Hair adornments such as beads are now legal in high school volleyball as long as they are securely fastened and do not endanger other players. This rule change, along with eliminating manufacturer reference size and quantity restrictions on uniform bottom waistbands, headline new rules adopted for the 2022-23 season.

In all, seven rules changes were recommended by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Volleyball Rules Committee at its annual meeting in January.

Of most interest to team dealers is the adoption of changes that now allows athletes to wear uniform bottoms featuring multiple manufacturer logos, trademarks or references that exceed 2¼ inches on waistbands. Oftentimes, student-athletes are responsible for supplying their own uniform bottom. Given current trends in the sport of volleyball, the rules committee recognized the lack of uniform bottoms available to student-athletes without substantial manufacturer representation.

The other significant uniform change: the Volleyball Rules Committee eliminated size restrictions of two inches or less and now allows for bobby pins, flat clips, flat barrettes and other adornments to legally be worn in the hair as long they do not present a safety hazard to the player, teammates or opponents.

“The Volleyball Rules Committee took another step in creating a more inclusive environment within the sport by relaxing restrictions on hair adornments,” says Lindsey Atkinson, NFHS director of sports and liaison to the Volleyball Rules Committee. “It was extremely important to the rules committee to create rules language that supported diversity of hair trends while minimizing the risk of injury to the athlete, teammates and opponents.”

According to the most recent NFHS High School Athletics Participation Survey, volleyball is the second-most popular sports for girls (trailing track and field) with 452,808 participants in 16,572 schools nationwide. In addition, there are 63,563 boys participating in the sport at 2,692 schools, and 25 states conduct state championships in boys’ volleyball.