Re: Seinfeld Rules of Volleyball

First off, well freakin’ done. The Seinfeld references were a nice touch, but mostly reading about the faux pas of sand volleyball was like reading gospel.

I’m not trying to one-up you here, as your Seinfeld knowledge far surpasses mine, but if I may be so presumptuous, I’d like to tack on one more…

The Low Talker: A low talker can cause a great deal of confusion – as Jerry discovered in the “Puffy Shirt” episode (“But I don’t want to be a Pirate”) – and the sand volleyball low talker (coincidentally usually a woman) is no exception. There are several situations where vocal restraint just adds confusion (or liability), so please do everyone a favor and open your throat, push from the diaphragm, and speak up. Call a ball that is in between “zones”, help a teammate judge if a ball will be long or short, tell the opponents if a ball was out of bounds, let your teammate know if you are ready to “kibosh” a good set, and above all, announce the score before you serve! It’s a simple rule really: Don’t serve the ball until you’ve (audibly) said the score. I really struggle to determine exactly what goes through a person’s mind when they fail to announce the score. If they in fact know the score, maybe they want to “keep it in the vault” so they can sneak in a few points later. Or maybe they don’t know the score and are counting on some revelation during the next point. Maybe they just figure that no one will ever bring it up again. Or maybe they are taking procrastination to the extreme with the attitude of “why figure it out know when we can figure it out later?” Well, I’ll tell you why: because it’s going to be a lot goddamn harder to figure it out after you play more points. I feel that failure to announce the score should be an automatic side out (or point in the new-age rally system).

I think we ought to add more rules as new situations arise (sort of a “living document”), but in the meantime, the Seinfeld Rules should ensure enjoyable, quality, fundamental sand volleyball. So study the rules, play all volleyball according to their will, and fearlessly go out into the world and spread their message.