Spiker line judges just your average, everyday student

Nearly every volleyball coach can relate to the situation.

It appears a hitter has crushed the ball out of bounds, but the line judge calls that a blocker has touched it at the net, negating that point or sideout needed to break the opposition's momentum. The coach storms out of his chair in disbelief and gives that line judge a piece of his mind.

The reason for concern about line judges is that often times they are students rather than adult officials.

New Jersey Tech coach Dave DeNure is the liaison to the NCAA rules committee on behalf of men's volleyball coaches. DeNure had to think for a moment why line judges are students.

"That's a great question," he said. "Probably the number one answer is money. It's a budget problem."

Many volleyball programs have work-study students who do various tasks for the team, including being a line judge for matches. DeNure said it's the case at his program and many others around the country that these work-study students have to do a variety of jobs because budget constraints allow for few paid workers.

Often times the biggest problem with these students being line judges is they are not adequately familiar with volleyball and underestimate the speed of the men's game. Kills travel at speeds of 50 and 60 mph and leave little reaction time to make the proper call.

"Sometimes they're a just lost because of fast speed of the game," said Scott Atkinson, an NCAA men's volleyball official. "As an official it's a matter of being able to recognize when someone is out of their element. If we've got good line judges, it makes the match run so much more smoothly."

DeNure and Atkinson said it's not always a work-study student or a player from a club team who might be sent in to be a line judge. Both said a line judge even is taken out of the stands right before a match, further adding to the problem of bad calls.

When the line judges are not able to do their job properly, extra pressure is put on the two officials who already are there. DeNure said the two regular officials can only do so much to make sure a match is called properly.

"Some officials do a good job of overruling them by taking some of the calls into their own hands during the important parts of a game," DeNure said. "I don't think that's the case in a lot of places because there are some referees that don't do a good job with that."

Penn State coach Mark Pavlik said he makes sure the line judges he finds for home matches can handle the job. He also has them dress professionally, in a white shirt and khakis.

"They're real important because they're part of the officiating crew and should dress and in a professional manner," Pavlik said. "We have to portray the game of volleyball in a professional manner. We're pretty fortunate here that we have a large volleyball population."

At the EIVA and NCAA championships, regular officials are line judges, but this was not always the case. When Penn State won the national title in 1994 over UCLA, students of the host school, Indiana-Purdue-Ft. Wayne, were the line judges.

DeNure said the actions of those judges at that match prompted the NCAA to bring officials to do the job.

"Everyone started jumping up and down, and the linesmen were part of the excitement," DeNure said. "It certainly got a lot of coaches excited to say the least. At a championship event, we have made sure students don't make decisions that influence the outcome of the game."

Both DeNure and Pavlik agree solving the problem of having students be line judges will not be solved overnight.

"Every coach has been the victim of bad calls," DeNure said. "But everyone understands it's a budget problem. We don't like it as a coach, but we accept it."