VOLLEYBALL is not ready to be a prime-time player given its current format. Volleyball needs to
rally, and in a hurryPurists will cry sacrilege and point to the record-setting crowds attending this week's NCAA Final Four as a testament to what volleyball can become given the proper setting and circumstances.
But in my mind, Hawaii is the exception that proves the rule, not the savior of a sport that's so repetitive it's difficult not to stand and shout like "Seinfeld's" soup Nazi, "No more sideouts for you."
Whatever part of me enjoyed watching Lewis University take UCLA to the limit in last night's semifinal, was overwhelmed by the part of me bored beyond belief.
It's difficult to watch a game where most of the points don't count. After about an hour of this, the casual fan starts to wonder, "What is the point?" After two hours, he no longer cares.
To the untrained eye, the game is an endless array of serves, sets and kills. Some shots are blocked, a few are dug and the others are dinked. Undoubtedly, there is a lot of strategy involved via the rotations and the types of serves sent over the net. But the game moves at the pace of a soap opera.
ESPN officials were so terrified of showing last night's Lewis-UCLA match live, they opted to start it at 12:30 a.m. on the East Coast. They must have charged their advertisers a similar amount of money to the expected Nielsen numbers -- zero.
Perhaps this is why there's a move afoot in the NCAA to change the scoring system in volleyball to be more casual-fan friendly. Granted, the local folks will view this the same way an old-timer in baseball looks at the designated hitter.
But in this case, change is good because the game has never really caught on in mainstream America anyway. Most schools are lucky to have 500 friends and family members show up on any given night.
It's obvious that the sideout show hasn't worked that well, so why not dabble in the scoring format and see what happens?
I vote for total rally scoring where every point counts. Last night's fifth and deciding game was won by UCLA, 15-11. It was a rapid finish to a three-hour marathon, kind of like the movie "Titanic." Enough already, let's sink the ship.
Rally scoring would dictate a change in the games. If you keep it at the current 15 points, you would have to make it best four out of seven. But it could remain best three out of five if the winning score was 21 points.
As you might have guessed, I'm not a volleyball connoisseur, but I am the type of sports fan the NCAA is trying to win over. If the organization can jazz it up with rally scoring or give a server two points for an ace, then I'm all for it. And how about a time limit?
THE only games that should last three hours are football and hockey. And both have lengthy intermissions that figure into the final tally.
Volleyball has some brief breaks when the two teams trade sides, but it's not enough to grab a beer and a hot dog, or listen to the 100th version of the "Rocky" theme during the halftime show.
It also doesn't fit well into the segmented world of television. And in the final analysis, volleyball can't enter the mainstream without the tube on its side.
TV executives like to have an idea when something ends and begins. A quick three-game wipeout like Pepperdine's victory over Princeton late last night isn't ideal. Neither is a five-game match similar to the one between UCLA and Lewis. It rivaled a Jerry Lewis Telethon.
Hopefully, someone will find the sacred middle ground so the national championship game doesn't begin just past the bewitching hour on the East Coast. If not, volleyball will remain what it is today -- a fringe sport that is popular in some places across America, but not ready for prime time most everywhere else.
Paul Arnett has been covering sports
for the Star-Bulletin since 1990.