Rolfball rules according to RolfBall Austin

What is RolfBall?

RolfBall is an amazingly fun game played on a tennis court with a kickball.  It mixes elements of volleyball and dodge ball.

Where did it come from?

Rolfball originated in Lee’s Summit Missouri.  It was created by Lee’s Summit High School gym teacher Coach Rolfing.  Currently, RolfBall is in the PE curriculum at several schools in the Lee’s Summit area.  It gained popularity amongst a group of graduated students of LSHS in the last several years who started playing it on a regular basis in Kansas city.   TJ Robinson brought the game with him to Austin when he moved here, teaching it to friends, as well as campers at Anderson Mills Limited District’s summer day camp program.  The game is slowly starting to spread to other cities in the US, and quite possibly very soon internationally.  It shows no signs of stopping.

How do you play the sport?

RolfBall’s rules are played very similar to volleyball.  Each team rotates every time they get the ball back from the other team, and they only score a point when they served the ball.  The main difference being that the ball has to bounce once in between every individual hit.   So when it is served over it has to hit the ground once before they other team has a chance to hit it, at that point they can either send the ball back over the net or set up a team mate, however the ball still has to hit the ground once and only once in between each hit.  Just like volleyball it has to go over by the third hit.  Although the hands are the most used body part, you are allowed to hit the ball with any part of your body, however if the ball hits one part of your body like your leg and then bounces off your face or chest, that is considered a double hit and the other team gets the ball or the point.  When serving the ball must land in bounds however when setting up teammates it is ok for the ball to go out of bounds as long as when hitting it to the other team it goes in their boundaries.  The game goes to 15 point like volleyball and has to win by two.