
Regarding bad publicity, the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding affair that was supposedly "bad" for figure skating was actually the best thing to happen to figure skating.
In this case I don't subscribe to that philosophy. The sport of figure scating has so much more inertia than does Men's D-1 volleyball. With some schools struggling to fund athletic departments and looking for ways to save, this sport doesn’t need to give those looking for targets any more reason to focus thoughts of eliminating men's vb programs, vis-à-vis, Ball St. With the youth movement going on in boy's volleyball, we really need to increase the number of programs offering men's volleyball in order to give those kids real opportunities in the sport.
I often wonder, if Pac 10 powers USC, Stanford and UCLA can figure out a way to offer Men's Volleyball along with football, and a nice grouping of women's programs, all while complying with Title IX, why can't a couple more Pac 10 schools do it, i.e. Arizona (who has arguably the best club men's team in the country) and Arizona St. (because a lot of good boys players come out of AZ and having two teams in close proximity would be good for forming rivalries and for itinerary advantages.)
Providing up to 40 new men's D-1 player openings (2 schools, 20 players each) would do wonders for giving those who don't make their school's starting line ups now, viable opportunities to play. There are a lot of great players who don't play much. If there were just a few more schools offering Men's VB you may not have the situation like the one described at BYU. Teams are so concentrated with talent now. I sure wouldn't want to see the talent pool diluted as it is in the Women's game, but I would love to see more parents of grammar school age boys encourage their sons to play VB instead of say, basketball so they could realistically set their sites on a volleyball career at additional, respected institutions.