Boys volleyball aiming to become emerging activity under the OSAA

Published 5:00 pm Saturday, September 30, 2023

A new sport is making an effort to get on track to become the next activity added to the OSAA list in the near future.

Representatives for boys volleyball will be asking for a vote to become an “emerging activity” with the OSAA when the organization’s Delegate Assembly meets on Oct. 9.

With enough votes, boys volleyball would become the first sport to be deemed an emerging sport under the OSAA.

Patrick Gibson, a computer engineer by day, has been helping lead the charge for the sport in the Portland area as a coach at Blues Volleyball Club and used to coach at Lincoln High School.

Gibson, along with Sydney Hammond and Cody March, have helped put together the effort with two initial readings to the OSAA over the past year in order to reach this point of a vote on Oct. 9.

“The goal is to provide access to a sport that I find amazing and rewarding, and that chemistry and camaraderie and teamwork that you get out of volleyball is a different experience,” Gibson said. “And what I’ve seen over the last few years, there’s just a lot of interest in the game for boys.”

What’s an emerging sport?

First things first, this is new territory for the OSAA as the organization hasn’t had an activity be deemed an emerging sport in its previous history.

Outlined in the OSAA handbook under Rule 6, an emerging activity differs from a sanctioned activity primarily by the amount of structure provided by the OSAA.

An emerging sport does not receive assigned rule interpreters, a section on the OSAA website, state championships administered by the OSAA and an OSAA plan book.

However, what it does provide is a listing in the OSAA handbook that goes to all schools, and registration for the activity will be officially offered. A committee will also be formed to help determine specific rules and any other necessary information.

The only big requirement listed by the OSAA to be considered as an emerging sport is to have written indication from at least 25 schools that are willing to offer the sport on a provisional basis.

When making the pitch to reach emerging status, representatives from the sport must also provide guidelines on contest limitations, individual player limitations and the season of participation.

When it comes to boys volleyball, Gibson reports that earlier this year in the 2023 spring season, the Oregon High School Boys Volleyball Association had 54 schools express interest in the sport, with 31 teams participating from 35 schools and 420 boys playing.

Those numbers are a significant increase from the first season held in 2022, where only seven teams from five schools participated and only had 84 boys playing.

Ahead of the Oct. 9 meeting, Gibson reports that 72 schools have expressed interest in boys volleyball, up from 23 at this time last year, and that 72 includes schools from all six classifications and all regions of the state.

Boys volleyball growing

Gibson is quick in his presentation to note that 32 states currently offer boys volleyball as a sanctioned sport or an equivalent to an emerging sport.

Using data from the NFHS, the American Volleyball Coaches Association reports that boys volleyball participation has increased 56% nationally, going from 50,016 players in the 2010-11 school year to 77,287 in 2022-23.

When it comes to Oregon, Gibson has seen the interest skyrocket over the past two years, and it all started with a group of teams in Portland connecting with a group of teams in Salem to make up that initial 2022 season.

The breakdown of the 72 schools expressing interest are 33 schools from 6A, 12 from 5A, eight from 4A, eight from 3A, four from 2A and seven from 1A.

“If we’re going to make an investment of state dollars, we want it to benefit all regions geographically and all classification levels, not just the big schools,” Gibson said. “So that’s an important component of this … There are advocates all over the state that I’m finding.”

One of the best success stories from the 2023 school year came from outside the Portland metro area with Central Christian High School in Redmond.

At the state tournament, teams were broken into four divisions following pool play with the Tigers ending up in the Silver bracket.

Central Christian swept its first two opponents before falling in the title match to take home a second place trophy, which Gibson was told is the school’s first trophy in any sport.

“They ended up taking second and they just built a new school and the funny thing was, they’re like, ‘Well, we need to add a trophy case now,’” Gibson said. “It’s really cool to see these kids coming together, and nobody’s ever played before. And they were the second best out of those eight teams in that bracket.”

Next steps

The meeting of the OSAA Delegate Assembly begins at 9 a.m. Oct. 9 at Holiday Inn in Wilsonville and will also be live streamed on the OSAA’s YouTube channel.

The vote on boys volleyball to become an emerging sport is only part of the meeting. The assembly will also vote on the OSAA taking over the all-state voting process, changes to the playing up request process and adding a “week zero” to the football schedule.

The assembly will also hear the first reading from the Oregon High School Water Polo Committee, which looks to follow suit in the path boys volleyball has made.

Gibson acknowledges that the push for boys volleyball needs to be mindful of Title IX with all of its schools. But Gibson also notes that volleyball is the only sport offered by the OSAA that isn’t co-ed as football allows for girls to participate and cheer has opened up for boys as well.

Another important note to keep in mind is the path for any sport differs from girls wrestling, which was officially sanctioned back in the spring. Girls wrestling had been running alongside boys wrestling over the past few years and had grown to over 800 participants after already running state competitions alongside the boys as well.

If approved, boys volleyball will be under the emerging sport label for two years to continue to grow. After two years, the Delegate Assembly will meet to vote on whether to sanction the activity, keep it in provisional status or remove it from the emerging status.

If the past two years have been any indication though, boys volleyball could be coming to school near you soon.

“My hope is that the OSAA will vote to approve boys volleyball as an emerging sport,” Gibson said. “We’re so young, we’ve only been doing this for two seasons now, but the growth is there and we’ve ticked all their boxes … I hope that (the OSAA) helping to communicate to athletic directors across the state will bring a little more attention to it.”