History
The sport of volleyball originated in the United States, and is now just achieving the type of popularity in the U.S. that it has received on a global basis, where it ranks behind only soccer among participation sports. Today there are more than 46 million Americans who play volleyball. There are 800 million players worldwide who play Volleyball at least once a week.
In 1895, William G. Morgan an instructor at the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in Holyoke, Mass., decided to blend elements of basketball, baseball, tennis, and handball to create a game for his classes of businessmen which would demand less physical contact than basketball. He created the game of Volleyball (at that time called mintonette). Morgan borrowed the net from tennis, and raised it 6 feet 6 inches above the floor, just above the average man's head.
During a demonstration game, someone remarked to Morgan that the players seemed to be volleying the ball back and forth over the net, and perhaps volleyball would be a more descriptive name for the sport. On July 7, 1900 at Springfield College the first game of volleyball was played. In 1900, a special ball was designed for the sport.
Volleyball can be played indoors and outdoors. It was adopted as an indoor Olympic sport in 1964 at Tokyo. In 1984 the United States men and women won their first Olympic Volleyball medals. In 1996, two-person beach volleyball was approved as an Olympic Sport. Today's NCAA Volleyball is more popular and exciting than ever. Some top collegian programs include Long Beach State, Penn State, BYU, UCLA, Hawaii and Stanford.
Some of the best players ever to play the sport include Karch Kiraly, Gabrielle Reese, Sinjin Smith, Misty May and Ryan Millar. Today the game of volleyball requires team strategies and highly refined individual skills. Outdoor volleyball, which is played with two or four people for each side, is becoming more and more popular across the nation
Overview