Volleyball Coaching Life-Santiago Ball

Volleyball people have been trying to doodle with the traditional scoring for ages now. The volleyball playing rules today are far from Dr. William G. Morgan’s mintonette game.

We have evolved from nine players on the court to six players on the court. We have incorporated a service rotation. We have gone from sideout scoring to rally scoring. The changes have evolved over the years, many of the recent changes in the rule have been motivated by people wanting to make the game of volleyball attractive to television broadcasters, obviously to get our beloved game shown on television.

The legendary Dr. Jim Coleman had experimented with applying tennis rules to volleyball, having the teams play best two out of three sets but each set is scored like tennis: the winner has to win at least six games of 15 points with a margin of two games in each set. I saw it when the USPV was barnstorming through St. Louis during their inaugural season. I don’t remember much about the match, but it all felt kind of weird to watch because of the novelty.

I was talking to my friend Santiago Restrepo about alternative scoring for volleyball earlier this week, he said he has his solution to getting more television exposure. It seemed kind of interesting, so I will present this version of Santiago-ball for consideration. See if his confidence in his rules is justified.

·       Play best 4 out of 7 sets.

·       Each set is rally score to 15.

o   The intent here is to play the last 15 points in a 25 point set and do away with the first 10 points because nothing is on the line for the first 10 points anyways.

o   This works out to playing 2 to 3.5 sets in the regular scoring.

·       Each team plays their best rotation every set. They can play setter front row if they want, very unlikely, or they can play setter back row. Players don’t rotate, front middle stays front middle all the time, setter sets from wherever they want for every point. No overlap rule. No out of rotation calls. This is like the Chinese 9-man rules.

o   Keeps the stoppage to a minimum and keeps the best players at that position playing at that position the entire match.

·       No substitution restrictions, you can sub entire platoons every point if you want. I remember watching Lindenwood under Ron Young play against Stew McDole’s Graceland team, Stew was trying to stop the bleeding and subbed six at every stoppage, I believe that NAIA had no substitution restriction. In that case the subs  still had to be recorded in the scoresheet, which slowed the game down; whereas in Santiago ball the players just run in and out of their positions in the rotation, so that there are no added stoppage for subs.

o   The intent is to put your best attackers and defenders on the court all the time against the best attackers and defenders from the other team. The players can just: “Go at it hard.” They are also playing that one position the entire match, which should keep them in the flow.

o   If your #1 middle stinks it up, just sub her. If your leftside hammer’s shoulder is hanging on by a thread, sub her. If anyone in the back row is shanking balls, sub them.

·       There is one designated server. They serve every serve. It could be anyone playing the backrow, but if that position gets subbed out, it is still the player playing that position that serves.

·       Each team gets two timeouts each set, for 30 seconds. Minimizes stoppage time.

·       That’s it. All the other rules are the same.

Some downside is that the teams are much smaller because not much playing time to be had. Which makes it unpopular in college, club, and high schools. But we are living in Santiago world, so no one cares.

Now. I am awaiting with great antici-pation for counter arguments, counter proposals, and  alternatives.

What says you?