Vanderbilt Volleyball: Why not?

In our continuing survey of universities that do not offer women's volleyball, today we look at...Vanderbilt University!

Vanderbilt's a rather prestigious school located in the Midwest, a veritable hot-bed of volleyball. The school has over 6,000 undergrad students and over 5,000 grad students, most of them probably slugging their way through law school so they can be the subject of a future Grisham novel that will eventually become a movie (Ryan Phillipe will play the earnest law student, Katie Holmes the damsel-in-distress, on loan from the Church of Scientology).

So why not, Vanderbilt? The Commodores currently offer basketball, bowling, cross country, golf, lacrosse, soccer, swimming, tennis, and track & field. Anything catch your eye there? Lacrosse is a smidge conspicuous. Isn't Nashville, Tennessee, a little removed from, um, a 10-mile radius around Johns Hopkins to be sporting a women's lacrosse team? Sure, Berkeley, Stanford, places like that sponsor the sport, but those over-achievers try everything at least once.

The other sport that catches the eye--actually walks up to the eye and jams its thumb in there--is bowling. Did anyone know this was an official NCAA-sponsored sport? It's not even "emerging" like the previously mentioned horsey-riding. Twenty-eight schools offer DI bowling, with the most recognizable school besides Vanderbilt being Nebraska. That's right. If Terry Pettit had had a passion for bowling instead of volleyball, there might very well have been over 17,000 people in Omaha watching last year's bowling championships, where Pavan would nail a 7-10 split to take the title. If not for the grace of God...

Most interesting, to us anyway, is reading Vanderbilt coach John Williamson's bio. Obviously, the guy must know what he's doing, especially in recruiting. But usually in a bio you see a list of a person's past accomplishments in the sport. In Williamson's bio? No bowling experience...of any kind...is mentioned. But that didn't stop him from landing the No. 1 high school, um, bowling recruit in the nation, Josie Earnest. The guy's like the Ernie McCracken of our time.