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by Karl Katzenberger
The BREAKDOWN
(updated 4/29/2008)
This year the MSHSL has changed a couple of rules as to volleyball competition that will certainly affect us in Minnesota during the course of our season.
Both are changes for the positive.
Outstate teams may travel into a distant geographical area and be allowed 2 contests per day as opposed to the previous limit of one.
I have to believe this will be a good thing. Outstate teams can get more bang for their buck when say - Duluth comes into town, they can now schedule a doubleheader playing both Wayzata and Armstrong in the same day. Obvious benefits would be more teams facing each other that they wouldn't normally play. Teams that perhaps had a mini-rivalry dating back to a close contest or two that were decided in a best of 3 format in a tourney can now be grown in a full fledged rivalry in a best of 5 match format. Easier for Outstate teams to justify traveling into the "Big City" for a fun weekend of volleyball/taking in the city.
Trust me - I used to cover sports for a Radio and TV Station in Walker, MN and a Saturday 2 match volleyball extravaganza, followed by a Sunday of taking the team to the MOA or a Twins game as a team bonding exercise would be an awesome experience for a high school athlete. We can all agree this would be a positive thing for a young lady living in say - Northern Minnesota. Right?
Sure beats another weekend of riding around the rural routes in a beat up rusty pick-up truck looking for "Fun Things" to do. Not that I posess a working knowledge of what qualifies as "Fun Things" to do for a teenage kid in a sleepy town with no movie theater, bowling alley, or anything resembling a PG-13 enterainment venue for a High School aged kid. I digress.
Ancillary benefit: Duluth could come down and witness first hand how the Trojans could so completely and thoroughly dominate a borderline Blood Lust rivalry like Armstrong Vs. Wayzata for the last 3 years with plenty of near misses but no wins for the Falcons in almost 4 whole years. That brown-out you are about to experience in the metro area is me electrocuting myself by throwing my laptop into the bathtub as I write this. Did I mention this is a heated rivalry?
Teams participating in tournaments may now compete in a maximum 5 matches and/or 15 games as opposed to the previous cap of 4 and 12.
Obvious benefits: More matches = More games = More opportunities for kids who may not normally play in varsity competition get in to play. Kids who may play a normally backrow only role get some frontrow time. Kids who may play normally frontrow get some backrow reps. Coaches get to experiment with lineups.
JV Kids who may be borderline get a shot at "The Show" for a day. Hard to top the pleasurable coaching experience of asking a hard working young lady on the
JV: "Hey kiddo - you busy this weekend?" after a Thursday practice. Then seeing the Million Watt smile go off after handing them a Varsity Jersey for the first time. My allergies must be acting up again. My eyes are mysteriously getting a bit wet at the corners.
Ancillary benefit: More kids getting to play = More happy kids riding the bus back to the high school after the tournament. Ya know - If anybody except for me didn't go home with their parents and were stuck riding the bus on the way back. I have a spiteful rule that mandates the Volleyball Captains to ride the bus to and from tournaments. Somehow I feel this reduces my odds of getting abducted by the bus driver by a certain percentage.
I'm probably just paranoid, but If I disappeared suddenly it would likely take a full month or so for anyone to care enough to organize even a rudimentary search party. I can imagine it would be like the 2 minutes spent looking for a $4.18 expense reciept. "Meh - If it turns up, it turns up."
Just know that my mother would eventually like to be notified.
By all accounts both of these rules will be actively in place for Fall '08. However, I want to go on record and say I must first insist that these rule changes would be way low in priority compared to the following gems I have been actively promoting for the past few years. Someday when I am appointed the "Constable of Good Decisions" to the State of Minnesota*, my first official initiatives will be the following rule changes:
*A hopefully someday created highly paid position I will be perfectly suited for. Check out my blog - kkvb.blogspot.com for other revolutionary ideas.
Allow volleyball head coaches to stand during the course of a match as opposed to the current mandatory seated position when the rally is live.
This one really irks me. I mean - I have to have my butt glued to the chair while the ball is in play? Seriously? I mean this is really King of the Stupid Rules when we compare it to say - Basketball. The head coach can do pretty much anything up to/including "The Electric Slide" while the ball is in play, but somehow the reprehensible and savage volleyball coaches can't be trusted with a similar 10 foot area their motions are restricted to? Was there like a massive JFK like coverup of a triple homicide/maiming that happened in a MSHSL Volleyball match that I don't know about that limits the trust of the powers that be in the subject of the free will of a head volleyball coach? Volleyball is a passionate fast paced game that can incite true unrehearsed emotions from coaches. God forbid we actually coach the team by any means except SCREAMING from a seated position (Please read "The Suggestion Box" article from last week to get my take on this style of coaching).
