History Of Volleyball Video

Volleyball began as an alternative to basketball. It has evolved throughout the world since its invention. Learn the history of volleyball in this video.

Take Action

Began as alternative to basketball
Evolved differently throughout the world
Rally scoring is now preferred over side-out scoring

About this Author

Todd is the head coach for the University of Central Florida's women's volleyball team. Prior to that he coached as USC where they competed in the division one final four. He has also been a part of the coaching delegation for the USA women's team in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. He was an assistant at Michigan University early in his career and simply loves the sport and coaching it where ever he is.

TODD DAGENAIS: Welcome back, class. Professor Dagenais. And we want to know what the term mintonette means. Well, since I do not see any hands up, I am going to have to tell you, I think. Back in 1895, William G. Morgan recognized that they have to come up with a sport that was not as rough as basketball. So he is working at a YMCA at Holyoke, Massachusetts, and he decided he was going to invent the game that would later be known as volleyball. He did it by putting nine people on one side and allowing them to bat the ball around over a net. And whenever the ball fell, somebody scored a point. Ironically, the first game had the same rules as baseball. That was about the closest thing. There was nine innings. And each inning, each team had an opportunity to serve three balls. Ironically, you can hit the ball as many times as you want on your side. Once it fell to the other side, that is when a point was actually scored. In 1896, a man by the name of Alfred Halstead said, "Hey, that looks like you are volleying the ball around." And thus the term volleyball was born. Ever since then, the game has changed and evolved. It started in the United States, worked its way up to Canada. It became very popular there and then started spreading its way around the world where every country seem to have their own amendment to the volleyball constitution and each invented their own little ways of playing volleyball. And the skills that you see now in Olympic-level volleyball, each country have an opportunity to add their own little idea on how the game should be played and the skills that should be used to play it. Now, you see the game branching off into different areas. We have got a great beach volleyball opportunity for several people out there. That beach volleyball really was born on the beaches of Southern California where they really did not have as many indoor courts. They thought, "What the heck. Let us just go outside and let us play the game on the beach. And it is fun in the sun and the surf and the sand." And that has become the beach volleyball game that you see today. Still indoors, the game has changed so much in the last few years. The game eventually evolved into a 15-point side out game where only the serving team was allowed to score a point. Six players play on a side. And as the game developed into the 1990s, in the 1990s, they decided the 15-point games were too long. They decided to change the game to 30-points rally scoring. And a rally score, that means it does not matter if you are serving or not. You can score a point on the board. Now finally this year, college volleyball is going to adapt with the rest of the world and the rules are going to be 25-points rally scoring. Now, you know a little bit about mintonette, you can be the head of the class.

History of Volleyball Video

Take Action

About this Author

Member Comments