SPORTS COLUMN: I don’t know why it was added

Published 5:00 am Monday, October 19, 2026

I completed a story a few weeks ago that will run later in the year.
But I looked at the number of high school athletes playing sports.
Currently, in female sports track and field is the most popular of the sports. However, No. 2 is about to overtake that sport.
The second most popular sport for girls is not basketball.
Basketball has about 200,000 less participants than volleyball.
The world of high school volleyball has exploded.
That explosion is being seen in Arkansas. Arkansas was a very slow start to volleyball.
Local resident Connie Cash Gray gets all the credit to starting volleyball in this area of Arkansas.
Back in the 1970s, she approached the superintendent of the Valley Springs Schools about starting girls basketball. He informed her that girls didn’t play basketball, but they did play volleyball.
Coach Cash at the time, started volleyball at Valley Springs.
The only problem with volleyball at Valley Springs was that the competition was not local. There were a few pockets of high school volleyball in the state and those pockets were around the colleges that were playing volleyball.
Arkansas State in Jonesboro and schools around Arkadelphia were the leaders in the state.
Coach Gray or Cash at the time needed local competition.
She drove to visit every school in the area to find those willing to play. She found a lot of the schools that played for one year before switching to the “sport that girls don’t play” — basketball.
Four schools across north Arkansas remained playing volleyball. They made up the conference for the top part of the state. Valley Springs, by far the smallest school of the four, Harrison, Siloam Springs and Mountain Home had a lot of heated rivalry games.
As the sport has grown, the Arkansas Activities Association found another need to expand the volleyball season.
The AAA added regional tournaments to the schedule. That meant that a week of regular season games where subtracted from the season to play another week of tournaments.
This extra week of competition happens for Class 4A down.
Harrison has not had to play in regional volleyball action until this week. Now, they travel to Mena to play in the “North Regional.” While the “South Regional” is at Morrilton. I know I am easily amused.
It takes one win in regionals to go to state.
Then at state, since we don’t have enough regions, four teams will get a bye in the first round and are automatically in the quarterfinals. That includes a second place team as well.
I really don’t get the regional tournament thing other than it is another week to make money for the AAA

Jeff Brasel is the sports and managing editor and general manager of the Harrison Daily Times. E-mail him at jeffb@harrisondaily.com or follow him at X.com/jeffbrasel.