VOLLEYBALL

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The history of volleyball is closely linked to that of another popular court game. In fact, just eight miles and four years separate the historic development of volleyball and its cousin basketball.

A Game for the (Middle) Ages
In 1895, William G. Morgan was the education director as the Holyoke, Massachusetts, YMCA. Four years earlier, his colleague James Naismith had invented the game of basketball just down the road at the Springfield YMCA. Naismith’s game was catching on quickly but there was a drawback. Not everyone could keep up with the fast pace of basketball—and that was even before the fast break was created. Morgan needed a game that could be enjoyed by middle-aged men.

Morgan conceived a court game he originally called mintonette. He chose the name because his new sport was related to badminton. Mintonette was played on a court divided by a six-foot, six-inch net. Teams volleyed the ball back and forth across the net until one team missed. The first competitive game of volleyball was played July 7, 1896.

Things They Are a Changing…Quickly
Changes were immediately made to Morgan’s game. One of the first changes was the name itself. Alfred Halstead is credited with renaming the sport with the descriptive words “volley ball.” (Can you imagine Karch Kiraly playing for a gold medal in Olympic beach mintonette?) The number of players on each team also was limited. Originally, a team was allowed to have as many players as it could fit into its half of a 50- by 25-foot court. The number of players was set at nine per side and later reduced to six. Rotating players to various positions on the court has been part of the game from the beginning.

The number of times a team could touch the ball before it went over the net was eventually established at three. The first rules allowed an unlimited number of hits. The earliest games in Morgan’s gym were played with the rubber bladder from inside a basketball. Spalding made the first official volleyball in 1896. By 1900, the standard shape and weight of the ball were almost identical to those used today.

The height of the net was raised to make play more challenging. Today, the net is just under eight feet for men’s competition (2.43 meters) and just over seven feet (2.24 meters) for women’s. Under the original rules of volleyball, a team had to score 21 points to win a game. In 1917, that number was reduced to 15.

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Men play volleyball at a YMCA in 1918.
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This picture shows a 1945 intramural volleyball team from the University of Arizona.
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Giving the Game Away
YMCA workers took the game from Holyoke to US missionary schools in Asia. The game became very popular in the East as was played in the Oriental Games as early as 1913. Volleyball also caught on in Russia. When regular international competition began in the 1950s, Russia was the dominant team. During the World War I, United States troops introduced volleyball in Europe.

You know a sport has really arrived when official governing bodies are established. For volleyball, this happened in 1928 when the United States Volleyball Association was formed. The organization later became USA Volleyball. The Fédération Internationale de Volley-ball (FIVB) was founded in 1947. In 1949, the first men’s world championship tournament took place in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

Not Just for Middle-Aged Men
It quickly became apparent that volleyball had appeal far beyond the middle-aged men it was originally introduced to. Colleges and high schools began to adopt the sport for both men and women. Volleyball became the competitive fall sport for girls. The first US national volleyball championships for women were played in 1949, 54 years after women began competing in the game. The first international championships for women were played in 1952 in Moscow.

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The NCAA added a women’s volleyball championship in 1981. USC won the first women’s collegiate title.

The first men’s NCAA volleyball championship was played in 1970. UCLA won six of the first seven men’s volleyball titles.

NCAA Volleyball Champions (mens)
Year Champion
1970 UCLA
1971 UCLA
1972 UCLA
1973 San Deigo State
1974 UCLA
1975 UCLA
1976 UCLA
1977 Southern Cal
1978 Pepperdine
1979 UCLA
1980 Southern Cal
1981 UCLA
1982 UCLA
1983 UCLA
1984 UCLA
1985 Pepperdine
1986 Pepperdine
1987 UCLA
1988 Southern Cal
1989 UCLA
1990 Southern Cal
1991 Long Beach State
1992 Pepperdine
1993 UCLA
1994 Penn State
1995 UCLA
1996 UCLA
1997 Stanford
1998 UCLA
1999 Brigham Young
2000 UCLA
2001 Brigham Young
2002 Pepperdine
2003 Lewis
2004 Brigham Young
2005 Pepperdine

