Yes, it was hastily formed. But the first meeting of the Faculty and Neighbors Volleyball League took place over the weekend. There was even an impromptu tournament held on the always empty upper level of the parking garage at Oak Park and River Forest High School.
The 300 N. Scoville Avenue Block Party Committee took on the school’s History Department in a challenging match, made more exciting by the notable pitch of the volleyball court/garage ramp.
“Man, this is the way volleyball was meant to be played,” said one winded neighbor after retrieving the ball which had rolled clear out of the garage and nearly across the street onto the lawn at Pilgrim Church.
And a history teacher made reference to a Wikipedia citation about ancient Greeks inventing what they called Lopsided Spike Ball. “What could be greater and more appropriate than teachers and taxpayers coming together to reinvigorate LSP right here at ‘Those Things That Are Best Stadium’? Just think what it would have cost to construct a Lopsided Spike Ball arena. Would have been crazy expensive. And these floors tilt at the perfect 24 degrees that the Greeks found optimum for a good cardio workout.”
Asked if the stadium wasn’t actually just the school parking garage that was doomed to demolition last week by a retiring school board desperate to find a place to dump a new swimming pool, the president of the Faculty Senate said, “You don’t say. No, I hadn’t heard that. Good thing we got here first.”
The bylaws of the FNSVL pronounce that the intense physical pace of Lopsided Spike Ball is such that playing more than two days per week might prove dangerous. Therefore, as its gift to the school community, the organization’s board agreed to allow the use of its stadium as a parking facility each Monday through Friday with the proviso that, in the interest of historical continuity, the school faculty get first dibs on the 288 stalls.
Neighbors initially objected, saying the stadium should be open to anyone possessing an automobile but were persuaded to change their position so as to avoid forcing weary faculty Lopsided Spike Ball players from having to park in front of the taxpayers’ homes and hoofing it.
Leaders of the new sports league plan to attend Thursday’s school board meeting to ask for official recognition as a school-sponsored sport. “We’ve been inspired by the dedicated parents and students who have come to the board in recent months to extol the many virtues of athleticism and moral righteousness inherent in tennis, softball, swimming, baseball, whirleyball, bowling and whatever other half-baked sports they’ve been blackmailing the board into supporting. If they can convince the board that moving a couple of softball diamonds to Triton would be the death of that sport and lay the district open to whiney little lawsuits under Federal Title IX regs, then we believe we can make this new board quake when they see what gnarly-fingered Lopsided Spike Ball players can do to their kids’ grades on the Skyward digital grading system. Just saying.”
Perhaps the newly-sworn-in school board will agree to take a fresh look at the complex swimming pool issue. Might make a good topic for their first two years.
