Hey, Volleyball Fans!
Volleyball is a game of great coordination and skill. From volleying, to setting, to spiking, and serving, players have been perfecting their performance since the game saw its beginning more than a century ago in 1895. The game was invented soon after basketball and was made to be a combination sport, drawing from basketball, baseball, tennis, and handball.
The game was originally called “Mintonette,” invented by a man named William G. Morgan, a graduate of the Springfield College of the YMCA. The net was one of the original elements of the game—derived from tennis but raised higher. Next up was finding the right size and weight for the ball. Basketballs were too heavy and a soccer ball was too hard. Lastly, Morgan and two buddies wrote up ten rules to explain the concept of the sport.
Once their game design was complete, William G. Morgan took his new sport idea to a conference in 1896 where he demonstrated his idea with the use of two teams that showed the objective of Mintonette was to keep the ball in motion back and forth over the net. Professor Alfred T. Halstead was one among the spectators at this conference and, after watching the demonstration, proposed the name be changed to “Volley Ball”. It became a single word a little bit later.
In the next year, Morgan kept at it, ironing out the rules to Volleyball and 1897 marked the year of the first official North American YMCA Athletic League handbook. Decades passed and Volleyball had remained just a recreational game until the 1930s when it started getting recognition as a legitimate competitive sport with referees and championship games.
So find a net, pick up a ball, ask a couple of people, and give Volleyball a try if you’re not already an avid player. Enjoy volleying and, as always, thanks for reading, Camp Fans!
- John