ATLANTA — Beach volleyball has survived a close vote that would have killed it as a potential college sport.

The vote at the NCAA convention was 58 percent in favor of spiking the sport, still short of the 62.5 percent needed to remove it from the list of emerging sports for women.
The sport will be called sand volleyball at the college level.
The American Volleyball Coaches Association will ask for a delay in the start of competition, so schools would begin playing in the 2011-12 academic year.
As an emerging sport, sand volleyball has 10 years to accumulate enough varsity teams to earn official status as an NCAA championship sport.