History of Volleyball

Volleyball was created by William G Morgan, a YMCA director in Massachusetts, in 1895 and its was originally known as Mintonette. William took ideas from other sports like football and basketball. He wanted a sport with less contact because the older people at YMCA wanted to play a sport that required less energy to play but still makes them physically active. Alfred Halstead thought “Mintonette” wasn’t a catchy name for the sport and on 1896 at an exhibition game he described the players volleying the ball back and forth. YMCA directors came up with “Volley ball” with a space in between but then slowly became one word.


The Athletic League of YMCA published the first official rules of Volleyball in 1897 and a few years later designed a new ball made for the game. The National Collegiate Athletic Association joined with the YMCA in 1916 and both refined the fundamental rules. The rules were changed again in 1920 and were played at a college level. Volleyball started spreading all over the world and one main factor was because of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF.) The AEF sent about 16500 volleyballs to troops and allies all over the world and that helped Volleyball to be a global sport.

The first national men’s tournament was in 1928 and that caused the YMCA and NCAA to establish the first volleyball organization, the United States Volleyball Association (USVBA). After that Volleyball became one of the popular sports in history.

If you want to know more about the History of Volleyball click links below:

http://www.athleticscholarships.net/history-of-volleyball.htm
http://www.volleyball.org/history.html
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History of Hockey

              Hockey was played in Egypt, Europe and Asia hundreds years ago but it was not the modern hockey game played today. The modern game played today began in England where a University started creating rules of the game in 1860. After the University created the fundamental rules they established the first Hockey Association in 1875.

The game started to become popular when the universities created a Championship played among everyone which was very exciting. The World Championship was on 1883 and from then on, more and more countries started playing. At first the players did not have any safety equipment but then as technology advanced they started wearing safety equipment that protected the players to suffer less injuries. After that some representatives had meetings and established the first international association called the International Hockey Federation in 1809.

The committee that ran the Olympics decided to add Hockey to the games played and this made Hockey increase its popularity(1924.) A lot of leagues were being established during this time but the one that remained and the most popular is the league we know today. The National Hockey League (NHL) that was formed in 1917 and consists or 24 Americans team and 6 Canadian teams.






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http://www.nhl.com/ice/page.htm?id=26838
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History of Baseball

           Baseball was played in many countries and there’s really no evidence of who and when baseball was created. Some people say Abner Doubleday invented baseball but there is no evidence of him actually creating the game. There were similar games played so its said Baseball developed from the similar games in each country. For example a similar game was played in Romania in 1364 and it was called Oina. Onia was played with a bat and a hard small ball just like baseball but with different set of rules. The Russians played another similar game of baseball and it was known as Lapta. Lapta was played with just a batter and a pitcher, making the batters goal to run back and forth to score as much points as possible.

In 1845, Alexander Cartwright created the fundamental rules of the baseball played today. The first game recorded in history was on  June 19, 1846, it was between the New York Nine team and the Knickerbockers, the final score was 23-1 in favor of the New York team. Since baseball didn’t have a creator at the time they decided to make Alexander Cartwright as the inventor of baseball and was recorded in 1953. The number of baseball teams during the early 1960s in America dropped and caused a decrease in its popularity.

              Baseball spread all over the world because of the Civil War because the soldiers played the sport for fun making it interesting to other parts of the world. By the late 1960s, Baseball had became a daily played sport by everyone and it became a popular sport . The first professional baseball league was established in 1871 and called the National Association of Professional Baseball Players. The first league established outside United States was in Cuba in 1878. The Cubans were a very strong international team and now are very well-known by everyone.

If you want to read more about the history of baseball click the links below:

http://www.rpi.edu/~fiscap/history_files/history1.htm
http://www.athleticscholarships.net/history-of-baseball.htm
http://answers.yourdictionary.com/sports/who-invented-baseball.html

History of Basketball

   In December 1891, a popular sport was invented by a James Naismith a physical education instructor. James Naismith invented Basketball when he was an instructor at the Young Men's Christian Association Training School in Massachusetts. Dr. Luther H Gulick a phys-ed specialist asked James to create a indoor sport that allow players to play indoor when the conditions were bad outside. James Naismith started taking ideas from other sports like football, soccer, and hockey and created the beautiful sport. The funny thing about basketball is that they didn’t have a ball designed for the game and instead used a soccer ball.

At the beginning James decided to allow 9 players to play in a game and created 13 fundamental rules of the game for every one to follow. In 1897, James decided to change the number of players from 9 to 5, which is the standard players allowed to play in modern basketball. The reason why James decided to lower the number of players was because he wanted the game to be fast and wanted to see lots of points in the scoreboard. That made Basketball very entertaining at the moment and later on turned into a fabulous sport.  The game spread all over the world and many countries starter playing the beautiful game. Basketball became a major college sport in the early 1950s, and took one step forward in playing in a professional level.

The National Basketball League was the first professional league and was formed in 1898. It was establish to protect the safety of the player because the game increased its intensity. One of the first professional teams that dominated the game was the original Celtics. The National Basketball League and the Basketball Association of America joined and created what is now known as the National Basketball Association (NBA).