UHSAA to vote on adding boys volleyball as sanctioned sport

MIDVALE, Utah – An upcoming vote from the Utah High School Activities Association (UHSAA) will determine whether or not boys volleyball will become the beehive state’s next sanctioned sport – while it’s not a sure thing, some proponents are hopeful.

“This is so exciting kids,” a boy can be heard joking as a small group of friends and former volleyball teammates, set up to do a few volleyball drills at their South Jordan home.

Even during a pandemic style practice, the young men gave their backyard practice their all.

For some, who are Bingham High School seniors, their volleyball season was cut short by the pandemic. Flash black to a few months ago, you can see video of them playing against another team at their school’s gym as fans cheered in the stands.

“It’s super-fast-paced, it gets your mind going,” said Bingham High senior, Price Davis.

It looks like any other high school sport – the thing is, boys volleyball isn’t considered one.

“It really does frustrate me because so many times I would be playing and it would just feel like there wasn’t any support, even though it’s a really great sport,” said Price. “High school sports are so much more well organized, well-funded, and I feel like boys volleyball deserves that funding.”

Right now there are a reported 100 Boys Volleyball teams at 57 different UHSAA recognized schools across the state.

“In 5-years, it’s grown exponentially,” Price continued.

Despite a growing demand, boys volleyball remains one of just two sports that are not sanctioned for both genders – volleyball and drill team.

To make matters worse for local players, Utah is home to the number one collegiate men’s volleyball team. But as club players without a sanctioned team, they said when BYU is scouting, it’s not them they’re looking for.

“We don’t get recognition as players at all because we have a lot of skill here and like BYU, they have 3-percent of their recruits from Utah and their women’s team has 80-percent of their recruits from Utah,” Price explained. “There’s so much potential in Utah and it’s not really getting looked at, it’s getting overlooked because it’s not sanctioned it’s just a club sport.”

“There was so much more we could have had, support from the school, recognition from colleges if it was actually sanctioned, but because it’s simply a club it’s very hard for college coaches to come and look at us,” said former Bingham High volleyball player, Nate Applegate.

A few years back, the Utah Boys Volleyball Association was formed in the hopes of one day, seeing the sport become sanctioned.

“We definitely want boys volleyball to be an official sport in the high schools here in Utah,” said UBVA president, Jill Davis. “It’s a very easy sport for [UHSAA] to implement, girls’ is already sanctioned so they already have all of the equipment, they’re already familiar with the sport, we have a huge network of coaches if they need…