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
http://lifestyle.iloveindia.com/lounge/history-of-volleyball-2353.html