As you describe the history of volleyball to your children, ask them questions to help them process the material. Ask why the sport's governing bodies might have made certain rules changes and what effect these changes had on the sport. Ask, for example, how the sport would be different if it allowed an unlimited number of players per team, or an unlimited number of hits. Ask children to consider how the move to rally scoring changed the sport's pacing. Finally, ask them to consider how they might invent a new sport using elements from sports they know and love, like volleyball's inventor did.
Lesson One: Volleyball Begins
William G. Morgan invented volleyball in 1895 while serving as director of physical education at the Holyoke, Massachusetts, YMCA. His goal was to give athletes a game of skill to play indoors in winter. Morgan developed volleyball as an indoor version of tennis that required less equipment and allowed more players to participate. He raised the net to 6 feet 6 inches and asked the nearby Spalding & Bros. company to create a new ball specifically for the sport. Morgan called his new sport "mintonette," but later agreed to call the sport "volley ball" in 1896. Both indoor volleyball and beach volleyball are now Olympic sports.
Lesson Two: Rules
When Morgan invented volleyball, he wrote 10 rules for the sport and did not impose a limit on the number of players each team could have. The sport quickly acquired standardized rules, however. The National Collegiate Athletic Association added volleyball to its program in 1916 and limited the number of players each team could have on the court to six in 1918. By 1920, volleyball rules required teams to return the ball over the net in three hits or fewer.
Lesson Three: Scoring Evolution
Volleyball scoring rules have changed many times since the sport's beginnings. In the early history, matches consisted of nine innings in which each player would serve at least once in each inning. The team with the most points after nine innings won. In 1900, volleyball players abandoned innings and began following side-out scoring, in which teams could win points only on their serve. Teams had to win 21 points to win the match. In 1916, teams had to win 15 points to win a game and two games to win a match. In 1922, volleyball rules specified that teams had to win games by at least two points. Volleyball scoring rules then went unchanged for 60 years, until the sport adopted rally scoring for fifth sets. Teams could now win points on their own or their opponent's serve in the last set. In 1998, the International Federation of Volleyball introduced rally scoring to all sets. Teams now had to win 25 points to win in the first four sets and 15 points to win a fifth set.
Lesson Four: Beach Volleyball
Beach volleyball has its roots in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, when families began playing volleyball with six-player teams on beaches in California and Hawaii, according to the International Federation of Volleyball. The first beach volleyball game with two-man teams was played in Santa Monica, California, in 1930, and the first official two-man tournament was held at State Beach, California, in 1947. The first professional beach volleyball tournaments were held in Santa Cruz, Lake Tahoe and Los Angeles in 1977, and the first sponsored tour was organized in 1980 in the United States. Beach volleyball made its Olympic debut at the 1996 games in Atlanta.
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