Frequently Asked Questions Below are questions we have received from people. Many are the actual question and the actual answer. Let us know if you have another question. • I am interested in getting more information regarding the volleyball leagues! I have recently moved here and would like to play volleyball. Please let me know any further information and how I would go about finding a team! • Why do we have so many 9:00 matches, or as the email said, "Sorry- I try not to complain too often.... but... My women's team Lady Hitters has an inordinate amount of 9:00 pm games. This season we have five 9:00 pm games and four of those are on a Sunday night. We have no 5:30 games this year... What is going on?" • Why do we play one team twice (or three times) and some teams we don't play at all? • Why is our team not listed in the season standings? • Why do the season standings show our team with 3 losses. We were supposed to play this past weekend and we are in the process of rescheduling, or as the email said, "I thought our game with Lady Hitters was cancelled, not forfeited. After looking at the season standings though it shows that our team has 3 losses. Explanation please.". • Will we be charged a forfeit fee even though I emailed the other team and the Lobo League office? • Will we still be charged for a reschedule fee even if the other team does not respond in time? • I requested Saturday's match to be rescheduled as you had instructed, but there was no response which reopened the requested court. The scores now show my team as losing all matches, with no rescheduled game. Can you tell me what I need to do to get this corrected? • I signed up as the team rep on the website. Why can I not see any teams listed when I go to reschedule a match? • Where is court 7 main? Or where is court 8 west? top Question: I am interested in getting more information regarding the volleyball leagues! I have recently moved here and would like to play volleyball. Please let me know any further information and how I would go about finding a team! Answer: Thanks for the email. We have a league where we play every Saturday and Sunday night in the Johnson Center at UNM. For the most part, men's and women's teams play on Saturday nights and coed plays on Sunday nights. We have matches starting at 5:30, 6:40, 7:50, and 9:00. What we can do is add you to our Free Agent list. Teams that are still looking for players consult the list and get players that way. To be added to the Free Agent list just click on the 'Free Agent Signup' on the main page and input your information. Another way to get picked up is to just be here at league. When teams do not have enough players at game time they will just grab someone from the sidelines. There is no cost to come and watch or to be listed on the Free Agent list. If you do get picked up by a team then you can work out with them any payment that needs to happen. top Question: Why do we have so many 9:00 matches, or as the email said, "Sorry- I try not to complain too often.... but... My women's team Lady Hitters has an inordinate amount of 9:00 pm games. This season we have five 9:00 pm games and four of those are on a Sunday night. We have no 5:30 games this year... What is going on?" Answer: Thanks for the email. We input everything into the database (team name, category, level, conflicts, special requests, etc.) and then our scheduling program produces a "perfect schedule in a perfect world" meaning that everyone has the same number of 5:30, 6:40, 7:50, and 9:00 matches. Then we have to input the courts that we have available for the season and then fit the "perfect schedule" into these courts. By doing that we no longer have a "perfect schedule" because we may have only 9 courts on one night but need to have 13. Well now we need to place the extra matches somewhere and so we place them into dates at the end of the season. Once everything is placed into courts that we do have, then we run another program that tries to accommodate all the conflicts and requests again. Sometimes it is not possible to accommodate everything. The main thing it looks at is conflicts and we have seen that many times it is not the team that has the bad schedule (like Lady Hitters) but rather your opponents that have all the conflicts. The conflicts have conflicts and then the conflicts have conflicts. This season it worked out that there are 4 teams (let's call them A, B, C, and D) that can not play at the same time. This means that one week A plays at 5:30, B plays at 6:40, C plays at 7:50, and D plays at 9:00. The next week A plays at 6:40, B plays at 7:50, C plays at 9:00, and then D plays at 5:30. The next week it rotates again and continues that way for the whole season. Well, if we have only 9 courts but need 13, then some of the matches (such as team B that plays at 6:40 for instance) get moved to a different date. Because of the moving, team B may have a conflict with team F so team B gets moved to 9:00. If Lady Hitters is scheduled to play team B then guess what - your original match that was scheduled for 6:40 now just got moved to 9:00. We are trying to make the scheduling program take this all into account but there are just so many variables that keep popping up that it is almost impossible to still have "the perfect schedule in a perfect world" type of thing. Your schedule with so many 9:00 matches is not intentional at all but rather just trying to get the matches all scheduled without conflicts. Many times it is easier for teams to reschedule than it is for us to do the actual schedule. If a team lists a conflict we have to schedule around it. However, once the schedules are out then teams may decide that having a conflict is not that big of a deal because they would only lose one player. Again, this may be your opponent and not Lady Hitters. If you want to help with the scheduling next season we will gladly accept the help. :-) top Question: Why do we play one team twice (or three times) and some teams we don't play at all? Answer: There is an odd number of teams in your division. In order for the scheduling program to work correctly there has to be an even number of teams in a division. When there is an odd number of teams we create a fake or dummy team so that there is an even number of teams in the division. Then the scheduling program creates a "perfect schedule." Well the fake or dummy team does not actually exist so we have to go in by hand and take all the matches that the fake or dummy team has and then pair up the opponents against each other. Your team was scheduled against the fake or dummy team and in the regrouping you were paired against a team that you have already been scheduled against. While it is not perfect, doing it this way ensures that you still have the proper number of matches for the season. top Question: Why is our team not listed in the season standings? Answer: You do not see your team listed because you have not played any matches yet this season. top Question: Why do the season standings show our team with 3 losses. We were supposed to play this past weekend and we are in the process of rescheduling, or as the email said, "I thought our game with Lady Hitters was cancelled, not forfeited. After looking at the season standings though it shows that our team has 3 losses. Explanation please." Answer: