By Roy M. Wallack
Some of the best female college athletes in the country are heading out to downtown Riverside on Saturday for what is certainly the least “alternative” sport at the Alt Games: two-person beach volleyball.
Unlike competitive eating and flowboarding, beach volleyball is played by hundreds of thousands all over the world. It’s even been in the Olympics since 1996. But the two-man game still qualifies as “alternative” because, unlike its six-man indoor volleyball cousin, it is not yet an official collegiate sport. Limited by lack of sand courts, inclement northern weather, and lack of funding, it’s always been a club game.
Starting at 8 a.m., in a brutal ten-hour elimination that will crown team and individual champions, the Alt Games will pit four two-man teams from each of eight schools (32 teams total) that are mostly in the top 20 of the indoor rankings: #3 Nebraska, the Big 12 champ and 2008 Alt Games champion; #4 Texas; #7 Hawaii; #16 Utah, the Mountain West champ; #13 USC; #19 UCSD, the West Coast Champ, and ACC champion North Carolina and UC Riverside, both unranked.
As we said, it’ll be brutal. “The top two teams will play six games in one day—three pool games for seeding in a one-through-eight bracket, then three bracket games,” says Kathy DeBoer, the executive director of the American Volleyball Coaches Association, which organizes the event. “Given the number of games and the unique demands of two-man, the winners will have to have very good skills and be in very good shape.”
Six-man and two-man volleyball are two different games, with the latter adding significant challenges. Two man is a lot harder, says DeBoer. That’s because the demands on the human body multiply when the rules change from six specialists (two passers, setters, and hitters) covering a 30-by-60-meter piece of hardwood to two do-it-all generalists covering a 29-by-59-meter swath of sand.
“Believe it or not, that one meter of size difference really helps,” DeBoer explains. “Running and jumping all over a sand court adds far more difficulty. Adding to fatigue factor: And there are no substitutions in two-man, like in six-man.”
The result: Two-man volleyballers are generally shorter and faster athletes with a much broader skill set. “For two-man, you’ve gotta be a great all-round athlete,” she says.
To determine an overall school champion, each college will bring four two-man teams, which typically with four or five indoor All-Americans represented among them, says DeBoer. Each school’s four teams are ranked f#1, #2, #3, and #4. To determine an overall school champion, the #1 teams only play other #1s, all #2s play #2s, and so on. The #1 games are worth more points than #2 games. No matter which #1 team wins the individual championship, the school with the most accumulated points is the overall team champ.
Who are the teams to watch? “It seems intuitive that programs with easier access to sand courts and warmer weather—like those in Florida and California—would have the advantage, but it ain’t so,” says DeBoer. “Fifty percent of college campuses now have sand courts. Four years ago, the University of Nebraska put one in just for training purposes. Last year at this event, it was the champion.”
Cornhuskers beating California surfers in their own game on their own turf? Two-man volleyball definitely isn’t “alternative” anymore.