I don't know what I have to do to get this rule changed. Can you tell I am passionate about MSHSL Volleyball?
Mandatory one male student cheerleader per varsity squad
This one I am equally as adamant about. Think about the sheer comedy value alone as cheer advisors gather their assistants in a pre-season meeting.
Head Coach: "Ummm, so, w-what should we do about, uhhh, ya know - the Dude cheerleader?
Other Coaches: - 5 minutes of painfully awkward silence.
Head Coach: "No ideas guys?"
Assistant Coach: "Uhhh, we should probably at least order him something besides a skirt and a tube top to wear to games huh?"
There should be some rules to selecting this lucky chap too - after all - this isn't because we wan't to see him fumble around with the pom-poms and stagger through the rehearsed choreography. We want to positively alter forever this kid and his circle of friends quality of life at Generic High School.
First of all he cannot rate higher than a 5 out of 10 on the popularity, jock, perceived self esteem or good looking scale. The whole point of this rule would be a bizarro petri-dish experiment (probably start it off as a "provisional 2 year rule") and see if we can reach our goals. Optimally he would be a pimply faced, somewhat athletic, but less than coordinated Freshman, who had no sense of belonging to any social strata except for suddenly he would be spending 2-3 hours a day with some attractive, older, wiser, wayyy cooler girls who could mentor him and include him in the "popular" functions and circles.
Perhaps he would then rub off his new found social confidence on his group of nerdy freshman friends, who were suddenly riding the bandwagon to Junior and Senior parties and hangout joints, mixing on a daily basis with some perky gals that he would otherwise have no business even approaching in fear of total excretory system failure.
Whammo! You have unintentionally/intentionally created a less geeky - more assertive and depression-proof segment of Generic High in one season of Cheer.
We can all agree we have a golden rule here right? Unanimous decision!!!
In a related story: I had an acne problem, an unforgiveable haircut and zero prospects at all for a girlfriend my entire Freshman year in high school.
Disband the Baker System in bowling
Now I realize that bowling is not an official varsity sport, but a club. Nonetheless the rules are governed by the MSHSL(?). Whomever they are goverened by - know this: The Baker System sucks.
The Baker System is a contrived team bowling platform in which a 5 member team each throws 2 frames each and you score the game like it was any normal human bowling 1 continuous game. This infuriorated me for several reasons and eventually made me quit high school bowling after my Sophomore year. This is such a terrible format. I mean c'mon - you can't just line up your 5 best bowlers against my 5 best bowlers and let them throw 1 normal game each with high pins winning? Compare this to golf. Should we do alternate shot to settle a golf match? I mean I was the stud of my bowling team, proudly carrying a 189 average along with my set of 2 personal bowling balls in a rolling travel bag embroidered with my name on it! All so I could throw 2 Effing frames for my school???
Quick side note: In my Sophomore year in high school I now had a raging acne problem, was slightly less uncoordinated and my most meaningful exchange with a pretty girl was Rachel Pearson not-so-politely asking me if I could stop "Oogling her".
Ahhh - High School. Good Times.
I understand that the rules are trying to limit the potential of 1 or 2 individual bowlers so one school can't dominate a team activity with one or two studs.
Puhhhh-leeeaze. This next rule change is the smoking gun that the MSHSL really doesn't care about that.
Mandatory one 10' arc slow-pitch per game in girls' softball
If we were really trying to limit the potential dominance of 1 or two individuals in a team activity we would immediately institute this change. I would argue that no other High School sport can be so singularly controlled by one kid than an ace pitcher in softball.
I watch girls' softball and after 2 innings you can be 90% sure who is going to win right? If the one team has a vastly superior pitcher - It's kind of like the proverbial one-legged man in the field goal kicking contest - Game Over.
I mean where is the suspense other than hanging around on the off chance the dominant pitcher rolls an ankle running the bases or something? Well if they have 2 dominant pitchers, then your are doubly screwed right? You need not one, but 2 fluke injuries to have a chance.
