The NCAA’s new rule could change women’s volleyball forever. For generations, volleyball has been a beloved sport played by women and men. But with a new ruling, it may become a different sport.
NCAA’s new rule states, “Women’s volleyball players [are allowed] to contact the ball more than once with any body part in a single attempt on a team’s second contact when the ball is played to a teammate. However, if the ball is played over the net in this type of scenario, it would be ruled a fault, and the team would lose the point.”
Before this rule, a referee was allowed to call a double when they believed “the [setter’s] hands are not perfectly even when setting the ball” and this would result in the ball spinning when set. When this was called, the play would stop and a point would go to the other team.
This new rule wasn’t spontaneous. The NCAA committee knew that it would change volleyball so they have been thinking about the rule since 2022. The main reason for this rule change is that many believed that this rule was taking away from the play of the game. A double messed up a set anyway, so it wasn’t an advantage that one team had on another. It couldn’t be seen as a form of cheating for another team.
Ava Calamita, a setter for WHB girls varsity volleyball believes, “It definitely will cause some more controversy during game time, however, I don’t think it will necessarily change the way volleyball is played. As a former setter, I believe that a set is a set, whether it’s pretty or not, it still gets to the same intended person and will typically have the same outcome.”
But this new ruling was very controversial because now anybody on the court can set without the fear of being called for a double. Many setters believe that all of their hard work put into the technique of a set was wasted. Charlotte Dermody, a middle blocker/right side for WHB girl’s varsity volleyball says the new rule “gets rid of the technique by setters, and when using your hands it takes away from all the hard work that volleyball players have used on their hands.”
This new rule is only applied to women’s college volleyball at the moment. But this will most definitely change. This is mainly because most high school and club teams follow what colleges are doing. Even though this new rule is set in place right now, the NCAA is using college sports as a guinea pig in their experiment.
Will this rule change how volleyball is played, or will it just be a failed experiment?
