- Hit the ball. Hard. The whole game revolves around you hitting the ball hard. Everything you do should support this goal. This leads to a lot of corollaries of course; the most obvious ones being:
- Pass well, so your setter likes you and will set you more.
- Get good setters, so your setter sets you well.
- If you hit the ball hard a lot, you might intimidate the other team because they start worrying about if you miss and manage to actually hit them with the ball. This is a good thing.
- Comment: Hitting it in is nice too, but never let that get in the way of hitting the ball hard.
- Yell a lot.
- Call in or out. If you don't know if it's in or out, then make a guess. Or yell out "I don't know." Remember this, is a team game, and the whole point of the team is to allow you to hit the ball (see #1). By communicating to your teammates, there's a better chance that they'll do the right thing, and that'll eventually lead to you hitting the ball (#1).
- Always call the set you want. Setters hate to think. They like hitters who tell them what to do. Tell them. Also, yelling a lot reminds everyone where you are on the court, and then they'll set you, so you can hit the ball. If by unhappy coincidence, you find a setter that _likes_ to think, then this will remind them that you're out there and that they should set you.
- A nice upshot is if the other team starts thinking that you're a freak and will then be properly afraid of you (see #1c for a related rule).
- From Chris Pirazzi: if these are indeed Mike's Rules For Volleyball, then there is a major omission: If, by some remote chance, you don't get set, and someone else does, yell "KIIIIILLLLL IIIIIIITTT!!!" loud enough to attract the attention of every player on your court, and the adjacent courts, and if possible several neighboring buildings. This may have the effect of encouraging your teammates to hit the ball hard (as in #1), but more likely it will scare them into screwing up their hit, hence making the setter more likely to set you in the future. Plus, chicks dig it.
- Always be ready for the ball. The ball, by all rights, should always come to you (so you can hit it hard). If it doesn't come to you, that's ok, since your teammates are human and can't be expected to remember to set you all the time (see #2 for a good workaround).
- If your teammates mess up, they'll of course expect you to hit the ball anyways, so be ready to deal with a ball even if your teammates look like there's no they're sending the ball your way.
- You can get to every ball on or off the court. Really. Why? Because you want to hit it. If you happen to be the setter, oh well, but still get to every ball because it's good practice for when you actually hit.
- Know your position. If you're out of position, then you'll either gum up your team's machinelike precision, and you (rightfully so) won't get set, or you'll be out of position and even if the ball comes your way, you won't be able to hit it. Lastly, the worst case is if you injure someone, or someone injures you...then you definitely won't get to hit the ball!
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