Middle School Volleyball in Ohio

Question
In Ohio, can an eighth grader play on a seventh grade team if this is her first year playing? If so, where can I find these regulations? I have looked for hours on www.ohsaa.org and I can't find anything for this question.

Answer
Hello Amy and welcome to AllExperts.com

My name is coach Tovar

We'll Amy I used to ref for many years including some college levels. There is not enough room in the referee book to place all situations and set them as a specific rule. Let's just say that is would be easier for me to explain to you an invisible clause than the whole rule book system on volleyball and why they write the book the way they do. For this, there is a term or an invisible clause. Don't look for this because you will not find it. This clause basically states that there will be a lot of situations that will be based on common sense. This invisible rule was made because unfortunately there are a lot of coaches who feel they might get an advantage with their team if this rule would not exist.A rule you might find in your school district will be one that possibly states that a player that has not passed to the eight grade can only participate in the eight grade volleyball team but will have to wait for up to 6 weeks to be eligible to play for that season. Check for your school district rules on volleyball. You might find some information there.

This is a common sense rule - a player, playing at any level regardless of their playing experience can always play up a level, at level, but may not play below their level regardless of height, weight, age or experience.This is why you can have an ninth grader playing at a varsity level and not a varsity player playing at a ninth grade level regardless if it's their 1st year or not.Hopefully this makes some sense.

The idea that any player can play below their grade level because of their playing experience should not change the rules for any team. The reason you will not find this rule in any book, unless someone wishes to print or state it, is that as you will see later in your volleyball career, some rules will make more sense than others and will there fore make the game of volleyball as fair as possible.

The NFL found out the hard way in trying to make a rule for every little situation possible - they are still writing into the NFL rule book today. I have taught as a 7th and 8th grade middle school volleyball coach at some point for more than 7 years at both the middle school level and at club teams for these ages and you might never see a rule that is particularly unfair.

In my opinion I agree with this rule because is makes more sense than the rule being unfair.