Could Penn Take It To The Beach?

After a vote at the 2010 NCAA convention, it's possible that Penn could expand its recent volleyball domination to the Jersey Shore.

One of the particularly contentious issues going into last week's convention was a movement by many schools to strike "sand volleyball" (also known as beach volleyball to many) from a list of emerging women's sports that would have fasttracked the sport to Division I play.

The vote on this failed, and sand volleyball will be added to the list of emerging sports for women in August 2011. This means mixed things for Penn.

Given our location, I don't see Penn adding this to their list of sports any time soon. First and foremost, our location makes it pretty difficult. If fall weather weren't bad enough, the team would be facing a lot of travel time.

Not only that, but the school would need to add a men's sport as well (Ivy schools need to offer an equal number of men's and woman's teams), and that's a lot of hassle for some fun in the sun.

The second issue is recruitment. A few of Penn's players used to play on the beach, and I can't help but wonder if they would have chosen to remain there given the opportunity. While it will likely be a few years before the sport really takes off (women's bowling was added in 2004 but has yet to hit the Ivy League), in the long run, this could effect Penn's ability to get the talent it needs to continue this year's success.