Powder Buff (451)

Here at Kennedy High School, we do not have a boys volleyball team. Most people would say, "Well, of course we don't!" That is because in Iowa, there are very few boys teams and boys volleyball is not very popular. There aren't any boys high school teams in the whole state, and only a handful of club teams. Our high school coach, Michelle Goodall is really involved in trying to grow the boys volleyball game in Iowa, and for a fun way to get more boys involved in volleyball, she puts together Powder Buff every year. Powder Buff is where we have a day that boys from Kennedy High School can form teams and play volleyball against each other. This usually is on a half day so that they have time to go get lunch, then play volleyball in the afternoon. The guys form teams and enter into the "tournament" and Coach Goodall makes brackets and they end up playing all of the teams. By the end of the night there is a tournament champion. The girls who play volleyball aren't supposed to play with them, but we help ref and keep score. It is kind of funny to see all of the guys playing volleyball that have either never played before or have only played once or twice in their life.  Powder Buff is mostly just for fun but it is also a good way to let guys have a chance to play volleyball, and if they are interested in playing more they can talk to Goodall about boys club teams, boys HP, and more. We usually have powder buff once a year, but when the guys have a lot of fun we try to schedule more. In the past they have been on the Wednesdays that we have half days, but next year we will probably have to move them to Fridays since we will be having half days every Friday. The other funny part is that the guys can get pretty competitive and take the games pretty seriously. That's mixed with them not really knowing how to play makes a funny game to watch and ref, although sometimes reffing is difficult because they don't know all of the rules. Sometimes we will make calls on a team and they will argue, for example net calls, under the net calls, and rotation calls. There's been times where the same server will go back to serve in multiple rotations and we have to explain to them that they have to rotate servers as well as the people on the court. Powder buff is one of the fun things about school volleyball season and I hope we continue to do it!