THOMASVILLE — A beach favorite is making its way to the hard courts in town this summer, sans the sun and sand. 

Thomasville High School and Thomas County Central High School are both adding volleyball programs to their girls athletics offerings behind heavy interest from students. 

The Class AA Bulldogs had 70 girls come to an interest meeting with an additional 10-15 spring athletes who couldn’t make the meeting, coach Antonio Wade said. 

“The interest is there, it’s just getting them out and playing the game of volleyball,” said Wade, who has been the girls basketball coach for three seasons. He was hired with the intention of also coaching volleyball once the new gymnasium was finished. 

Summer workouts at Thomasville will begin the second full week of June with practices two times a week as Wade juggles the two sports. After the GHSA dead week in July, the team will go to an every day schedule. 

Thomas County Central head coach Hannah Shierling already has her squad out doing conditioning drills and playing in summer leagues in Tallahassee, Fla. 

Athletic director Sam Holland said 143 attended an interest meeting a few months back at the now Class AAAAA school. At try-outs in May there were 85 and the coaching staff whittled it down to 18. 

“Everybody’s really excited about it,” Holland said, adding Shierling is putting together a “first-class” program. 

Both schools are still working out schedules for the fall season with the intention of adding each other to the docket. 

Wade said Thomasville’s will be a 16-match junior varsity schedule to begin. He’s looking at schools close by such as Brooks County and Early County as the program gets started. 

“We’ll just play some of the local teams,” he said. 

Wade said with a lot of his interested players, he’s beginning with the basics of techniques, rules and strategies. Only three or four have played before whether it be club or at a different high school. 

“It’s going to take probably the year to get used to at a fast pace because it’s such a fast paced game,” he said. 

Eventually the YMCA will be implementing a volleyball program for youths interested in the game and as a way to funnel players to high school with background knowledge already intact. 

“It’s in the plan, we just have to hash it out,” said Katie Ketchum, YMCA marketing and communications director. 

Holland and Shierling will be putting together a varsity schedule at TCC with many area schools along the Route 84 corridor, though Holland said he’s unsure if they’ll play a region schedule or not. The school’s new region is comprised of Bainbridge, Harris County, Veterans and Warner Robbins.

“We’re still weighing the options,” Holland said. 

Many of the Columbus schools have well established programs already with varsity, junior varsity and freshmen teams. 

Volleyball has been a part of the Georgia High School Association championships since 1993, when it began as an open event for six seasons. It’s now a part of every classification and one of the most popular girls team sports in the nation and state after basketball, soccer and fast-pitch softball. 

The sport has steadily grown in Georgia, jumping from 318 schools and 7,555 participants in 2013-14 to 327 schools and 7,730 participants in 14-15, the last year added to the National Federation of High School Associations databases. 

There were 451 public and non-public member high schools in the state in 14-15, per the database. For comparison, 422 offered girls outdoor track and field with 10,894 participating; 382 schools and 10,053 for soccer; 436 schools and 8,934 for basketball; and 398 schools and 8,050 for softball. 

The addition of volleyball will assist the two schools and the entire state in Title IX numbers, though it’s noted that neither Thomasville nor Central’s specific athletic participation and enrollment numbers were analyzed for this article. 

Title IX, the federal law enacted in 1972, protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance. It is most commonly applied to school athletics.

To be in compliance, schools must must meet the requirements of three areas, typically identified as the three prongs of Title IX.

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I) Participation: Must meet at least one of three areas

• Proportionality: The ratio of female to male athletes compared to the ratio of female to male students must be equal. 
• History and continuing practice: Schools must show a history and continuing practice — courts have been firm in noting this means currently in the now — of program expansion for the underrepresented sex. 
• Fully and effectively accommodating interests and abilities

II) Athletic Financial Assistance: College scholarships must be allocated in proportion to the number of female and male students participating in collegiate athletics. The actual funding numbers at high schools and colleges do not have to be equal between the sexes, but a large disparity could lead to being non-compliant. 

III) Treatment: Schools must take steps to treat both the female and male athletic teams equally in regards to such issues as facilities, equipment, game and practice schedules, publicity, coaching, tutoring opportunities, training and support. 

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According to the National Women’s Law Center analysis of 2011-12 data, which was published in The Atlantic last summer, Georgia leads the country with the most severe gender inequality in sports in terms of proportional participation. The state, which is joined by nine other southern states in the top 10, has 2/3 of high schools with large gaps.

A gap is considered large if the difference between the percent of spots on teams allocated to girls and that allocated to boys is 10 points or higher. As the example in The Atlantic, if girls account for 55 percent of the population at a school but only get 43 percent of all the spots on teams, that school has a 12 percent gap.

Again, numbers were not analyzed for either local school, but adding volleyball would meet two of the three bullets for the participation prong while getting more females involved in athletics and broadening the local athletic landscape.