I had a game last night that made me once again wonder this. It was a lower level middle school match, I was up for the 7th grade match, there were several hits that could have been called illegal, about 3-4 for each team. There were 4-5 that I did call during the match, a couple for each team. With the match 23-17 team A hit a ball at the net that the coach of team B wanted called illegal, it looked questionable to me but not accross the line I was calling that game. I guess my question is this, I have always been more leanant at the lower levels as they are just learning and don't want to discourage them. And then I tighten up as I go up in level. I guess I am looking to see does everyone do this? Or do you use the same illegal hit criteria from 6-12 grades? And if you do loosen up, what do you use as your ugly line? You know the line where it is too ugly to let go and you have to call it?? I know these are subjective had to be there calls, but I guess I am just looking for some general ideas how you all call this. Thanks.

Everyone does it - or at least should be doing it.

You can't call ball handling the same for a 6th grade team as for a 4A varsity match. The younger kids get a bit of slack - after all, they want to play volleyball, not listen to us toot our whistles.

OTOH, there are some which are just too ugly to ignore. Obvious and gross throws, lifts, carries, and double hits just have to be called, whatever the level.

Try and call to the level of the better ball handling team.

-Homer-

We discussed this at a meeting last night--someone had just seen a middle school game in which the officials' whistles ended all but one of the rallies. We all agreed that for the kids to learn, we have to call the major things, but to encourage them to come back next year to learn higher skills, we have to NOT call everything.

I agree with the previous statements. More lenient for the younger players. Call to the better ball handling team. Call the gross violations. Sometimes though, both teams are equally as bad. If you don't call the violations on either team and let them play "bad" volleyball, they are not learning the correct way to play just as much as if you whistled every violation and the players didn't do more than just serve a ball because the play is so bad that the next touch is illegal.

This discussion shows the importance that knowing what and when NOT to make a call is as important as knowing when to make one. Over the years, I have found that it is often more difficult to not blow the whistle in a lower level game because of the team's current abilities.