Officials are supposed to arrive 30 minutes prior to the start of a match in order to check the facility and teams before warm-up. Therefore, it stands to reason that the gym should be setup at that time as well, especially the court and scorer’s table area. This allows the referee to check the area for proper padding, net height etc and allows the coach and/or AD to make corrections without delaying warm-up or impacting the coaches need for final preparation.
Make sure all exposed metal parts of the volleyball standards or posts and all cable is padded and/or covered. Turnbuckles and metal clips must be padded. Cables must be covered. The use of pipe insulation taped so that it will stay in place is more than adequate. Towels will also work just fine. Rope does not need to be covered and a
metal cable covered with vinyl (as many already are) is legal.
Antennas should already be in place. It is not the referee’s job to do this.
The standards must be padded to a minimum height of 5 1/2 feet with at least 1-inch thick, resilient shock-absorbing material to encase the uprights and all tensioning devices. The front and sides of the referee’s platform must be padded in the same manner as the standards.Any exposed steel cable and/or metal tensioning device through the top and bottom of the net shall be covered.
It is recommended that at least one towel be at the scorer’s table in case water or perspiration needs to be quickly wiped up.
In case the net height is challenged, it is wise to have a measuring device close at hand.
The scorer’s table should be all setup with two game balls, score sheets, a pen, and the scoreboard controls ready to go. This allows the officials to check the balls for the proper inflation, check the lineups, fill out the score sheet in the absence of the scorekeeper, and time the warm-ups in the absence of the timekeeper.
A scorekeeper should be present no less than 20 minutes before the start of the match.
In the sport of volleyball, very rarely do officials need the use of a locker room before or after a match however occasionally you may receive such a request. You should be prepared for this, albeit infrequently.
A small cup or bottle of water offered to the officials is always greatly appreciated.
