Vermont: Why not?

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

Best known, at least recently, for their men's basketball team's wild run in last year's NCAA tournament, Vermont boasts on their website that they offer 11 varsity sports for women. Not one of them is volleyball.

Basketball, cross country, field hockey, hockey, lacrosse, skiing, soccer, softball, swimming, and track & field. Lacrosse and field hockey, well you figure that a school tucked away in the northeast is going to have those. And skiing, OK, Vermont, that makes sense. Honestly, there's nothing that stands out as being odd. But why no volleyball?

Maybe we can get a sense from Vermont's high school athletic association website, which is actually the Vermont Principal's Association. That doesn't sound good. High school athletic associations are far from perfect, but at least they're made of peope that have some understanding of sports. A principal's association sounds like a bunch of guys in shirt sleeves with really bad breath.

Looking through the list of fall sports, there's soccer, cross country, field hockey, and football. No volleyball. In fact, volleyball isn't offered at all in Vermont as a varsity sport! But I guess we shouldn't be surprised coming from a state whose state bird is the hermit thrush. I mean, come on! The hermit thrush?

Plus, you know what is an exhibition varsity sport as of this year? Dance. Oh yeah. Remind me, wasn't "Save the Last Dance" set in Vermont? I think it was.

And these dance people are serious about their dance competition or whatever. According to the online guide, at the state championship, a number of rules must be followed, including "Teams must furnish their own music and someone to operate the music player."

"So what do you do on the dance team?"
"I push 'Play.'"

But most important (because it's emphasized in bold in the guide), when it comes to uniforms, "no bare midriff is allowed." I guess that state motto of "Freedom and Unity" doesn't extend to varsity dance uniforms. And I think we all know bare midriffs are the devil's playground.