[March 16, 2004] 2004 Rules Changes

Rules changes proposed in January by the NCAA Women's Volleyball Rules Committee have been approved for the 2004 season. The most visible change will allow the libero to serve in one rotation, to be specified on the lineup sheet by the coach.

When the libero position was created for international play several years ago, there was concern that some coaches might be tempted to use it as a serving specialist, so the libero was prohibited from serving. In practice, this means that the typical libero now only plays 5/6 of each game. This change will allow NCAA women's coaches to keep their best defensive player in the game for all but one rally out of each full rotation. Other rulesets, such as those used in the international game, NCAA men's play, USA Volleyball play, and juniors club play still prohibit serving by the libero.

The other change you may notice is that coaches will be prohibited from approaching the second referee to discuss (argue?) judgement calls, such as mis-handled balls, net violations, line calls, etc. Coaches will still be allowed to ask factual questions, such as how many timeouts they have left.

The AVCA web site has a summary of all of the changes.