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Keeping Score
LOOKING for a few good men? USA Volleyball certainly is after the dismal showing in Sydney a few weeks back. USA men’s volleyball
needs assistBut where will they come from? Men's collegiate programs are dropping faster than a Jessica Sudduth jump-float serve.
There are just 23 teams remaining at the Division I level -- one less than men's water polo, three more than fencing.
San Diego State ... gone. Loyola Marymount ... gone. All within the past few months.
The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation was once in danger of being too big -- a la the late 16-team WAC. There was even talk of the Pac-10 teams breaking off to form a second West Coast conference.
And now, the sport is trying to survive, trying to justify the NCAA expenditure of national championship sponsorship.
A better showing in Sydney -- even 15-hours delayed -- would have helped. But finishing 11th, going 0-5 along with Egypt, was not the springboard that the men's game was looking for, or needed.
One of the biggest mistakes USAV made was in moving to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs and leaving San Diego.
Granted that the training facilities were antiquated, that Muni Gym is still as cold and uninviting as when I played there in grammar school.
But even Doug Beal, coach of the men's Olympic team, calls it a sacrifice for players to move to Colorado. And what he is asking for is a two- or three-year commitment to help rebuild the program for the 2004 Games in Athens.
"I'm optimistic we can turn this thing around,'' he said last week. "I believe this team is going to get better in the next couple of years.''
BUT the question is "How?" Boys want to play the sport but there's no "farm system'' at the collegiate level.
There's not going to be too many Olympians coming out of the collegiate club system -- which is booming because it doesn't cost the schools anything. No scholarships or coaches' salaries are involved.
One answer would be for the Division II schools in Hawaii to add men's volleyball, either at the DII or even the DI level. It would be a natural for Brigham Young-Hawaii -- which has so much success with its women's teams -- to restart its program.
Mike Wilton doesn't have enough gym space to accommodate the number of players who want to walk on to his program at the University of Hawaii.
Adding more men's collegiate programs here would be a win-win situation for UH, the Division II schools ... even the national team.
Funny how the U.S. women's team was overshadowed for years by its male counterpart. Even though the women's team finished fourth in Australia, the Americans captured the attention of the world with its second-best showing in seven Olympics (they won bronze in 1992 in Barcelona).
It wasn't just us in Hawaii who stayed up late to watch the delayed broadcasts of the U.S. women's matches. Friends from around the country e-mailed me, praising the team which featured former UH all-Americans Robyn Ah Mow and Heather Bown.
Thank goodness that broadcaster Chris Marlowe finally learned to appreciate the magic of Ah Mow's setting. And how to correctly pronounce "Bown.''
Whoever takes over the women's national team from Mick Haley will have a good, young base to work from over the next four years.
One has to worry about the men. They won gold in 1984 and '88. If something isn't done to help them now, there might not even being a team from the birthplace of volleyball to send to the birthplace of the Games.
Cindy Luis is Star-Bulletin sports editor.
Her column appears weekly.