"The good players in Hawaii usually want to go to the mainland to get a taste of something different," Wilton said. "Our access to the mainland talent is limited."

Most of the mainland talent is found on the West Coast, which is prime recruiting territory for the California schools.

"As we look at players each year, we don't have preconceived notions as to where we'll look," Wilton said. "I recruit people who can help us. If it is an American prospect that looks better and wants to come here, we'll take him, and if it's an international player that looks better, then he's our man."

In 1996, Hawaii's Yuval Katz (from Israel) was the American Volleyball Coaches Association Co-National Player of the Year and the Most Outstanding Player of the National Collegiate Men's Volleyball Championship. The Rainbows lost in the finals that year, but the key point is that they made it to the finals -- where every coach wants to be at the end of the season.

Diverse benefits

Wilton currently boasts four international players on a roster of 14 -- the most he's ever had. Instead of looking ahead to the impact of international players on the American volleyball scene, his point of reference narrows to the here and now.

"At Hawaii, we have a unique situation," he said. "We have to be good."

The pressure to win comes from a home crowd that packs the Stan Sheriff Center regularly for home matches. Last year, the men's team brought in $1.86 million after budget expenses were withdrawn.

For Wilton, recruiting international players presents new opportunities for American players. He said foreign players culturally enrich the overall college experience for everyone involved. "They add to the rainbow effect," he said.

Ball has had his share of foreign players, but said the cultural blending that takes place is more of an after-effect than a forethought. "It's not the reason I solicit foreign players," he said.

The most favorable reason for coaches to recruit foreign players is because they bring solid experience to the court. Foreign players start playing younger and at a higher level of training. In their later years, they are not restricted to NCAA practice limit rules.

When they do come to the U.S. to play college volleyball, they already have years of experience at the junior national and national team levels in their respective countries.

For these coaches, using foreign players is what Penn State head coach Mark Pavlik calls "a double-edged sword." They are being asked to choose between the future of the national program and the sport as a whole and establishing winning programs that attract national attention for their respective schools.

Pavlik said having international players doesn't mean American players on the team are at a disadvantage. Regardless of a player's nationality, "when you have a great player, it makes the other players around him better," said Pavlik.

In his experiences with foreign players, Ball said he has been pleased with their high level of play and the character they bring to the team.

"From a strictly selfish standpoint, in addition to their academic prowess, they're also very disciplined," he said.

His current roster has two players from Cyprus who have served two years in their country's military.

For Pavlik, the foreign influx in volleyball is an everyday function of university life. "Volleyball is just another program the university offers; just like chemistry or engineering," he said. "As long as they accept international students, we take them. That's how I'm going to recruit."

Not every international player is on scholarship. Panos Eracleous of Cyprus recently joined his brother, Aris, at Indiana/Purdue-Fort Wayne. He receives no funding from the team's budget. "Sometimes we get these players who don't want money and just want to come here on their own to play," Ball said. "Not a day goes by that I don't receive an inquiry from somewhere in the world about playing here."

"The problems college volleyball is having has nothing to do with the use of international players," Pavlik said. "It is a symptom of a greater problem occurring on the juniors level."

He points to grass-roots efforts for men's volleyball that lack the support often found in sports such as soccer and basketball.

Ball said parents are more likely to pump resources into developing a daughter for volleyball than they would a son. The result is growth for the women's game and a stall in the growth of the men's game.

Before the situation gets better -- that is, prime talent available in volume here in the U.S. -- Ball offered this sobering assessment: "I think it has every opportunity to get worse."

Long-term relief may come from possible changes in NCAA amateurism rules, which currently are under review in Divisions I and II. The proposals are designed to allow, under certain circumstances, pre-enrolled student-athletes to receive prize money or compensation from organized competition. In return, there would be a loss of one year of eligibility for every year of organized competition in which a pre-enrolled student participated. Action on that legislation, however, appears to be one or two years away.

Until then, coaches like Pavlik think the best way to bridge the problem is to grow the sport.

"We need colleges to step up, to sponsor more men's teams," Pavlik said. "To put the responsibility on only a handful of teams for the growth of the sport is unfair."