MAPLE GROVE, Minn — Tuesday morning the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) representative assembly is scheduled to vote on whether boys volleyball will officially become a sanctioned school sport in our state.
Ahead of the planned vote, students, parents and coaches are planning to gather at the Minnesota Select Volleyball Center in Maple Grove for a rally in favor of the sport being added to Minnesota programs.
The Minnesota Boys High School Volleyball Association organized the rally.
Formed in 2018, the Association said they had 400 student members. That number has grown to 1,400, and 53 schools across Minnesota are now offering volleyball as a sport for boys.
But in order to be officially added to the high school league, the representative assembly has to vote to amend the league's bylaws and add in boys volleyball.
The assembly is made up of representatives from across the state, and they need a 2/3 majority vote to add a new sport.
"Many schools, especially those with a smaller number of students, are not able to offer all of those," said MSHSL Executive Director Erich Martens. "They simply don't have enough students to be able to do that. So there's concerns and there's questions about whether or not there are even enough students in some schools to be able to do this."
Right now schools across the state have boys volleyball club teams, but becoming a sanctioned sport would provide the teams greater resources.
If boys volleyball is approved this morning, Martens said the first sanctioned season could be as early as spring 2022 or fall 2023.
This isn't the first time boys volleyball has been brought up to the MSHSL. In 2021, it missed board approval by only two votes with a 29-18 outcome. One representative abstained in that vote. At that time the board did approve to add sectionals and a state tournament for girls wrestling.
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