UIL Chooses Not to Add Boys’ Volleyball as Varsity Sport in Texas

  0 Braden Keith | October 24th, 2018 | High School, News

The University Interscholastic League (UIL), which governs virtually all public (and select private) high school athletics in the state of Texas, has opted not to add boys’ volleyball as a sanctioned activity.

The sport was one of 9 rejected activities by the UIL’s Standing Committee on Policy at their meetings this week in Pflugerville. The committee did not add any new sports as part of their meetings, though they did authorize the staff to ‘monitor’ a proposal to add water polo and Olympic Style weight lifting.

Activities that the committee chose to ‘deny, reject, or take no action’ on:

  • Boys’ volleyball
  • Disc golf
  • Sports medicine
  • Rowing
  • Bowling
  • Archery
  • Drill team
  • Stomp Season for Step Teams
  • STUNT

UIL is the governing body for public high school athletics and other activities (arts, debate, etc.) in the state of Texas, as well as two large all-male private schools: Dallas Jesuit and Houston Strake Jesuit.

The Southwestern Preparatory Conference (SPC), which includes 15 private schools in Texas and 1 (Casady School) in Oklahoma, sponsors boys’ volleyball, with 10 schools participating. TAPPS, which governs most of the private school athletics in Texas, does not sponsor boys’ volleyball.

Private organizations have emerged to support high school volleyball, mostly in the Dallas area, as ‘club’ sports. Last season, at least 10 programs competed in the Texas Boys’ Varsity Volleyball League, with Allen High School emerging as champions in each of the last 2 years.

CHSAA, the UIL equivalent in Colorado, began a 2-year pilot program for boys’ volleyball in the spring of 2018.

Other volleyball-related decisions:

  • Authorized UIL staff to study a proposal to allow volleyball coaches to coach their seniors in club play after their eligibility has expired
  • Altered the process for appealing alignment decisions

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About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of VolleyMob.com. Braden's first foray into sports journalism came in 2010, when he launched a swimming website called The Swimmers' Circle. Two years later, he joined SwimSwam.com as a co-founder. Long huge fans of volleyball, when Braden and the SwimSwam partners sought an opportunity to …

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