NCAA Volleyball Champions (Womens)
Year Champion
1981 Southen Cal
1982 Hawaii
1983 Hawaii
1984 UCLA
1985 Pacific
1986 Pacific
1987 Hawaii
1988 Texas
1989 Long Beach State
1990 UCLA
1991 UCLA
1992 Stanford
1993 Long Beach State
1994 Stanford
1995 Nebraska
1996 Stanford
1997 Stanford
1998 Long Beach State
1999 Penn State
2000 Nebraska
2001 Stanford
2002 Southern Cal
2003 Southern Cal
2004 Stanford
2005 Washington





Go to :
Arrow Volleyball Court Dimensions
Volleyball History
Volleyball Rules
Volleyball How To


World War II POWs play a game of volleyball.
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Volleyball is played in a women’s gym class
circa 1950s.
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From the Gym to the Sand
In the 1940s, another style of volleyball was developing up and down the California coast. Teams of two or four players would square off on sand volleyball courts. Young and old players would form impromptu competitions on the beach. Spectators would often gather to watch the volleyball matches. Before long, the best teams were traveling up and down the coast to play in beach volleyball tournaments. The first two-man volleyball tournament was held at State Beach, California in 1943.

In 1965, The California Beach Volleyball Association was founded. It was responsible for standardizing the rules of the beach and for organizing official tournaments. By 1976, the very best players on the beach were competing for prize money as professionals. Male players formed the AVP, the Association of Volleyball Professionals, in 1983. Women beach volleyball players formed their own association in 1986.

When former college and Olympic indoor volleyball stars began playing on the beach the sport became even more popular. Beach volleyball spread from California to Florida and then to other states—even to some that don’t have beaches. In some areas, beach volleyball is played indoors in arenas filled with sand. By 1993, beach volleyball had become so popular in the United States, that tournaments were broadcast on national television.

In 1987, two-men beach volleyball teams competed in the first world championships. The first two-women’s world championships were played in 1993. Four-player beach teams became popular in the 1990s.

Volleyball Goes for the Gold
Today, men’s and women’s competition in both indoor and beach volleyball are part of the Olympic games. Indoor volleyball became an Olympic sport in 1964. The host team, Japan, won the women’s gold medal. In the first four women’s Olympic volleyball competitions, Japan and the Soviet Union met in the finals. The Soviets prevailed in 1968 and 1972. Japan won again in 1972.

In the men’s medal competition, the Soviet Union has been dominant. After winning gold at the first Olympic volleyball competition, the Soviet men won a medal in each of the next five Olympics they competed in—three golds, one silver and one bronze. The US men’s team won back-to-back gold medals in 1984 and 1988.

Beach Volleyball became on Olympic sport at the 1996 Atlanta games. The US, Brazil and Australia have been the teams to beat on Olympic sand.

Olympic Volleyball Champions
Year Mens Indoor Gold Womens Indoor Gold
1964 Soviet Union Japan
1968 Soviet Union Soviet Union
1972 Japan Soviet Union
1976 Poland Japan
1980 Soviet Union Soviet Union
1984 United States China
1988 United States Soviet Union
1992 Brazil Cuba
1996 Netherlands Cuba
2000 Yugoslavia Cuba
2004 Brazil China

Olympic Volleyball Champions
Year Mens Beach Gold Womens Beach Gold
1996 United States Brazil
2000 United States Australia
2004 Brazil United States


A Game for the Best
Hardly anyone watching the fast, powerful sport of modern volleyball would recognize it as a game originally designed as a less-strenuous form of recreation for middle-aged men. Today, some of the world’s very best athletes are digging, setting and spiking the ball in gyms and on beaches throughout the wor