Rocball founder challenges volleyball rally scoring

Rocball founder James Feger recently challenged the rally point scoring system currently being used in volleyball, citing that it lessens the difficulty faced by a team that is not at serve.

According to Feger, he challenged the system in a volleyball forum on the internet, which drew heated discussions from others involved in the forum.

“Is volleyball’s rally point scoring for sissy’s?” Feger said. “Give the serving team in volleyball closure and eliminate the two-point margin win rule. Volleyball had a balance of challenges when the serving team had set and game closure. It doesn’t make any sense to allow a set or game to be won if a team cannot serve a ball over a net.”

Further, Feger indicated that he disagreed with the current system, which allows teams that do not serve to score points as well as win sets and the match.

“That rule may be okay for tennis or ping-pong, where rackets and paddles are used, but volleyball shouldn’t have to be subjected to this kind of inactive and default system of closure,” he said. “Volleyball used to be a game where a team had to have the courage to serve a ball over the net and challenge their opponents for the score.”

“In fact, volleyball used to be a game where a team couldn’t score a point if a ball wasn’t served over the net. [And] a volleyball game couldn’t be won unless the service team scored a point off a ball served over the net,” he added.

Feger disclosed yesterday that his comments drew several opinions aimed at rebutting his statements, including that rally point scoring would make players consistent and precise through being accountable for earning or losing a point.

“Players on the team in service, have the responsibility of securing the scoring advantages for their team,” he replied. “Players on the receiving team try to win service for their team for the scoring advantage of the serve, have no less an important objective.”

Feger noted that “when a team understands that a set or game cannot be won without service,” their individual skills and teamwork would play more important roles to tackle a higher difficulty of play. He added that players and teams would then also have to take different tactical purposes.

“The serve is the catalyst of this sport,” he said. “It is the one competitive feature of this team net sport that separates it from other team net sports.”

In the past, a service will be awarded to the other team if the team at serve fails to hit the ball cleanly over the net to start play. Currently, served balls hitting the net and continuing to the opponents side of the court is legal and play will continue.

Feger compared it to the two-bounce start in the game of table tennis, and the one-bounce for tennis.

“Volleyball doesn’t need a bounce serve or any feature associated with a sport that has a bounce serve. The rally point scoring system and let serve origins of play are imbedded in the two-bounce game,” he said.

Meanwhile, Feger said he agrees with the concept of offensive and defensive scoring—also featured in Rocball—but contends that a point need not be awarded on each serve.

“With specific rules and under certain conditions, a penalty would be awarded for a bad serve. I’m not a person to defend side-out rules of play, but the side-out server had an immense responsibility to his teammates and their effort for winning the game.”

He stressed that if a team in a side-out game lost serve, the scoring advantage is given to the other team, as well as the possibility of winning the set or game.

“It isn’t a logical conclusion based on facts and its something that seems to have been memorized as a learned knee jerk reaction to avoid producing empirical evidence and clarification. It is a well known fact that the Federation International de Volleyball, the world governing body of volleyball, did not develop or introduce offensive and defensive scoring in volleyball.”

He also revealed that officials and coaches in Canada are arguing the service team closure under the rally point system, while a women’s league in Arizona is experimenting with two-point backcourt scoring—something already featured in Rocball.

“It sounds and feels like Rocball is in the making to me,” he said.