UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Like all other sports, the collegiate men's volleyball season was cut short amid the coronavirus outbreak last month. While no volleyball can be played for the time being, some of the top coaches in the sport have continued to spend time brainstorming possible way to continue growing men's volleyball across the United States.
Volleyball, which has traditionally had more popularity on the women's side in the United States, has grown exponentially on the men's side in the past few years. In fact, men's volleyball is currently the fastest growing high school sport in the entire country.
Back in January when Penn State hosted Ohio State, UCLA and USC for the Big Ten/Pac-12 Challenge, the coaches for all four teams gathered to discuss the current state of men's volleyball and the future of the sport on the Let's Go State podcast:
American college model vs. international model
One of the most discussed topics among the four coaches was the comparison between collegiate volleyball in the United States and the international system in terms of both the style of volleyball played and players' psychological development on each side.
The sport has become a lot more physical with the players being bigger, stronger and more athletic than ever. USC coach Jeff Nygaard says that combined with increased access to video from all over the world for players and coaches to study tendencies and pick up on new trends in the game has made the collegiate game in the United States begin to look more similar to the style played abroad.
"The game that is being played at the international level is no longer trickling down," Penn State coach Mark Pavlik said. "I think there is a waterfall effect. I think what we're seeing at the international level is starting to get to the collegiate level much faster than it ever has before."
UCLA coach John Speraw, who is also the Team USA men's national team coach, had a similar observation, having plenty of coaching experience on both sides.
"People ask me a lot as being the national team coach and a college team coach, what are the differences? I think it is more physical at the international level. Guys are hitting the jump serve harder and they're definitely jumping a bit higher, but at the end of the day the offenses really aren't that much different," Speraw said. "We're doing a lot of the same sophisticated things that the international game is doing at the university level now."
The group also discussed the differences in structure between men's volleyball in the international circuit and in the American system. Both systems have yielded plenty of success in international competition but the comparison in player development from both sides is fascinating.
"It feels like most of the other countries – let's take Brazil, for example," Nygaard. "They'll peak at around 19 because of the way they structure things in my opinion, and Americans because we don't have access to that high-level volleyball at an early age, we'd have to go play overseas. We start peaking later at 27 to 33-ish."
In most international countries like Brazil, young players immediately go through the country's professional clubs in their youth development program, which allows them to be ready to contribute at a younger age than in the United States.
In the last four Olympics, Brazil has been more successful than any nation in the world, having medaled each time, including two gold medals in 2004 and 2016.
However, many believe the American collegiate system fosters an important period of social and psychological development that is more difficult for young players to learn in the international system.
"You take four years of this developmental phase and you put them all with the same age in a fairly collaborative environment, supportive environment, whereas the professional young guys, the 19-year old that you see pop up in a lot of other countries, they're thrown into the fire," Speraw said. "I think our athletic departments all understand that it's about holistic development of the student-athlete. And so, when our student-athletes are then the age of 22, 23 and they're moving off into playing professional volleyball…I believe they're in a better social place to handle that responsibility."
Ohio State coach Kevin Burch added that international players are competing year-round at an early age, whereas players in the United States have much shorter seasons and not playing year-round at the professional level until age 22 or 23, which probably allows for a little bit more longevity.
Nowadays though, the coaches have observed fewer international players burn out as early in their careers, which adds another challenging layer for the United States to compete against.
Men's volleyball becoming less regionalized
Youth men's volleyball has traditionally been the most popular in regions like Hawaii, Southern California and Florida where warm weather allows for year-round play.
Over the past several years though, men's volleyball has begun to expand throughout the East Coast and the Midwest in large part due to funding from organizations like First Point Volleyball Foundation, which Speraw founded in 2016. The organization has raised about $3.5 million and started 17 programs.
"One of the initiatives that we've been very proud of that occurred organically was to grow high school boys' volleyball," Speraw said. "We now have a high school advocacy committee and it's been really, really successful. Minnesota is probably the area we're most proud of right now…There are now over 1,000 boys in just over 18 months. The work that is being done out there is a blueprint for us, as is what's been going on in Colorado…We're working on other states right now and we continue to hope to build off of the last 21%."
A great example of the sport's expansion has been the success of several Midwest programs over the past decade. Since 2011, Ohio State has won three national titles, including back-to-back championships in 2016 and 2017. Loyola-Chicago also won two national championships of its own in 2014 and 2015. Lewis, also located in Chicago, has four top-five finishes in that time span as well.
The United States national team, while still mostly composed of players from traditional hotbeds like Southern California and Hawaii, now has a more diverse collection of players with Matt Anderson (New York), Aaron Russell (Maryland), Jeff Jendryk (Illinois), Max Holt (Ohio), Ben Patch (Utah) and Thomas Jaeschke (Illinois) all growing up in non-traditional boys' volleyball regions.
Collegiate rosters are also becoming much more diverse too. Every program is recruiting kids from all over the country more than ever before, which is one of the main reasons Penn State's conference, the EIVA, is much more competitive than it was even five years ago.
"10, 15, 20 years ago, our rosters were all pretty regionalized," Pavlik said. "Now, everybody has East Coast kids, West Coast kids, southern, Florida kids. You can pick a roster out of a hat and they're very homogenized. They look very similar."
The Summer Olympics also add tremendous value in helping to grow the game because it gives the sport exposure to a national television audience that is extremely rare in the United States.
"I happened to compete in a few Olympics and back then, other than the pocket that we were in, nobody knew we existed," Nygaard said. "And so, we go to the Olympics and we're one of the top-three most watched sports that there is. It's so compelling of a sport…that is the snapshot of that time where people wake up and go, 'Oh my gosh, I had no idea that this is what men's volleyball really was.' And now you're talking about the growth of high school and all these other demographics opening up and the initiatives that (Speraw) is talking about. There's a lot of great things happening, and it's not just that top-down model. It's also the grassroots growing up, we're just benefitting from all these different things."
One thing to change about the sport
Each of the coaches was asked what about men's volleyball they would like to see changed moving forward.
Nygaard advocated for more funding for everybody so that the sport can have a bit more of a level-playing field for guarantees that teams are going to have opportunity. He also mentioned that part of the reason the game has been growing is the increased technology around the game and increased access video on players and teams everywhere. A great next step for Nygaard would be getting men's collegiate programs to procure modern technology and cameras into their gyms to create a more level-playing field.
Pavlik would like to see the sport remove the double contact rule when the ball is set to a hitter.
"If we get rid of the double contact, is it going to change how coaches teach their setters to contact the ball? No," Pavlik said. "Coaches are still going to coach the most efficient way for a setter to use his hands to get the ball in a consistent spot time after time. It takes judgement of technique out of our game. Outside of gymnastics, is there another sport where an official judges technique and awards an opponent a point for poor technique? I can't think of one. Let's get rid of it in volleyball."
Burch wants to see a minimum number of national television matches, especially for power five teams.
"I think that is going to grow the game as much as anything," Burch said. "We've talked a lot about that exposure. I think another thing too would be to extend the serving space at the junior level because I think that's a big transition. I think that's the toughest part of young guys coming in is the serve and pass because there is no space to serve so they'll get a lot of easy float serves, but when you come to the college gym it's guys taking long approaches and hitting it hard. I think that can increase the level of play too."
Speraw concurred with Pavlik about eliminating the double contact rule. He also added eliminating the reaching over the net fault.
"I don't think there should be any restriction," Speraw said. "If the ball is near the net and you can grab it, you should grab it because I think it is the most curious call we see from referees today anyway. What would happen actually is you'd be forced to pass the ball off the net. You'd probably end up with a few more rallies."
