For the first time in the history of Burlingame, boys volleyball is being offered as an official sport. While neighboring schools such as Hillsdale are entering the third year of having a boys volleyball team, the idea of offering boys volleyball at Burlingame was not proposed until late last year by sophomores Niall Finnegan and Zachary Ngai.

“We’ve had 2 open gyms so far and a signup day,” Finnegan said. “On signup day we had about 50 people show up, and we usually have about 20 or 30 people show up to the open gyms.”

Although boys volleyball is a new phenomenon at Burlingame, it has been offered as a club sport for many years. That said, school volleyball is open to both experienced and novice players, as this team this year won’t be competing for rank, but rather they will be testing their skills exclusively via scrimmages against other schools. However, next year the team plans to join the Peninsula Athletic League and compete at a higher level.

In preparation for the season, several open gyms have been held after school for medically cleared boys volleyball players. The sessions consist of mainly drills and modified scrimmages. Any Burlingame student is welcome to join these open gyms before the season begins, provided that they too are medically cleared.

“A lot of guys have been asking us how it’s going as we were creating the team and a lot of basketball players wanted to play or just try the sport,” Ngai said. “Most guys just thought it was a girls sport but going to the open-gyms they saw that it was for guys too.”

Boys volleyball tryouts are postponed until winter sports have finished. As of now, the plan is to “commence boys volleyball tryouts on Monday, Feb. 11 through Friday, Feb. 15 from 4 to 6 p.m., ” according to head coach Chris Chu.

“I am eagerly looking forward to the season, I hope to improve both my volleyball skills, as well as productively contribute to the success of the team” junior Jimmy Woods said.