Rally scoring

[PaREF]

Just wondering if anyone has heard which, if any, states have decided to go with the new rally scoring rules for high school this coming season? The NFHS has ruled that states may use rally scoring and net serving as experimental rules which may be used by state adoption.

[SDUMP]

As far as I know, South Dakota is planning to do both, according to some of the area coaches and officials. After watching it at the college level, it should be "interesting."

[PaREF]

I didn't realize how progressive South Dakota is! I applaud them for agreeing to use the experimental NFHS rules (although they are still a few years behind USAV or college). I thought Pennsylvania would agree to them since we have used other "experimental" rules in the past, but I understand we will still be using the traditional scoring this season.

I think it won't take much time for everyone in South Dakota to get accustomed to the rules. We ran a junior varsity tournament on the last weekend of this past boys' season using rally scoring and net serves (in anticipation of using them this upcoming season). Hardly any of the boys had ever played under theses rules and the 2 officials had never officiated a game using them. There was not one inadvertant whistle on the net serves and almost all of the net serves were handled by the inexperienced JV players. It was as if everyone had played under thoses rules all season! Several coaches and fans commented to the parents who manned the concession stand that it was the best tournament they had been to all year.

Good luck with the season. I think that after this upcoming school year the NFHS will agree to changing the scoring and some of the other rules used by everyone else.

[SDUMP]

I don't know I would classify SD as progressive - there is a court battle going on between some parents and the SDHSAA because SD is trying to switch the girls basketball season to the winter and volleyball to the fall (we were one of four (?) states that were opposite from the rest of the country). The parents have girls that are basketball players and gymnasts - so their poor darlings would actually have to make a choice (and so young in their life). If the season switch isn't allowed, it is going to be a very big cluster, what with scheduling of opponents and scheduling of officials. I didn't try to solicit games from any of the athletic directors and I will be working three and sometimes four nights a week during the winter basketball season - we just don't have enough "quality" officials to cover and I hear that the situation is worse in the western and northeast part of the state.
I think if the seasons can switch, club volleyball will improve just because of the opportunity to play out of state competition during the off-season (which used to be during our season).
A little bit off the subject, but how are your state tournament officials selected?

[PaREF]

I am not 100% sure of the whole process but I think it goes like this...

The local officials chapters send a list of officials who are available, and who they feel are competent, to the person in charge of running the district playoffs.

That person selects officials to work in the district playoffs and also recomends officials from that distict to the person(s) who runs the state playoffs.

I think that the people who select the playoff officials are PIAA certified officials (I know for sure the person in charge of the district in which I work is an official). I think that coaches have little or no say in who is selected.

Here in the central part of Pa. we are having a severe shortage of volleyball officials. For the past 7 or 8 years our chapter secretary has scheduled officials for the schools we cover. Usually there are more than enough officials to cover all of the games. There were usually enough in our chapter to help other nearby chapters fill in some holes in their schedules.

However, in this upcoming season we informed one school that we would not be assigning officials for them (for a couple of reasons - including lack of officials), and in addition, were not able to schedule officials for an additional 28 league matches. The schools will have to either find officials from another chapter (good luck! everyone else is short of officials) or they will have to re-schedule those matches. I already have 21 matches scheduled for Sept. & Oct. and I expect to get a few more calls. I think I'm going to need a vacation in November!

[SDUMP]

At the state tournament level, officials get in by vote of the coaches.
As far as regular season, districts and regions, athletic directors hire.
There is only one conference (the biggest schools in the state) that has an assignor, and he also assigns football and b/g basketball. He has no clue about volleyball so I think he basically relies on the ADs from each school about who would be able to work at that level.
What I love to watch is when the coaches complain about the officiating at the state tournament. Like I tell them when I hear them complain - coaches are the ones that voted them in, change your vote or change the system. The worst part, most of the "top" officials also work college ball, where they couldn't survive if they called it the way they call it at the state tournament.
Oh well, I just like to work a good game and stay out of the politics.
Troy