Volleyball, also known as mintonette was created in 1895 by a man named William G. Morgan blended elements of basketball, baseball, tennis, and handball to create this game. A Tennis net was used to create the volleyball net, Morgan raised the net 6 feet and 6 inches so that it would be just above an average mans head. This game was played by hitting a ball back and forth over the net. In Indoor volleyball, there are six people on each team; however in beach volleyball there are only two people per team. On July 7, 1896 the first game of Volleyball was played at Springfield College.
Volleyball originated in the United States, and today it is nearly 109 years old. This sport is growing among many Americans today. There are more than 46 millions Americans playing volleyball today. More than 80 million people worldwide play this sport at least once a week.
In 1922 the first national volleyball championships were held in the United States, and in 1928 the U.S. Volleyball Association, now known as USA Volleyball, was formed. Indoor volleyball was introduced in the Pan American Games in 1955 and was introduced in the Olympic Games in 1964 in Tokyo, Japan. Junior Olympic volleyball, for players 18 years of age and younger, was established in 1977. In 1990 a special ball was designed for this sport. This ball was a sphere shape and made out of lace less leather or synthetic leather.
Junior Olympic beach volleyball was established in 1993. Beach volleyball debuted as a medal sport at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1999, international volleyball switched to rally scoring to make the matches shorter. The first team to score 15 or 25 points would win the game. In 2003 Karch Kiraly became the first player to earn US$3M in prize money and oldest player to win an AVP tournament at age 42 years, 9 months and 14 days. .
In volleyball, when a team serves the ball and wins the rally, that team gains the point and the players rotate in a clockwise position.
