Evolutionary Steps of Volleyball

Thinking Beyond the Box

Nov 12

The idea for this isn't mine. It actually comes from Bill James' Baseball Historical Abstract where he notes the differences that are clear between the various levels of baseball--from Little League to High School to College to the Pros--and what changes between each level. As an example, in Little League, there are 10x the errors as there are doubleplays. In High School, there are more errors than DPs. In college errors and DPs are equal, and in the pros, you have more doubleplays than errors. Does that make sense?

I started thinking about that and volleyball. I think categories where you can KNOW the level being played are:

Number of Aces--with it decreasing with each level. Errors do not decrease necessarily, they simply change what sort of error they are.
Ace to Service Error Ratio. Observation suggests with grade school, this is 6:1; with Jr High, it is 4:1; with HS, it is 2:1; JuCo it is 1:1; and with D1, you head towards a ratio of 1:2
Ball Handling Errors
Unintentional freeballs sent over
Serve type changes (from underhand to overhand to multiple, consistent types of jump serves)
Foot Faults
Rotation/Overlap calls
Plays blown dead by a ref for some reason before the ball hits the ground.
Relatives as a percentage of attendees at the game.
- Parental involvement in coaching a child's team
# of kills by the middle hitter decreases by level
# of kills by the right-side hitter/opposite (non-setter) increases by level
Height increases in importance to overall success (you don't see many 5'5 D1 players)
Increased complexity of offensive systems
Speed of offenses
Defensive systems become more complex--and are used in combinations rather than one single overarching system.

An evolution over time I thought of that isn't really something between the levels:

D1 coaches now are 99% of the time are selected from other D1 coaches. In the past, D1 coaches came from multiple backgrounds--just a question of their success at those levels.