Now this doesn't mean you can't get a rally off of a really good pitcher, but any walk/slapper reaching base combo rally is inevietably snuffed out by the well trained young lady bringing 60 MPH heat from about the distance of 2 bumper to bumper sedans. This rule could incredibly spice up Girls' softball as we know it: Give each head coach one red NFL style hanky which they can throw on the field at any juncture during a game. The very next pitch MUST be a 10' beer league-esque arcing pitch that shall traverse the strike zone. If the pitcher misses the strike zone - the batter is awarded a bases clearing single so the opposing coach is forced to hang one in there, and the pitch must be delivered under pressure in the same manner as all the other pitches by the pitcher.
Red hankies must be used in regulation or forever be lost and may not be carried over. If the game goes into extra innings - each team starts the 8th with exactly one red hanky again.
Strategy, high drama, and a higher scoring game makes this a no brainer right?
I am more on fire right now than (Editor's note: This line was stripped from the article due to an unbelievable lack of taste) at the Free Clinic!!!
Allow checking in girl's hockey
I mean really? Who are we protecting here? Where are the Title IX Lawyers stampeding for MSHSL Headquarters on this one? Am I the only one who thinks this is a totally inane rule? Randomly outlawing a core skill in a game that is already intensely physical in nature? Really? By this logic should we disallow raising the puck? Or ban shots that may hit the poor defenseless goalie? Allow sticks only made by the NERF company? To take this to the absolute ridiculous end - why not reverse the situation arbitrarily and for one season outlaw checking in Boys' hockey but allow it in Girls'?
I mean WTF!?!? What is it we are essentially saying? That either "checking would so stifle participation in Girls' hockey that teams would not be able to field enough kids for a squad"? Or are we so outlandishly stating "Girls are not as physically able to play this sport with traditional rules, so let's dumb them down so egregiously that they could make a go at playing a reasonable facsimile of an otherwise beautiful and pure game"?
Pfffftttt...
I mean I guess I am oversimplifying things but let's apply the same standard to volleyball. Let's say for arguments sake that we voted to install Boy's Volleyball as a MSHSL Sport (Which DEFINATELY deserves it's own column someday) and claim that boys are physically not able to serve recieve or dig a spike from a good low position safely, because it is medically proven that boys have a higher center of gravity than girls. Thus no serve or spike shall be clocked higher than 4 MPH so as we can get a reasonable facsimile of an otherwise beautiful and pure game. This is the biggest logical farce I have heard in defense of the no checking rule and it honestly upsets me more than it rightfully should. I don't even watch or follow Girls' hockey regularly. But I bet you would get a TON of casual fans interested in a hurry (like me) if they reversed this travesty.
Can someone hold the ladder as I back down off my soapbox? Thanks.
Before I go this week - to add some audience participation - I would like to run a contest in this column. I have been promised a few copies of the Breakdown's Inaugural Volleyball publication (An absolute bargain at $20, order directly from this site to guarantee a copy). I will offer one of my personal stash to the most creative/best high school rule change (bonus points for the sport of volleyball). You can submit your ideas to kkvb.blogspot.com or email them to me at ahsvb@hotmail.com
The winner will be declared when I recieve my copies and will be prominantly featured in this column. I mean that's like getting TWO life altering prizes really. You must give your real name and email address to recieve the prize. Enter as many times as you would like! Any other feedback or ideas for future columns I promise to read personally and perhaps include in future column entries as well. Let's get going all you volleyball junkies out there!!!
WAIT!!!
Almost forgot the MOST pressing of rule changes. A near oversight of insano proportion.
Armstrong Falcons receive irrevocable at-large-bid into '08 MSHSL State Volleyball Tourney.
Whew! I would never have forgiven myself if I had somehow forgotten the whole point of writing this otherwise poor excuse for a column.
PS: I hope you are enjoying reading this column as much as I am writing it. If you'd like more - head over to http://kkvb.blogspot.com/ and make a donation to the worthiest of worthy causes please! No more shameless begging til next week - promise.
Thanks for reading - and Go Falcons!
Karl Katzenberger is a long time coach and supporter of youth volleyball in Minnesota. He can be found treating his adult acne on the bench as the Head Volleyball Coach at Armstrong High School. Comments/feedback about this column or other worldly topics can be sent to ahsvb@hotmail.com or visit kkvb.blogspot.com
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