About Steve Hagenlocher Expertise I am a Division I women`s vollegball coach. I have been coaching at the college level for the past eleven years. I am also teaching and coaching at the high school level and I have been doing so for the past sixteen years. In my spare time I;ve coach 11-12 year old girls in the CYO. I am also a certified high school referee for both varsity boys and girls. I have over 250 drills in my drill book and I believe I can be most helpful answering questions about running certain offenses and defenses.
Experience BS in Physical Education St Francis College 83
MS in Physical Education Brooklyn College 93
Expert: Steve Hagenlocher Date: 11/2/2007 Subject: net height
Question When was the net height changed to its current position? And has there been any consideration to increasing it recently? There have been a lot of rule changes over hte last decade trying to help the sport become a more fan friendly/TV friendly sport. But none seem to address a major issue, which is that points are often so predictable and short. Serve, bump, set, spike, point. No long rallies. (Similar to what led to a decline in the popularity of men's tennis when the top players were all serve and volley specialists.) In my opinion, a big reason for this is that the player's height and athletic (jumping) ability have outgrown the current net height and the kills are coming from so much higher than the net that the games is being played vertically, rather than horizontally. I would think that raising the net even 2-4 inches, or perhaps making the men's height a nice even 100 inches would help bring longer, most exciting rallies, while still allowing the most athletic hitters to sky above the net for blocks and kills. So, has this ever been considered, and when was the last time the height was raised?
Answer Tom,
A agree with some of the things you say BUT like professional and college basketball where just about everyone can dunk if you raise the height of the rim the overage player will lose interest or have great difficulty playing the game for fun. If you change the height just for college then the HS player will have to relearn all the hitting and setting skills in college. The new rule have helped the women game a great deal. One of the ways to get better men's games is to have more teams, more teams will bring in more athletes. Right now only the most elite men's volleyball player is playing Division I volleyball. If there were 200 more teams then there would be 3,000 more players and every player on every team would not be in the top 1% in the world.
As far as your net question. I spent some time trying to find the answer and I could not find a definitive answer. Here is my best guess. in 1895 volleyball was made and the net was 6'6" above the ground. In 1916 the YMCA asked the NCAA to help them with changing rules. In 1928 the USVBA (now USA Volleyball) was formed to make rules. So I will guess the net changes in between 1016 and 1928.
