A VOLLEY OF SUPPORT : Players, Parents, Coaches Move to Expand High School Participation

All Mike Matarocci wanted to do was play high school volleyball.

Unfortunately for Matarocci, a junior at Bonita Vista High School at the time, he did not attend a North County Conference school, and no other San Diego Section conference offered boys’ volleyball on an interscholastic basis.

That didn’t stop Matarocci, who applied for and received a $600 grant from the school to start a club team. Parents volunteered to run a snack bar and sell T-shirts, and Bonita Vista had a club volleyball team for the first time this year.

San Diego may be a hotbed of beach volleyball and home to the U.S. national teams, but enterprises such as Matarocci’s are frequently what it takes to get boys’ volleyball started in area high schools.

The fortunes of boys’ volleyball may be changing, however.

The Sweetwater School District Board recently voted to fund three new sports--volleyball, field hockey and water polo--for the Metro Conference, which includes the 3-A Mesa League and the 2-A South Bay League.

“We took a survey of the schools as to who might be interested in having a boys’ volleyball program, and six of the 10 said they would very likely be interested and at least one other school thought there would be interest,” said Robert Bane, Metro Conference chairman and Castle Park High School principal. “What we’ll do in the fall is to firm up the issue of having boys’ volleyball as a league sport.”

It it becomes a league sport, fund-raising no longer would be necessary. The sport would be part of the schools’ athletic programs.

If the schools expressing interest in boys’ volleyball at the Metro Conference spring meeting agree to compete in the sport in the fall, the San Diego Section would have two conferences with interscholastic boys volleyball, and a section championship would then be possible.

A state championship tournament would be feasible as well. California Interscholastic Federation rules require that three sections must offer championships in a sport before a state championship can be held. Currently, only the Los Angeles City and Southern sections have boys’ volleyball championships.

San Diego might have had at least two volleyball leagues last year, when the San Diego Unified School District considered adding the sport for the City Conference’s three leagues. But the district received less funding from the state than it anticipated and at one point considered dropping five sports this year.

But budget problems haven’t stopped volleyball from growing.

“We basically did more to get volleyball started than some of the other guys had to,” Matarocci said. “We already got the door open. We just need to get a couple more guys to keep it open.”

Matarocci is not the only high school student who had to work to get a volleyball program at his school. Dijon Douphner, the son of U.S. men’s coach Marv Dunphy, is another.

Douphner, regarded as the best player in the county this year by coaches, helped start a program at San Pasqual last year. San Pasqual was the only member of the North County Conference’s Avocado League that did not field a team.

After students persuaded school administrators, found a coach and organized tryouts, San Pasqual fielded a junior varsity team last season. This year, San Pasqual fielded its first varsity team and won the unofficial 3-A championship. Matarocci led Bonita Vista to the unofficial 2-A championship.

Since the section cannot offer a championship, the North County Conference and the club teams throughout the county hold a tournament at the end of the season. This year, 29 teams, including 19 club teams, participated. The better teams compete in the 3-A division, and the schools with newer programs or smaller enrollments compete in the 2-A division.

For their efforts, Matarocci and Douphner received attention from collegiate coaches that they otherwise might not have received.

Douphner, a 6-foot 4-inch setter/hitter, will play volleyball at Pepperdine on a scholastic scholarship. Matarocci, a 6-7 middle blocker, signed a letter of intent to play at San Diego State.

Douphner also was selected to play for the South team in this summer’s U.S. Olympic Festival.

Although boys’ volleyball has been struggling, the skill level of those who play is getting better.

It was previously rare that coaches from the top collegiate programs would venture into San Diego looking for talent. But that is changing as players and coaching get better.

Dunphy said he invited all the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. coaches to attend tryouts for the World University Games team recently. Several of the league coaches attended the workouts, but many spent a Saturday watching an all-county tournament at Mount Carmel High School.

“I think that is a really good sign,” Dunphy said.

Mark Warner, the San Diego State men’s coach last season who will assist both the Aztec men’s and women’s programs next year, concurs.

“The level of play has gotten a lot better in all the schools,” Warner said. “It won’t be long before I can look at 6 to 12 guys instead of 2 to 4.”

Said Dunphy: “The numbers and the talent were greater this year. I think the coaching has been the key.”

Although coaching may have been a key on the court, most of those involved in local boys’ volleyball said a lot rests with the parents. Poway Coach Mike Ball said that parents, students and coaches put a lot of pressure on the school boards before volleyball was sanctioned in his area.

“I think the parents up here made the difference,” Ball said. “The school boards don’t listen until the parents grab them by the roots.”

Most coaches agree that to get a club program started, it takes someone such as a student or a coach to take the first step. The schools just can’t sanction a sport unless there is interest, and sometimes fund-raising can be convincing.

“I think it is neat to have volleyball as part of the traditional sports structure,” Dunphy said. “When I was in high school, it was just a PE class. You don’t really see too many new sports break into the limelight.”