Twelve boys volleyball teams from all over Oregon met on Saturday at Barlow High School to compete in a tournament celebrating both the Star Wars holiday of May 4 and the growth of boys volleyball in Oregon this spring.
The Oregon School Activities Association’s delegate assembly voted in October 2023 to name boys volleyball as its first “emerging activity.” The designation allows schools around the state to gauge interest in the sport as boys volleyball is running as a club activity, which the OSAA is keeping a keen eye on as fielding 50-plus teams would warrant potentially making boys volleyball an official sport in the state in the next couple of years.
And the numbers would suggest that Oregon boys like volleyball.
In the first year of boys volleyball being an emerging activity, the number of teams has almost doubled. Last year, there were about 30 boys teams statewide. This year, there are 52 teams coming from 68 total schools.
And that increase in numbers means that the teams are getting more and more games in.
“I think it’s been really nice because we have way more games than last year,” Clackamas senior Nick Sciulli said. “It’s been really good to play some tough competition and get some reps in.”
The Cavaliers are one of the state’s top boys volleyball teams, with a number of players that entered the season having already competed in the sport at the club level. But with over half of the team never having played volleyball before this year, there is still so much room for growth.
“Volleyball is still pretty small in Oregon. In other states it’s way bigger,” said Clackamas senior Kiernan McMorris. “To see high school volleyball get this big, that’ll transfer over to club and kind of make the OSAA really get that push going for boys volleyball in the state.”
McMorris was originally a basketball player, and was roped into trying out volleyball by Sciulli. Fellow senior Sam Glenn was a baseball player before he fell in love with volleyball. All three now participate in club volleyball even outside of school.
Glenn said he’s noticed a tangible increase in the volleyball community this spring, and the school is giving the team more attention then it has gotten in past years.
“It just improves the all around community around it,” said Glenn. “Being able to just be like, ‘Hey lets see that volleyball matchup.‘ Usually we don’t get that recognition for anything. Now that it’s kind of becoming a high school thing you can have people cheer us on.”
But boys volleyball is certainly not just an activity for those who already played club. Ashland made the five-hour commute up to Gresham on Saturday to participate in the tournament, including getting a major upset win over the previously undefeated Cavaliers to open pool play.
The Grizzlies are a team of all sophomore and two freshmen and only two players on the team played club volleyball before this spring.
Freshman Kai Hendrix joined because his older brother, Noah, is on the team as well. Hendrix runs cross country for the Grizzlies in the fall and would be running the distance races on the track and field team if there wasn’t volleyball, but said he’s enjoyed his time on the team this season.
“(I like) the fact that it’s a team sport,” Hendrix said. “I really like being able to communicate with everyone and just play as a team, which is very different than cross country.”
Fellow freshman Jude Whalen has been a fan of volleyball for years, and signed up as soon as possible when it was made available at school.
“I’ve been watching girls volleyball since like sixth grade,” Whalen said. “This was my first chance to play.”
Just like Hendrix, Whalen would have likely been on the track team at Ashland if it wasn’t for volleyball (competing in the sprints and the long jump) and Whalen agreed with Hendrix that the chance to bond with teammates has been a highlight of the spring.
“It’s been really fun because I am not one to talk to (my teammates) outside of class or outside of volleyball,” Whalen said. “So it’s really fun to get to know my teammates.”
The soonest that the OSAA’s delegate assembly could vote on adding boys volleyball as an emerging activity would be the October 2025 meeting. Both Hendrix and Whalen, as freshmen, could be around if the timetable stands. They both quickly said they’re excited that it’s in the cards for them.
The last time the OSAA approved of adding a new sanctioned sport was girls wrestling in 2023. However, the move wasn’t so much adding girls wrestling as it was separating wrestling into a boys and girls category (making it easier for schools to manage the two teams as separate entities if they wanted to) as girls wrestling had already had its own state championship since 2018.
The sport most recently added before that was softball in 1979.
Since adding softball as an emerging activity, water polo and girls flag football have also started getting the ball rolling towards getting that same designation. The OSAA has also previously looked into what kind of participation it would get from esports.
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