February 13, 2001 — I would have expected nothing else of a coed volleyball league at Brenau University. The playing field was level, to be sure.
“This is a women’s college,” Scott Haney, the school’s head volleyball coach, explained, “and I wanted a volleyball league where the women dominate.”
Haney got what he wanted. The new league, played each Sunday through April, employs what are called “reverse coed rules.”
Men cannot block shots. And they must be at least 10 feet behind the net to attack.
Thus, my only apparent advantage — my height — was essentially negated. Unless, of course, you want to count my trusty underhanded serve as an advantage.
It’s not exactly what you expect to see from a 6-foot-3, 190-pound adult, but I have utilized the serve since the days of inflatable beach balls in elementary school. I think I caught some folks off guard with it last Sunday. Maybe they were too busy laughing.
Or perhaps they were too busy having fun. The unique rules actually make for quite a lively game. Plenty of volleys. Plenty of prolonged points.
“It’s a different dynamic,” said Sudi Lenhart, 46, of Gainesville, one of my teammates. “The women become a stronger force and the men have to play with more strategy.”
And strategy is key. Few sports are more dependent on teamwork. It’s difficult, almost impossible, for one player to single-handedly take over a game of volleyball.
A spike requires a proper set which requires a proper pass which requires a proper dig, and so on. The chain can’t afford many weak links.
Not surprisingly, the teams that seemed to best grasp this concept were the ones heavily populated with current and future Brenau players.
Some of their names should sound familiar — like North Hall High seniors Emilee Lawson and Amanda Pilcher, who helped lead North Hall to a school-best 31-11 record and a state tournament berth last fall.
Both Lawson, the Region 8-AAAA player of the year, and Pilcher, an all-region selection, have received scholarships to continue their playing careers at Brenau.
But I got the feeling they’d be playing in the Sunday league regardless.
“I love volleyball,” said Pilcher, who also plays regularly at the First Baptist Church Family Life Center. “I have to play. It’s my stress reliever.”
The league’s rules made Pilcher, at 5-foot-3, as much of a force as any man on the court. Of course, her considerable skills likely had something to do with that, as well.
“I like it,” Pilcher said. “In reverse coed volleyball, you get more opportunities, yet it’s still a challenge.”
Ah yes, a challenge. I agree. Volleyball is one of those sports that can make the unpracticed appear rather ungraceful.
Like when a forearm bump goes not to the teammate six feet in front of you, but instead to the balcony 20 feet above you. Or when a spike attempt flies over the net, and then over the heads of the opposing team, only to hit a window and make its shade rise rapidly, filling the gymnasium with noise.
I was not alone.
“We’re learning,” Lenhart said when asked to critique our team.
But eventually the rust shakes off. Passes become more precise. Points last longer.
“There are a lot of volleys,” Haney said. “It just really makes for a really good ball-control game.”
Volleyball came about in the late 1800s. It was designed as an alternative activity for businessmen who found basketball too vigorous. For some in the Brenau league, that reasoning still holds true … although my sore back begs to differ.
“You start playing basketball and you get elbows in the nose, twisted ankles,” Haney said. “You get beat up. You just can’t play when you get old.
“In volleyball, you’re on your own side of the net. You can play it for a lot longer. I’m 54 and still plugging away at it.”
I’ve decided that I too am ready to plug away at it — every Sunday through April, at least — ready to play by the new rules, ready to be continuously spiked upon by the women of Brenau.
Not that the outcome would have been much different if the rules had stayed the same.