When is hair contact a contact?

[OmniSpiker]

Curious minds wants to know NFHS, NCAA, USAV.

"Let them play" guidelines are applied.

Hair contact doesn't count at block for all. Hair contact doesn't apply to net or opponent's court.

How are these treated?
1) Visible hair contact on (non-blocking) player and ball goes out of bounds. Touch or no touch?

2) Setter makes visible hair contact with ball on overhand setting, in effect two separate contacts are clearly seen. Double fault or not?

[Back In The Saddle]

As it was explained to me: The uniform is part of the body, the hair is not.

[FMadera]

1. No touch
2. Not

[MCBear]

The hair can be a difficult thing to call but usually we don't see these types of plays. Things tend to go off the head rather than be seen as touching the hair.

In (1), if the ball HITS the hair and the head and deflects out of bounds, it is a touch. However, if it just touches the hair without a deflection, it is NOT a touch. Fun, huh?

In (2), it would not be a double, play on.

[OmniSpiker]

Back In The Saddle, that would be the first time I hear about that. I've always been told that the hair and anything in it is part of the body as well as the uniform and any sleeves or loose strings. It has been (over ten) years, though. Times have changed...Only within the last few years, have I been convinced that sleevless, collarless, and nylon spandex uniforms have their more advantages by evasion of ball contact. I've also changed my recommendation to braided hair rather than the up pony tails which were the major offenders of hair contacts.

Jan, there's no doubt to me when a ball gets deflected off the head. When the ball merely grazes the hair and you see hair dancing in the air and the player didn't make an evasion attempt, it's easy to determine a 'no touch' judgment. Problem mostly comes when a player is ducking to evade a ball and it catches their hair. Many times in those situation there is visible ball slow down after hair contact. Not as obvious as a delfection. I will change my contact calls to a more lenient judgment.

"Let them play" guidelines is a challenge to my own volleyball fundamentals. It's hard to let the 'coach' in me accept things on the court.

[Back In The Saddle]

It was obviously a generalization, and MCBear has expanded on it appropriately. But here's the two relevant cites from NFHS rules. Other rule sets may be different, I don't know.

NFHS 9-4-1: A contact is any touch of the ball by a player (excluding the player’s loose hair).

NFHS 9-6-7: A net foul occurs while the ball is in play and:
a. A player contacts any part of the net including net cables or net antennas. It is not a foul when a player’s loose hair touches the net, or the force of a ball hit by an opponent pushes the net or net cables into the player.

[MCBear]

Very nicely done. BITS! Good Job!