From: wang@ibmb0.cs.uiuc.edu (Eric Wang)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.volleyball
Subject: Re: DID YOU OR THE NET TOUCH WHILE BLOCKING?
Date: 10 Apr 92 05:02:02 GMT
Reply-To: wang@ibma0.cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

cannon@tornado.dsd.es.com (Gary Cannon) writes:

> As I learned to play many years ago, it was drummed into me by my
> coach that volleyball players are honest about their actions.  ...  So
> we were trained to yell touch or some such thing for our own benefit.
> You're way ahead playing that kind of ball.

Personally, I agree with this.  I play the game because I enjoy the
moment-to-moment activity as the play progresses, the competition of
playing determined opponents, and the rewards of playing well.  Winning
at the end of the game is also nice, but it's not the primary enjoyment
I get -- I place more value on playing well (but this is also conducive
to winning).  I like this sport for its own sake -- winning is an
artificial construct invented to prevent us from playing forever.  :-)

I find it most enjoyable when I play with other persons who have a basic
respect for each other and are ultimately out there to have fun.  Part
of that respect is that you acknowledge opponent's good plays.  (If
they're friends, you can also give them a hard time about their bad
plays, too. :-)) Win by beating the other team, or by accepting their
gifts and errors; don't win by withholding or fabricating information,
or by pleading for a touch.  When I'm playing informally with friends,
we call our own touches, nets, and lines -- it's not worth lying to a
friend just to win a casual game.

When you're in a real match with real refs, you can withhold your calls
depending on the skill level of the refs.  The refs are supposed to make
the calls; their errors tend to cancel out.  Karch Kiraly beat out Randy
Stoklos for last year's King of the Beach title by not admitting to a
touched block at the end of the championship game.  (I think it was
15-16 or 16-16, and Karch was match point down, so a self-call would
have instantly ended it.  As it was, KK came back to win.)

However, the best match I ever refereed was one in which several players
made instantaneous self-calls (nets and touches) that I would otherwise
have missed.  The reason it stands out so much is that the situation had
all of the ingredients that might make one give up ethics for a trophy
-- it was for a tournament championship, it was in the rally-scoring
third game (and at double-digit scores, too), and the two teams had
earlier suffered a heated difference of opinion, so there was some
hostility between certain players on the two sides.  Even in this
environment, certain other players still valued fair play over an
"impure" win -- they were disgusted at themselves for making an error,
they were mad at their teammates for blowing chances or missing
assignments, and they might have intensely disliked the opponent who
just hit the ball, but there was never even a moment's denial that they
committed some infraction, __even though__ it gave their opponents the
lead with just a handful of points to go.  This kind of conduct really
dignified the whole match, and made the win that much more satisfying to
the winners (and the loss a little more bearable for the losers -- in
the end, both teams played well and honorably, and had their fair share
of chances to win).

Eric Wang
wang@ibma0.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: rec.sport.volleyball