DECATUR -- When volleyball went from a way to pass time during gym class to an Olympic sport, high schools, colleges and universities clamored to build competitive teams. A few years ago, both Gravette and Gentry put together a program that has become a huge success. Add one more school district to that growing list.
Two Decatur High School students, Shanny Lee and Mailee Xiong, were riding home on the bus after school when they began talking about starting a volleyball team.
"Honestly, I always wanted to play volleyball," Lee said. " But Mailee was the one that went out and pushed the idea."
Lee and Xiong approached teachers Jessi Castagna and Jessica Hartman to pitch their ideas for a new sports program at Decatur High School. The girls had little trouble convincing Castagna and Hartman of the merits of having a competitive volleyball team at the school. This part was an easy sell, the hard sell was convincing Decatur athletic director John Unger and the school board on the idea.
After a few months of discussion, the school board decided to go ahead with the program. They voted to fit Peterson Gym and Northside Elementary's safe room with the necessary equipment and support structure to have a mobile net system, one that could be easily moved to accommodate the different uses for each structure. Work will begin this summer and will be ready for the first volleyball season in 2015.
Just when they thought they were over the hard part, Castagna and Hartman discovered that the logistics of organizing a volleyball program would soon prove to be a bigger challenge.
"There are a lot of things that have to be going on at the same time," Castagna said. "Fund raising is a big part of it, because we have to figure out a way to pay for it all. A lot is the initial startup cost, especially the cost of getting new equipment."
Another challenge facing the volleyball program is practice time. Since Peterson Gym is used by, not only the senior boys' and girls' basketball programs, but the junior high boys' and girls' programs as well and these programs usually run from the beginning of the school year through late March, depending on the tournament schedule, that leaves only Tuesdays, when the basketball team is away, for volleyball practice.
But, with the Northside safe room configured for volleyball use, the team can hold longer practice sessions there. This will enable Hartman, who has agreed to coach the program, a chance to teach the basics of the sport and work on the fundamentals to build a competitive program.
Getting players proved to be easy. At present, there are between 15 and 20 girls signed up for the program next year. But finding teams to compete with Decatur is proving to be tough.
"At present, only 3A schools on up are permitted to play high school volleyball on a competitive level," Castagna said. "We will have to play up a notch from our normal 2A standing."
There are a few teams in the area that Decatur will be able to compete against. Besides Gentry and Gravette, Eureka Springs (which is in the 2A 4 West conference with Decatur) has a program that has been in place for a few years. But Decatur will not be the only new kid on the block in the volleyball world. Elkins will have a new volleyball program beginning in 2015 as well.
The game of volleyball originated in Holyoke, Mass., in 1885 when William Morgan, an instructor for the Young Men's Christian Association decided to combine elements of basketball, baseball, tennis and handball to form a new game which at the time was called mignonette. During a demonstration, a spectator remarked that the players were "volleying" back and forth, thus the name was changed to volleyball. The first game was played at Springfield College on July 7, 1895. The game quickly spread to every YMCA facility throughout the Americas, and by 1922 the first national championships were held in Brooklyn, N.Y.
In 1957, the International Olympic Committee accepted volleyball as an official team sport; and, during the 1964 Olympics, the first match was played in Tokyo, Japan. The sport opened up to women in the mid '70s and today teams from junior high, high school, and college have both men and women teams play in leagues throughout the world.
The Decatur program is open to girls in grades 9 through 12. The eighth graders this year will be eligible for the first team next season. For more information or to make a donation to the program, contact Jessi Castagna or Jessica Hartman at 752-3983.
Sports on 03/11/2015