Friday, January 15, 2010

Sand volleyball: In or out?

The NCAA, which is meeting in Atlanta, Georgia this week, is voting today on whether to keep sand volleyball (for women) or to nix it from the list of emerging sports.
When it was added I recall a little concern on my part on how it would be implemented and apparently others have similar concerns. The concerned/not concerned line has been largely based on geographic region, though cold-weather schools including Nebraska are in support of sand volleyball. But this is not necessarily surprising because Nebraska typically has a very strong indoor women's program. And this leads to other concerns that sand volleyball isn't presenting new opportunities but more formal off-season training for current indoor players.
The override vote is the result of objections from 63 NCAA schools. But a 2/3 majority (of whoever shows) is necessary to take sand volleyball off the list.