Becoming a Volleyball Official

[OverAndBack]

I do football and have done basketball and have at least one friend who has officiated volleyball in the past. I'm just curious as to what it's like and what the basics are. Is it hard?

[Andy]

Since you have officiated other sports, you have already won half the battle...knowing how to be an official. Now you would just have to learn the sport.

From a purely physical perspective, no VB is not hard compared to football and basketball.

From a mental perspective, it is every bit as taxing, if not more so.

The "basics" are just like any other sports - know and apply the rules, learn and use the proper signals. After that, it's about working games and getting better as a VB official.

I will say that it helps if you have played or coached the game at a competitve level, but I think that may be true for officiating any sport.

I believe you live here in the West Phoenix area, as do I. If you want to talk about this a little further, shoot me a private message. I will be happy to discuss things with you.

[Scrapper1]

Originally Posted by OverAndBack

Is it hard?

I'm a second-year guy and I'll give you my standard answer: Parts of it are incredibly easy, and other parts are impossible.

The in/out calls, the ballhandling, the net calls are all pretty easy, especially if you've played the game. I never played competitively, and I think I already have a pretty darn good handle on ballhandling (except for the 2-hits, which people here have helped me with).

The overlap calls are difficult and back-row calls are impossible, at least for me in my second year. I've been told that I'll start to see these clearly in a few seasons. (Frankly, I don't believe it. )

[Back In The Saddle]

I concur with Scrapper.

[MCBear]

Scrapper gave you the straight scooby-doo. There are things that are very easy and others are going to challenge you to be able to recognize and call them. One thing needs to be made abundantly clear - if you are coming into officiating volleyball because you think it is easy money, don't let the door hit you in the a** as you leave. To do volleyball officiating so that it looks effortless and easy is a task that takes many years to learn and requires study to learn the fundamentals of the game and the nuances that the coaches love to throw at us.

Good Luck! Your attitude toward the game will determine your success or failure. You may have to work harder than you have worked at any other sport...or it may come really easily to you. As they say, it is all up to you.

[refnrev]

As a three sport official who loves doing VB let me add my two cents. It's a great game and a lot of fun to officiate! In many ways I enjoy it most. If you really like VB and want to work hard each game then do it. If you want to do because someone told you it was easy -- they lied. Unlike basketball, soccer, football, etc, you are moving your body as your mind is hard at work to help process things. I find that I am less physically tired, but more mentally tired after VB because of standing and all of the mental processing. Whichever way you choose, best of luck!

[BLS]

I agree with what everyone said above.

I'll add that the nice thing about getting started in volleyball (I just finished my first season) is the number of games you can do in a day to quickly get experience. It's not uncommon to work a Saturday tournament where you can work four matches in a row. That's at minimum eight games in one day that you're able to draw experience from. (You are definitely drained mentally at the end of the day though.)