Boys volleyball is coming to Oregon high schools and potentially Catlin Gabel
By Nadya Poisac-Nguyen ‘23
Boys volleyball is not an official sport in Oregon yet, please sign this petition to help get the sport sanctioned!
A boys volleyball practice at Lincoln High School, May 2022. Photo courtesy of Patrick Gibson.
Boys volleyball may become an official Oregon sport in the next coming years, and some Oregon high schools have already implemented a boys team.
A few weeks ago, Catlin Gabel students opened their emails to a survey from the CGS athletic director, Kate Williams, asking for interest in a boys volleyball team. The survey asked students to mark “yes” or “no” to the statement “I would participate on a competitive boys volleyball team.”
Williams said that a student approached the athletics program, requesting they send out a survey asking for any schoolwide interest. She believed there hasn’t been a program at CGS yet due to the lack of interest in the past.
“This is the first time I have heard of any interest in [a boys volleyball team] from an upper school student or the upper school community.”
As it turns out, an incredible 84 students responded with interest, out of the roughly 320 students in the entire Upper School.
The increased interest in boys volleyball is not just a CGS phenomenon but is turning into a statewide movement. The Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA), the organization that regulates high school athletics, does not have an official high school program for boys volleyball yet.
Williams clarified that a sport does not have to be sanctioned by OSAA to be a program at CGS. For example, the CGS ski team is not a part of OSAA, and other Oregon schools have programs such as lacrosse and water polo, which are also not OSAA-sanctioned.
There are options for boys to play club volleyball, but far fewer than there are for girls. Also, club volleyball can be extremely expensive due to travel costs, equipment, coaching, and renting gym space, making it much less accessible to all who would like to play the sport.
This is why Patrick Gibson, the girls varsity volleyball assistant coach at Lincoln High School, is fighting to make boys volleyball an official high school sport.
Gibson has been reaching out to coaches at other schools, talking to officials, and working to push along the process of creating a boy’s league with OSAA. He has been working with the Columbia Empire Volleyball Association (CEVA), the organization that runs club volleyball in the Pacific Northwest, and Sydney Hammond, Cleveland High School’s volleyball head coach, to put together the application.
The application process to implement a new sport is a rigorous one. Gibson explained, “you put together an application, there’s a series of like, what’s the state tournament gonna look like? What’s the season gonna look like? When is the season? How are you gonna handle officials? And so forth and so on.”
Another requirement is that at least 25 schools must commit to offering it. “[OSAA] wanna see a full plan for how the volleyball season will work, they wanna know what the costs are, what it’s gonna cost the state, what will it cost the district, and what will it cost the school, all that stuff needs to be laid out.”
Gibson has already created a 20-page long packet with all vital information, logistics, and statistics. He must officially present the proposal to the OSAA delegate assembly, which is made up of 36 people from different schools representing every Oregon district. Six months later, the delegates will reconvene to vote.
Gibson hopes to present the first proposal this April or next October. Then, six months later, if the OSAA does approve it, they will implement it the following school year. Realistically, it most likely won’t become official until 2024 or 2025. The chance that OSAA denies the proposal is a possibility as well, but Gibson says he will still keep advocating for the students.
But that doesn’t mean boys can’t play volleyball right now. In fact, Gibson helped coordinate an experimental season last spring with other schools, including Riverdale High School and West Salem High School. Seven teams from five different schools played in a series of tournaments. The season concluded with a double elimination state tournament and Lincoln was crowned the unofficial state champions.
Lincoln’s champion boys volleyball team, May 2022. Photo courtesy of Patrick Gibson.
This spring, 36 schools have opted to participate in the second experimental season. The season will start after spring break and will be around 6-8 weeks long. They are planning on having a state tournament, where the state champions will be crowned in the third week of May.
Though CGS will not be participating in the season this spring, Williams stated that she is doing preliminary research, and if things end up running smoothly, she will look into participating in the 2024 season.
Williams emphasized that CGS is listening to the students who are interested in playing volleyball.
“We see and hear that –through the survey and just in obviously the student initiation– that it appears to be an interest that CGS students have and we’re willing to explore it.”
Williams emphasized that she does not want to jump into something immediately and that there is still a lot to learn. They will need to hire coaches and schedule practice times, but since there’s already a league created, Williams feels it will be a seamless process.
Some minor challenges that stand in the way are equipment and gym space. However, Gibson is trying to minimize costs for schools and has thought of some workarounds. “Can we reuse uniforms for soccer? Sure, that makes things easy, you don’t have to buy new uniforms.”
Volleyball nets and balls would already be provided by the girls teams, so that wouldn’t be an issue. Boys playing fall sports won’t have to worry about picking between their sport and volleyball, as the season would most likely occur during the spring, so as not to interfere with girls volleyball.
The biggest challenge that stands in the way is Title IX. Title IX is a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools and education programs, including private schools. According to the law, the percentage between the number of girls and the number of boys in a school must be relatively equal to the percentage of boys and girls’ participation in sports.
There also needs to be an equitable amount of funding for boys and girls sports. If boys volleyball is created, they may need to introduce another girls sport, or dilute funding from some boys sports.
This would vary from school to school, however, at CGS, there has been speculation about introducing girls softball or lacrosse.
Williams emphasized that the athletic program looks for trends in popularity. There has been a decrease in basketball participation, for example, and an increase in volleyball interest.
CEVA is looking to expand boys volleyball in high schools, which may be a reason that interest has been increasing. Boys volleyball is very popular in California, and Gibson theorized that students moving up to Oregon are also part of the reason why the movement is expanding.
Creating a high school boys volleyball league would open up many more opportunities for kids to participate in high school sports. Since club volleyball is so expensive, this program would be able to serve minority and underserved communities.
In fact, Gibson reports that in the past experimental season, 70% of the participants were from minority backgrounds. This is just the first step in increasing sports accessibility across all communities.