About Volleyball

Just like its predecessor sport, basketball, volleyball originated in the United States at the very same college in Springfield , Mass. Invented in 1895 by William G. Morgan, an instructor at the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in Holyoke , it was initially named ‘mintonette' as it combined the elements of basketball, baseball, tennis and handball. Sports historians narrate that, in one demonstration game in the college, Alfred Halstead had mentioned to Morgan how players just seemed to ‘volley' the ball back and forth across the net. Thus, the game was renamed ‘volleyball'.

At the start, volleyball was more popular in other countries than in the United States . An indoor and outdoor ball and net sport, volleyball was in fact introduced to the Olympics in 1964 not by the Americans but by the Japanese.

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