Increase in volleyball teams due to grants

A decade ago, collegiate men's volleyball in the United States was in serious danger of becoming extinct.

Budget cuts, Title IX and other pressures on college athletic departments had made varsity men's volleyball expendable.

"There was a downward slide of men's volleyball programs from a high of 80 to about 55," said John Kessel, USA Volleyball's Director of Program Development. "It looked as if the number of collegiate programs was going to drop below the minimum number needed to sponsor an NCAA championship."

That would have triggered a chain reaction that would have crippled United States' volleyball at the international level.

In an attempt to stop this from happening, USA Volleyball, the organization that controls the national team, started a grant program to help maintain collegiate volleyball.

The program gives college club teams a grant, and in return, the college is required to give the team a three-year trial as a varsity team. It has proven to be tremendously successful, bringing the number of varsity programs up to 73.

"Now we have an encouraging sign," said the NCAA's Carl Daniels. "The numbers have been going up each year. Most of that is in Division III, but it is still pretty stagnate in Division I."

While money may be all that a Division III club team needs to go varsity, Division I schools are still having the same problems they did 10 years ago -- Title IX and scholarship restrictions.

"It's Title IX and football," Kessel said. "Football is this sort of American anomaly. Football uses 90 scholarships, and when you look at the women's side, that can constitute their entire program.

"In Australia and Italy, men's volleyball is very strong because there is no American football," he added. "But here we have this rather large juggernaut of football."

There's not much of a chance that colleges will drop football in favor of men's volleyball, so USA Volleyball is looking for ways to solidify the current status of men's collegiate volleyball, which in turn will help its national team.

This means continuing growth at the Division III level and even the possible creation of a professional league in the hopes it will motivate young players to pursue volleyball as more than just an extracurricular activity.

"If you look at the pyramid into which all of our athletes fall right now, we have quite a few male-juniors playing the game," USA Volleyball's Jim Coleman said. "But they're being squeezed off at the top because there is no place for them to go. There is no professional league, and there's not a huge national team program."

While the top priority for USA Volleyball is to put together strong national teams for international competition, it has not forgotten the importance of looking after and helping all the lower levels of volleyball in the United States.

"I sit in a grass-roots chair," Kessel said. "I have a 5-year-old son, and I would like my son to be able to play high-level volleyball, even if he chooses to go to North Dakota State. But we're not there -- at least not yet."