You guys are out of luck. Just kidding. :) You guys are fine and here's why. Just by way of explaining though there is a difference between cancelling and rescheduling and forfeiting. Looking at what you wrote ("I thought our game with Lady Hitters was cancelled, not forfeited") and what Jane (your opponent) wrote ("Cancelling the game is okay. We will be in touch with you to reschedule") you may both be just using the terms interchangeably without thinking that there actually is a difference. Look at 'Match Cancellations,' 'Reschedules,' and 'Forfeits' in the handbook (on the website under "Document Downloads") for further explanation. In short, a cancelled match cannot be rescheduled and there is no forfeit fee associated with the match. A reschedule is a match that will be played at a later date. As long as the other team does not show up then there is no forfeit fee associated with it. And a forfeit is a match where one team does not show up or does not have enough players to compete. Here is why there is confusion. After the weekend we enter the scores for both Saturday and Sunday. When a team can not play and they let the other team and us know (which you did) then we make a note on our end so that we do not schedule a referee and we also note which team can not play. Then during the week after play (normally on Monday) we enter the scores. When we come to a match that was not played (such as yours) we still have to enter scores. We entered scores of 0-0-0 for your team since it was your team that could not play. We entered 30-30-30 for scores for Jane's team (your opponent). What you do not see is that we also have to enter the name of the official or the reason why the match was not played. Instead of entering an official for your match we entered "Rescheduling". By entering "Rescheduling" it tells the website that you plan to reschedule and the website will allow you to reschedule with no problem. Another option we have is to enter "Cancelled" (here's where the difference between cancelled and rescheduling comes into play). If we enter "Cancelled" then that tells the website that you do NOT have the option to reschedule. Same thing goes if we enter "forfeit" - you do NOT have the option to reschedule. With us so far? What you DO see when you look at the website is a loss for your team. There are a few reasons for this. One is that we have to enter scores so that all the season standings work. It also shows that the match was scheduled and was either played or not played. Since your team could not play that is why you see the loss. After you reschedule the match then this loss will no longer show in the standings. The actual scores of the match will be input and the team standings will be correct. Another reason you see the loss is because in the past a team had said they were going to reschedule and then ended up not rescheduling. At the end of the season they had scores for only 9 matches instead of the usual 10 matches. As you may have guessed, this affected the season standings. Using the scores for the 9 matches actually gave them a better record than if we had recorded the 10 matches. As you may have also guessed, this also affected who got 2nd for the season and who got 3rd for the season (and the subsequent prizes). The team that only had 9 matches recorded (because they said they were going to reschedule their other match) ended up in 2nd place. When the 3rd place team pointed this out we checked into it and found out why. So now we enter scores of 0-0-0 even if the team (like yours) plans to reschedule. The standings will only be affected now but will straighten out by the end of the season. In the event that you do not reschedule, then it is not fair to the other team (Jane's team in this case) that they should be penalized in the standings when they were willing to play. This also helps the team that could not play by reminding them that they have to reschedule and if they do not then they will keep the loss. If you look at the standings right now you will see there are about 5 other teams that have losses and 5 other teams that have wins. When you look at the Win - Loss columns and the For and Against columns you will see what we are talking about. If the For and Against columns are 90 and 0 (or 0 and 90) then you know that they also are in the process of rescheduling. You will only be able to tell that right now since once those teams play again then there will not be an even 90 or 0 in those columns. Make sense? Short answer to your question - when you reschedule and play the match then the scores you currently see will be changed to the actual scores of the match. top Question: Will we be charged a forfeit fee even though I emailed the other team and the Lobo League office? Answer: If the other team shows up, then yes, you will be charged a forfeit fee. Sending an email does not guarantee that the other team will read the email. It is best to email and then also call the team rep from the other team to ensure that they know not to show up for the match. top Question: Will we still be charged for a reschedule fee even if the other team does not respond in time? Answer: Good question. A team is only charged a reschedule fee if the reschedule is accepted by the opponent. top Question: I requested Saturday's match to be rescheduled as you had instructed, but there was no response which reopened the requested court. The scores now show my team as losing all matches, with no rescheduled game. Can you tell me what I need to do to get this corrected? Answer: You are already on the right track to having everything correct. After the weekend we have to enter scores so that the tracking and standings work out correctly. We entered scores of zeros for your team because you were the team that could not play. Once you reschedule and play the match then those zeros will be changed to the actual scores of the match. We have it coded on the website so that it will still allow you to reschedule. Just in case you do not reschedule then this way it does not penalize the other team for not playing a match as well. Since you got no response from Lady Hitters then we would suggest calling that team rep and working out a new date and time. Then log on and initiate the reschedule and then the other team rep can log on and accept it. The other team rep will have 24 hours from the time you initiate the reschedule to accept. top Question: I signed up as the team rep on the website. Why can I not see any teams listed when I go to reschedule a match? Answer: You did not actually sign up as the team rep. You only signed up as a player so far. Signing up as the team rep involves two steps. The first step you have already done which is to sign up as a player. Then you need to sign up as the team rep. We have attached the info on how to sign up as a team rep and also the info on how to reschedule a match. (NOTE: Please email us if you need the information on how to sign up as the team rep or how to reschedule a match.) top Question: Where is court 7 main? Or where is court 8 west? Answer: We do not have a 7 main or an 8 west. When looking at the posted schedule at league the courts have either an "m" or a "w" which refers to the net height. The "m" refers to a men's or coed net height match and a "w" refers to a women's net height match.