Volleyball

I have always enjoyed sports. Ever since my first T-Ball game at age five, I have always been involved with many different sports. In the next couple of pages I am going to tell you about my favorite sport, Volleyball. After experiencing everything from individual sports such as swimming and dance, to the team sports like softball and basketball, I have found volleyball to be the most exciting and rewarding of them all. Volleyball was invented by William Morgan at a YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) Club in 1895 at the Holyoke, Massachusetts, where he served as Director of Physical Education. He tried 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. Morgan borrowed the net from tennis, and raised it 6 feet 6 inches above the floor, just above the average man's head. Mr. Morgan originally called the game Mintonette. After an exhibition match in 1896, a man named Alfred Halstead noticed there was a lot volleying in this game and it soon was known as Volleyball. William Morgan was born in the state of New York and studied at Springfield College, Massachusetts. Strangely enough at Springfield, Morgan met James Naismith who invented basketball in 1891. Morgan was motivated by Naismith's game of basketball designed for younger students to invent a game suitable for the older members of the YMCA. William Morgan's basis for the new game of Volleyball was the then popular and similar German game of Faustball. The first rules of volleyball were a lot different back then. A match lasted nine innings, comprised of three serves for each team in each inning, and there was no limit on the number of hits per side before the ball had to sail over the net. On serve, if a player didn't hit it over the net, he was allowed a second try. Also, each team could have an unlimited number of players on the court. Volleyball became very popular quickly. After the YMCA started playing it in most of their clubs, it reached Japan and Asia by 1896. A specially designed ball was introduced in 1900, and over the next 20 years, rules evolved to where it is today. The Philippines created new strategies and introduced the set and spike style of play in 1916 and six per side play was the standard two years later. In the year 1919, American Expeditionary Forces distributed around 16,000 balls to their soldiers and allies, and that was a major thrust to Volleyball in other countries. By 1920, the rules mandating three hits per side and back-row attacks were instituted. Russia, Japan and the United States each started national volleyball associations during the 1920s. During World War II, U.S. soldiers brought the game overseas, this helped spread the game throughout Europe. France soon recognized the sport nationally as well. In 1949, The International Olympic Committee (IOC) made volleyball a non-Olympic sport The first World Championships for men were held in that same year. Women’s World championships didn’t happen until three years later in 1952. The first official game in the Olympics was in 1964 in Tokyo. The Russians took to volleyball very quickly and pretty much dominated the sport until the mid-1980s. The United States finally came around in 1984 and won back to back Olympic gold medals in Los Angeles, 1984 and Seoul, 1988. Indoor volleyball also led to beach volleyball. Beach volleyball was played very similar to indoor volleyball, having six players on each side. The first recorded games of beach volleyball took place on the beaches of Hawaii in Waikiki in 1915. However it didn’t really become popular until the 1920’s in Santa Monica California. In 1922 there were eleven beach clubs in Santa Monica playing beach volleyball and in 1924 the first club competitions were played there. In 1930 the first two-man game was played and now is the standard. In the summer of 1930 a player named Paul Johnson was waiting for people to show up for a six man game, but only had four people. He decided to play a game with only four people and the game has been played that way ever since. Beach volleyball eventually spread to Europe. Beach Volleyball was first played in Europe in 1927 at a camp site close to Paris, where the 1st tournament was staged, as well as in the regions of Palavas, Roman and Lakanau of France. Within 3 years, the new sport of beach volleyball had spread to Bulgaria, the former Czechoslovakia and the former USSR. In the early 30's, the 1st two-player team tournaments appeared, while up to that point teams had been made up of 6 players and “spikes” or “smashes” were not aallowed. The first professional championship games with 2 player teams took place in 1947 at the State Beach coast of California, a team consisting of Harris and Saenez won the first championship. During World War II Beach Volleyball became the "permanent companion" of the American military forces, a fact that helped contribute to its popularity in many countries. In 1950, the 1st World Championship was organized in the USA and in Brazil. The presence of Marilyn Monroe and US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy as Beach Volleyball games spectators in 1960 will remain historic, as well that of the Beatles who, after participating in a local tournament, gave a concert at Sorrento Beach, California. Wilt Chamberlain also helped raise the popularity of beach volleyball. In January of 1969, Wilt stopped by the Windjammer restaurant in State Beach and all of the volleyball talk peaked his interest. From that point on Wilt has hooked and was a fixture on the beaches and pro circuit for the next twenty years. Gene Selznick, who was named one of the top two players of the twentieth century said about Wilt: "Wilt contributed more to the game of volleyball than probably anybody else in the country. What he did for the game, all over the country is unbelievable and people don’t give him the credit that he deserves. Just because of his name, we were able to expose volleyball to people that had never seen the game. Adults and children alike would come to the events just because Wilt Chamberlain was there. In the 70's and 80's, beach volleyball became a professional sport and tournaments started to provide substantial prize money. The sport spread worldwide with the teams from the USA and Brazil being dominant. In 1986 in Rio de Janeiro, in the presence of five thousand spectators, the first international competition took place that was recognized by the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB). This event was the premier event of the men's World Championships, which initially began with a tournament on the coast of Ipanema in Brazil in 1987. Over the period of 1989-1990, more tournaments were held and FIVB established a series of tournaments in various countries under the name of ‘FIVB World Series’, with prize money of $140,000 US dollars. The women's World Championships were established in 1993. 1994 would prove to a landmark year in the history of Beach Volleyball. Juan Antonio Samaranch, then President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), watched the finals of a tournament that took place in February 1994 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which lasted for a week and attracted a total of 140,000 spectators. In that same year, beach volleyball was officially recognized by the IOC as an Olympic sport, at its Council meeting in Monte Carlo. Meanwhile, the sport was spreading quickly. Matches were being staged in more than ninety-five countries on all five continents. Two years later, the sport was included for the first time in the competition program of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, where the Olympic gold medalists were the Americans Kent Steffes and Karch Kiraly in the men’s competition and the Brazilians Sandra Pires and Jackie Silva in the women’s competition. Today, more than one hundred and fifty countries play the game officially. The world ranking of national teams forms the foundation for their ability to compete inthe Olympic Games. The sport of volleyball has been around for one hundred and fourteen years and was started in the United States, but is only now beginning to achieve the type of popularity in the United States that it has enjoyed on a global basis. It now ranks behind only soccer among participation sports.