AURORA - Boys volleyball for the Colorado High School Activities Association is one of the quickest growing sanctioned sports. 

While for a long time, a lot of communities have been able to enjoy boys volleyball at a club level, more teams are now starting to create school programs, giving new athletes an opportunity to play a sport they’ve never been able to try before. 

Club volleyball can oftentimes be expensive, which can create a barrier that some people aren't able to cross. So, the introduction of boys volleyball into high school competitions has fostered new interest in the sport. 

Sometimes from students who have never played an organized sport, sometimes from students who play things like football and basketball and who want to keep themselves busy in the spring season. 

Regardless of background, the new uptick in interest creates an increased pressure on perfecting their newfound passion, to stay ahead of the curve.

“A lot of my players that are non-club, they don’t play other sports and they’re not even single sport athletes, they just never found the sport that worked for them,” said Odette Edbrooke, the Broomfield High School coach. “So, I’m finding that our players are learning how to be in an organized sport and all of the advantages that comes with it and the hard growth.”

For the athletes who have never played volleyball, not only do they have to learn an entirely new sport, but they have to learn how to be a good teammate, especially in a sport where communication is everything. 

But the new experiences across all of the CHSAA’s boys volleyball programs has created a tight-knit community across schools as programs put in the initial groundwork to try and grow the game. 

“Since it’s so new to the region, I think there’s investment,” Edbrooke said. “As much as there are teams out there that are here to win, I think there’s that larger picture, at least these first couple of years to say ‘we’ve got to grow the sport in quantity and in talent.”

Edbrooke’s praise for the sport resonated with much of Colorado's burgeoning boys volleyball community, including the coach at Arvada West, Dave Zimmerman.

Arvada West is a brand new program for this year’s 2024 season, which means a new set of challenges for Zimmerman and the school. But great challenges can reap great rewards, especially when he has such a supporting community behind him. 

“When you’re a school coach, you’re a part of the community now,” Zimmerman said. “I’ll be in the grocery store and people are like ‘hey, you’re the A-West coach.’ It feels nice, it’s a little weird for me, I’m not used to that stuff. But when you’re a part of something, there’s a little more pride behind it.”

At the end of the day that pride and sense of community is what makes sports so compelling. 

While volleyball has been a sport for more than a century, boys volleyball — at least at the Colorado high school level is brand new. Sometimes the introduction of new sports can be met with some resistance by purists of the sport. 

That however, is far from the case, as CHSAA boys volleyball continues its rapid growth. 

“If you play this sport for a long time, you can be — I wouldn’t say jaded, but you can be guarded by the sport,” said Tobin Skenandore, Boulder High School’s boys volleyball coach. “You can say ‘there’s a certain way you play, a certain way you talk, a certain elegance that is brought to the table in the sport.’ … What’s been great for Boulder is I have two club kids that have been very encouraging to the ones who don’t know how to play.”

The interest in growth by everybody from top to bottom has fostered an incredibly welcoming environment. Truly being unselfish gives athletes of all backgrounds a chance to find their passion in the sport.

That welcoming feeling has not only created a diversity in experience, but Skenandore said that it has also attracted diversity among the players as well. 

“It’s been great to see student’s of color come out and try this sport,” Skenandore said. “I take great pride in who I am and what I do. I’m Native American, I am very proud of my heritage. It’s just nice to see kids try new things, different athletes trying new things and being different than what you see the typical high school kid do. … So it’s been a lot of fun to watch and see it grow that way and I hope it keeps growing and I hope kids keep trying.”

With the growth that boys volleyball has seen, there will be more eyes than ever on the state championships on May 9-11 at Overland High School. As interest continues to grow and creates a special community, CHSAA will be expanding to two classifications for the 2025 season.