(The following is Part 1 of a three-part series)

Immediately after Divisions I and II approved sand volleyball as an emerging sport this year, a popular volleyball message board overflowed with comments and questions: When would the season be played? How many scholarships will be allotted? Do we need to build facilities? What about scoring? Staffing? Uniforms?

The hysterics online and elsewhere weren’t about a constituency caught off guard, but rather a signal that this sport may be ready to surge more than just emerge. As one indoor coach couched it, “There’s no sense putting our heads in the sand on this anymore.”

There is precedent for such reaction. When sand volleyball (or “beach volleyball” as it is called on the professional circuit) was added as an exhibition sport at the 1996 Olympics, it was wildly popular and has been ever since – so much so that today the men’s and women’s finals are among the toughest tickets at the Summer Games.

There’s also been some form of a pro sand league for the better part of two decades, and while it may not have the cache of other professional sports, it nonetheless has worked the game into the consciousness of the American sports fan and the prospective volleyball player alike.

Television likes sand volleyball, too – and not just because of the bikinis the pro women wear (the uniform issue is a whole other story that will be addressed in Part 2 of this series). CBS College Sports has latched onto college competition as part of its “alternative” series (for sports that do not currently have NCAA championship status), and that has spurred colleges to field club teams or use one of their spring competition dates for their indoor teams to play outside.

The sand game’s popularity has transferred the sport from its West Coast roots to a national phenomenon. Some of the pro circuit’s most popular stages in fact are in the Midwest (Chicago and Cincinnati, for example).

And now sand volleyball is going to college – but what the varsity version will look like is what has people buzzing.

For now, the sport is emerging only in Divisions I and II. Division II approved the measure at its January Convention, while the Division I Legislative Council gave its OK in April. Division III declined to move emerging-status legislation last summer because of all the unknowns associated with the sport.

As an emerging sport, sand volleyball will have 10 years in which to gain the minimum 40 sponsoring institutions required to be considered an NCAA championship sport (though even if it loses its emerging-sport status at that time, members can reapply). First of all, though, a myriad of legislative and playing-rules details must pass through the Divisions I and II governance structures before schools can start counting sand volleyball toward sport-sponsorship minimums by August 1, 2010.

Not surprisingly, work already has begun along those lines. The American Volleyball Coaches Association has collaborated with NCAA staff to develop a possible playing and practice season blueprint that at its core would not detract from the already established women’s game in the fall.

Given that premise, sand volleyball’s proposed playing season would be in the spring. Division II is considering February 1 as the first permissible playing date, commensurate with other Division II spring sports, while a proposal in Division I has competition beginning no earlier than the first Thursday in March (to give teams in northern climates a chance to be outdoors as much as possible).

That would be welcome news to someone like Matt Peck, the indoor coach at Middle Tennessee State, whose campus in Murfreesboro may be considered geographically southern but is far from immune to winter weather. “I personally wouldn’t want to be the coach standing out there on a 30-degree day in February working on sand skills,” Peck said.

Of course, Peck’s concern would be moot if he were standing in a heated, indoor facility, but there aren’t many of those around, and schools may not be likely to add one in these economic times – unless perhaps they can be creative with their existing infrastructure.

Such was the case at Nebraska several years ago when the school built an indoor training facility for football that was to include a sand pit for injury rehab and off-season training. Administrators at the time, though, told indoor coach John Cook that there was enough room to turn the proposed pit into a full-fledged court. Cook, who at the time had no idea sand volleyball would “emerge,” loved the idea simply as an additional way to train his indoor players. “That was the premise upon which we built that court, but now we have options,” he said.

Other northern schools may not be so lucky, which worries a guy like Mark Rosen at Michigan. While he’s a proponent of the sand game, he also knows that teams in warmer climates figure to have an advantage.

“Whenever you regionalize a sport, that’s bad,” said the Wolverines’ indoor coach. “Indoor began strong on the West Coast but has become very national and we have worked hard to do that. I don’t want us to end up where baseball and softball are, where athletes trend toward warm climates.”

And even if northern teams are fortunate enough to have indoor facilities, they still have to train for the outdoor version, Peck said. Teams have to practice for sun, wind and rainy conditions that they’ll encounter on the road. “And how do you stage those conditions? Do you bring a jet engine in there to mimic the wind?” Peck said.

The good news for the sport is that outdoor facilities aren’t that expensive. AVCA Executive Director Kathy DeBoer said while the sand itself isn’t necessarily cheap, schools that already own the property can construct nice digs for less than $100,000, complete with seating and lights. (The AVCA recommends each court be a rectangle measuring 52’6” surrounded by a free zone at least 9’10” wide.)

“No one can say that putting in a sand court will cost zero, but compared to some of the other facility costs, sand volleyball is a relatively inexpensive option,” DeBoer said. She also noted the multi-purpose advantages of a sand facility, since the training benefits of a high-resistance/low-impact surface apply to almost all student-athletes. The courts also are likely to be used year-round by club and pick-up teams, thus providing a popular gathering place for student-athletes and students alike.

“And they’re relatively maintenance free – the school’s rec department and the athletics department can schedule activities without having to worry that something will happen with the sand,” she said.

Contests and competition

So, if schools can clear the facilities hurdle, here’s how they might use them. The AVCA is suggesting a maximum of 16 dates in the playing season and a minimum of eight to qualify for championship selection. At least three would have to be structured as dual meets (one school versus another on a single day), while the rest can be either dual meets or multi-opponent competitions or tournaments.

Teams would be composed of five pairs, with the winner of the match taking three of the five games. The odd-number pair total prevents ties, and five was decided as the ideal number because three minimized participation opportunities and seven produced a roster larger than the standard indoor team.

DeBoer said the playing format emphasizes team play and lends itself to a college dual meet (which would create rivalries, she said). And the competitive format has proven effective in at least one other college sport.

“We’ve looked at several models for rules and format, and we thought it made sense not to reinvent the wheel. There is a sport right now where two people play together in an individual sport that has been made into a team sport – and that is tennis doubles,” she said.

Matches between sand volleyball pairs could be conducted as best-of-three competitions, with rally scoring to 21 points in the first two games and to 15 in the third (teams must win by at least two points in all cases).

Tournaments are a bit more complicated, but as in tennis, pairs could be “flighted” one through five and then score a team point for each victory, with the tournament winner being the school that compiles the most points.

“We need a format that lends itself to a college dual meet where you can have a Kentucky-Louisville or an Auburn-Alabama or USC-UCLA – in that way make it look and feel like team events that have become so popular on college campuses,” DeBoer said.

These are the types of proposals that will begin making their way through year-end conference meetings and summer governance committee sessions right off the bat. And that’s just for legislation that will shape the way the game is played.

Now, as for who might play in these competitions and how their scholarships would be structured, well, that’s for Part 2 of this series tomorrow.