Volleyball is one of the fastest growing sports in the world at the moment and is quickly becoming a top 3 most played sport in a number of countries.
It may come as a surprise to some of you that volleyball has actually been played for over 100 years.
So just how, when and by whom was volleyball invented?
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Who Invented Volleyball?
In 1870 Lockport, New York William G. Morgan was born.
William G. Morgan had a good upbringing attending public schools and helping his Father with his Boat yard on the banks of the Old Erie Canal.
In 1891 he attended Mt. Hermon Preparatory School in Northfield, Massachusetts.
Whilst at Mt. Hermon Preparatory school he developed a close friendship with James A. Naismith, the Canadian-American Athlete and Educator who was the originator of Basketball.
Morgan due to his natural sporting talent and athletic ability was encouraged by Naismith to continue his education at the International Young Men’s Christian Association Training School in Springfield, Massachusets. Thankfully they changed the name and it is now just known as Springfield College.
Whilst at Springfield college Morgan had a heavy involvement in the college’s famous football team.
He played under one the ‘Grand Old Men of Football’ Alonzo A. Stagg in 1894.
After graduating Morgan took on the position of physical director at Maine YMCA.
The following year he moved onto a similar post in Holyoke, Massachusetts. This is when the creation of Volleyball begins.
How Volleyball Started?
In 1895 William G.Morgan discovered a small problem with the newly invented game of Basketball. Although massively popular amongst the younger generations, Basketball was proving to be too taxing for the local businessmen.
William G.Morgan wanted to come up with an alternative that had a strong athletic impulse, but no physical contact.
When trying to create this game he took elements from a variety of different sports that he thought would compliment his idea.
He used the ball from Basketball, The net from Tennis, The innings from Baseball and the ability to use your hands and play of walls and overhangs from Handball.
When he pieced this all together and determined how it was going to work he named the newly formed sport Mintonette.
Although there was still quite a few issues and the game was far from perfect it gained enough traction and proved to be enough of a success to win over an audience at the YMCA Physical Directors conference.
The game got the nod of approval however the name did not. At the same conference Dr Alfred Halstead, who was a professor at the college, suggested a better fitting name for the sport might be Volley Ball.
When the sport was invented it was played very, very differently to how it is now.
To name just a few of these differences: the court was much smaller, an unlimited number of players were allowed to hit the ball and they could do so an unlimited number of times. On top of the above noted changes the net height was also set at 6’6”.
Given the small court and unlimited number of players the game often got rather busy and crowded.
In the onset the game was split into nine innings made up of three outs.
The term out was effectively the serve.
These serves could be assisted over the net by a team mate if the ball wasn’t going to make it.
Originally the Basketball was used but it became very apparent that the ball was far too heavy to be used. The next idea was to remove the outer hard shell of the basketball and just use the Basketball bladder however this proved to be far too light and soft.
Morgan knew that to capture his vision he needed to look at sourcing or manufacturing a ball to suit. He contacted A.G Spalding which at the time was a small local sporting goods manufacturer.
The first concept of the Volleyball had a rubber bladder with a leather cover and it measured 25” in circumference.
As you can see the sport started developing nicely and Morgan started to see the potential of the sport.
Although with that being said I don’t think Wlliam G.Morgan would have ever anticipated the sport taking off to the level it did.
Growth and Mass Adoption of Volleyball
In the early stages the sport was encouraged mainly by two professional schools. These two schools were Springfield College in Massachusetts and George Williams College, Chicago.
The first quote on quote ‘Foreign Country’ to adopt the sport of Volleyball was Canada in 1900. Following Canada was China and Japan in 1908.
By 1910 Volleyball was being played in the Philippines, Mexico (believed to be in other Countries in south america to) and it had even made its way over into some Europian and African Countries.
Following 1910 the game began to catch a lot of traction in Asia and in 1912 was included in the Far-Eastern Games which was hosted by Manila.
It is worth noting that for many years the game of volleyball was played using the ‘Brown’ rules which included a number of small changes with the main change being the inclusion of 16 players for greater participation.
Although it is difficult to know for sure just how quickly the sport grew and the numbers of participants across the world, we do have a good point of reference for the participation levels in the USA thanks to an Article written by Robert Cubbon which was published in the Spalding Volleyball Guide.
In this article he noted the total players had reached in excess of 200,000 he estimated that this number was split between different groups.
He estimated that approximately 35% of the 200,000 were YMCA which included boys, young men and older men)
25% of the 200,000 were YWCA (girls and women) with the remaining percentages being split amongst schools and colleges.
Due to the sports ever growing popularity in 1916 the YMCA were able to convince the NCAA to publish official rules in a series of articles.
Once the NCAA had realised this the growth of the sport exploded as it started being played by more and more young college students.
After the official rules were published it became apparent that the game needed fine tuning.
This lead to the number of players being reduced to 6 in 1918 and then the number of touches/ contacts per team being restricted in 1922.
Up until the 1930’s Volleyball was very much a participation sport and was used for enjoyment and leisure.
However with the formation of various national championships cropping up in various countries specifically in Eastern Europe where teams began to play the sport to an exceedingly high level volleyball again adapted and grew.
As the competition, skill level and technique started growing so did the need for international competition.
The Formation of the FIVB
In 1947 representatives of 14 countries met in Paris with the guidance of Paul Libaud to found and create the FIVB (Fédération Internationale de Volleyball) The 14 countries present were as follows: Belgium, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, France, Netherlands, Hungary, USA and Yugoslavia.
Paul Libaud was elected the first president of the FIVB.
Once the FIVB was formed the game became a lot more regulated which allowed the formation of international tournaments.
In 1949 The FIVB organised the first Men’s World Championships and in 1952 the First Women’s World Championships took place.
These two events paired with the 1964 olympics are still known to be the biggest moments in volleyball and hold their place proudly and being the events that cemented volleyball as one of the top 5 biggest sports in the world.
As stated above the next major event for Volleyball was the 1964 Tokyo Games which included volleyball as medal sports.
Since this date there have been various events including the formation of the first world cup which was hosted by Poland in 1965.
Moving forward 32 years on from the Tokyo Olympics the fast growing Beach Volleyball featured a spot in the Atlanta Games which only boosted its popularity as Volleyball’s second discipline.
What started out as just 14 members soon became 222 affiliated nations making it the largest federation in the world today.
Who knows where this fantastic sport goes next but one thing is for sure I am here for the ride.