“If you use the word ‘spike’ I will hurt you.”
Those were the first words uttered by my friend Tess when I told her I’d be writing about UT volleyball this year. She hasn’t played volleyball competitively since 2005, but the verbal mistake that people make (“Bump, Set, Spike” as opposed to “Pass, Set, Kill”) still bothers her more than five years later.
If you visit the official UT football website, you see a schedule of events, pictures of Longhorn players signing autographs, and a few videos and articles dissecting the results of the latest practice.
And, as expected, when you visit UT’s volleyball website, you’ll see a lot of the same: A schedule, pictures, articles. As far as coverage goes, you’d think that UT volleyball is on the same level as UT Football. After all, the volleyball team made it to the National Championship game last year, just as the football team did.
But if you look closer, you can spot some differences between the two websites:
– The football website features tabs titled “Tradition,” “Records,” and “History.” The volleyball website just has links for their schedule, roster, and news.
– The football program is so well-known, their website domain name is “mackbrown_texasfootball.” The volleyball program gets lumped in with the rest of the UT sports under the domain name “texassports.”
– The latest five videos from the football website are all practice highlights from the last five days. The volleyball program’s most recent five feature two highlight videos from the 2009 season, recognition for Destinee Hooker being named last year’s Longhorn of the Year, one highlight video from a practice two weeks ago, and the most recent video is titled “I’m Jen Doris and we are Texas Volleyball”: basically an introductory video. Not exactly something you’d expect from a team that had made Final Four appearances the past two years.
We could spend thousands of words explaining why these differences exist. We get it; football is king.
I come from Nebraska, the hotbed for rabid volleyball fans – the state holds the Top 10 record spots for NCAA attendance and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln owns the record for largest regular season attendance for a single game: 13,870 (UT’s average attendance from 2009: 3,337) – but even Husker fans forget about volleyball as soon as they see Adi Kunalic kick off for the football team.
Most of the differences we can’t fix. For instance, the excitement for volleyball will never be greater than football. Not unless we allow contact in the sport. (Perhaps the libero could play on the opposing team’s side and tackle the server mid-serve?)
But there is one thing that I feel we could fix that currently is holding us back from embracing volleyball more than we can: Knowledge*. Knowledge of the sport and knowledge of the players.
* Don’t get me wrong, UT fans are great, they ranked in the Top 5 for average attendance last year. But there’s always room to improve, right? After all, Gregory Gym (UT’s volleyball court) can hold 4,440.
I mean, at some point in this article I was going to use the word “Spike” until Tess threatened my well-being. And that’s just scratching the surface.
Did you know that it’s an NCAA rule that television announcers have to explain what a libero does at least once every match? OK, I made that up, but I’ll admit that even after sporadically following volleyball over the last 10 years that I still need to be reminded every once in a while. It’s like soccer (aside from the World Cup): If people don’t understand it, they won’t pay attention to it.
UT’s website is a perfect example for the other knowledge-related problem: the players. “I am Jen Doris,” begins the latest volleyball promotional video.
I haven’t seen the “I am Garrett Gilbert” video yet, have you? We all know who he is and he’s only played a couple of quarters of college football for a team that has a 40-plus man roster. Doris is a senior who appeared in all 31 matches last year for a team that has a roster size a third of the football program. And yet we still have a “Get to Know” promotional video for her.
So if we understand the rules and strategy and get to know the players better, will UT volleyball have to move to Darrell K. Royal to accommodate all the fans who want to attend? No, but hopefully it will help the program get over the 3,500 attendance mark for each game.
So check back to The Austin Chronicle Sports blog over the season as we try introduce you to some – hopefully all – of the players and give you a few lessons on the rules/strategy of college volleyball.
Lesson No. 1: Don’t call a kill a spike or Tess will hurt you.
Burnt Orange Classic: TCU vs. Houston: Fri., Aug. 27, noon. Houston vs. McNeese State: Fri., Aug. 27, 4pm. TCU Vs. UT: Fri., Aug 27, 6:30pm. McNeese St. Vs. UT: Sat., Aug. 28, noon. TCU vs. McNeese State: Sat., Aug. 28, 4pm. Houston vs. UT: Sat., Aug. 28, 6:30pm.
Texas Invitational: Florida A&M vs. UT: Thu., Sept. 2, 6:30pm. Long Beach State vs. Florida A&M: Fri., Sept. 3, 4pm. UT vs. Illinois: Fri., Sept. 3, 6:30pm. Illinois vs. Florida A&M: Sat., Sept. 4, 4pm. Long Beach State vs. UT: Sat., Sept. 4, 6:30pm. Gregory Gym, 2101 Speedway. $4-7/day.
This article appears in August 20 • 2010.