By Staff
Coaching Management, 9.9, December 2001, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/cm/cm0909/bbrules.htm
Having resolved the controversy over its composition, the newly formed NCAA Women's Volleyball Rules Committee held its first meeting August 3-4 in Indianapolis. Among the members' first tasks: identifying timely issues in the volleyball community, developing a process for addressing rules changes, and producing an NCAA rules book.
As we reported in the previous issue of Coaching Management, Division I coaches favored a 5-2-2 split among committee representatives from Divisions I, II, and III, respectively. After Division III coaches protested, a 4-2-2 balance was proposed by the Division I Championships/Competition Cabinet, and it was this arrangement that was approved by the divisions' Management Councils at their April meetings.
The rules committee's eight representatives are as follows: Division I members include Cynthia Gannon of Southeast Missouri State, Nina Matthies of Pepperdine, Terry Pettit of the University of Nebraska, and Brenda Weare from Conference USA. Division II members are Debbie Hendricks from Metropolitan State and Theresa Garlacy of Bryant College, and Division III is represented by Tim Cowie of New York University and Kristin Russell of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Pettit, former Head Coach at Nebraska, was nominated to chair the committee.
Garlacy is excited about the potential of the new committee. "I have been a player and coach for quite a while and my interest in joining the committee was to better understand the logic behind some of the rules changes and to have an impact on the future the game takes," she says. "The committee is very well-rounded in its members and all of us are honest and open about our reactions to suggestions and changes."
The new rules book is at the top of the committee's agenda. "I think it is long overdue for the NCAA to establish its own rules book for volleyball," Garlacy says. "Above all, for volleyball to gain popularity we need consistency in the rules and we all need to be playing the same game at all levels--youth, collegiate, and international."
With the goal of producing a rules book for the 2002 season, the committee voted to adopt the NAGWS Volleyball Rules book as the building block for the NCAA book. A familiarity with the language and format of the NAGWS book would ease the rules transition process for member schools, according to the committee. Marcia Alterman, the rules interpreter for NAGWS volleyball, was recommended by the committee to serve as its secretary-rules editor.
To identify possible future rules changes, the committee voted to divide into four subcommittees that will examine these areas: 1) officiating; 2) libero and other rules of play; 3) surveys and data collection; and 4) editing the rules book. Each subcommittee will gather information from outside organizations such as the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA), USA Volleyball, and NAGWS and present it to the full committee during an October conference call (after this issue went to press).
Seeking input from membership regarding potential rules changes, the committee sent a survey to all NCAA women's volleyball coaches in October. Among the topics addressed are use of the libero player, substitutions, issuance of red cards, the pursuit rule, bonus scoring, side-to-side overlaps, scoring formats, number of timeouts, and use of artificial noisemakers. The committee will review the results of the survey at its February 2002 meeting.
Other topics the rules committee has started to discuss include the current officiating program administered by the Professional Association of Volleyball Officials (PAVO), the committee's role in reviewing equipment submitted by manufacturers, and the production of supplementary rules materials.