For years, the Fox Valley Conference has hosted some of the most competitive girls volleyball in Illinois. Now, Huntley has taken the first steps toward bringing boys volleyball to the conference.

Girls assistant coach Gerry Marchand, along with head coach Karen Naymola, filed paperwork with District 158 to start a boys volleyball program. Pending school board approval, the club will begin practicing after the winter break and start its season in the spring.

Marchand said his hope is that the club will become a full-fledged IHSA sport by as soon as the 2016-2017 school year.

“Girls start playing when they’re 6, 7, 8 years old and don't stop,” Marchand said. “They go all the way through to high school. I think it could very easily be just like that for boys.”

Marchand, who played on Northern Illinois University’s club volleyball program in college, has been lobbying for a boys volleyball program for about a decade. The plans never came to fruition due to concerns about Title IX and, to a larger degree, issues with finding practice spaces for an additional team.

But when a 55,800-square-foot field house was completed this summer, four new courts were added to the school, alleviating concerns about facilities. The school also now has more girls sports than boys sports, so adding an additional boys sport would not be a problem.

Marchand said he expected to have 30 or 40 boys interested. As of Friday, one day after plans for the club team were announced, more than 80 boys expressed interest from the growing school with an enrollment of more than 2,700 students.

The club has already been entered in St. Charles East’s boys volleyball tournament. Marchand said he is hopeful that the Red Raiders can also host a preseason tournament at Huntley, though no plans for that have been solidified.

“We have perfect facilities for a 12- to 16-team tournament that would run very smoothly and be a nice fundraiser for us,” Marchand said.

Currently none of the 13 members of the Fox Valley Conference have a boys volleyball team. Marchand said that he is hopeful that by starting a club program and eventually an IHSA sanctioned team, others in the conference will follow suit.

“If you look right to our neighboring schools outside of the conference, boys volleyball has been around,” Naymola said. “Every year we have such an interest in it. People were always coming to us asking, ‘When are you going to get boys volleyball?’ Seeing the numbers and the turnout already, it could be pretty big.”