BREAKING: Vanderbilt adds volleyball as a varsity sport

Vanderbilt is adding volleyball as a varsity sport, with competition to begin in 2025.

Vanderbilt has for years stuck out like a sore thumb as the only SEC member school not to field a volleyball team. That’s also true of softball, though that sport has the issue of not having a facility available (and Vanderbilt not really having any space to add a softball field), but it’s never been true of volleyball, which could simply play at Memorial Gym. That will change in a few years, with the Commodores fielding a varsity volleyball team for the first time since the program was previously shut down in 1979.

At this time, Vanderbilt seems like it plans on doing this without cutting any other sports, though Title IX concerns may actually necessitate the need to add more athletic scholarships on the men’s side to balance out the 12 full scholarships offered for volleyball. One obvious place to look would be men’s track and field, which would add 7.6 scholarships to the 5 already offered for cross country. That’s complete speculation on my part, though, because I don’t know if this will be an issue.