Upcoming MSHSL vote could make boys volleyball a sanctioned high school sport

A vote this week by the Minnesota State High School League could add boys volleyball to the list of the state’s sanctioned high school sports, but it’s a bid that has failed the first two times around.

In 2018, the Minnesota Boys Volleyball Association recorded just 40 boys participating in the sport. Now, at least 1,400 boys are playing across more than 55 club teams.

“There’s absolutely a need and a want for it,” Patrick Henry High School boys volleyball coach Lisa Minima said.

Minima started out coaching Patrick Henry’s girls team in the fall and now devotes the spring to coaching the boys, who have formed their own club.

“I feel like it needs to happen,” she said. “It’s the fastest growing sport in the state.”

The MSHSL Representative Assembly will vote Tuesday whether to make it a sanctioned sport, but it will take approval from 32 of the 48 members to make it happen. The MSHSL has failed the vote twice, including last spring.

Minima worries if it fails a third time, boys who want to play won’t be able to afford it, as club volleyball in Minnesota can cost upwards of $2,500.

“They aren’t going to be able to go and get it somewhere else, not everybody,” she said.