Volleyball

I have always enjoyed sports. Ever since my first T-Ball game at age five, I have always been involved with many different sports. In the next couple of pages I am going to tell you about my favorite sport, Volleyball. After experiencing everything from individual sports such as swimming and dance, to the team sports like softball and basketball, I have found volleyball to be the most exciting and rewarding of them all.
Volleyball was invented by William Morgan at a YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) Club in 1895 at the Holyoke, Massachusetts, where he served as Director of Physical Education. He tried to blend elements of basketball, baseball, tennis, and handball to create a game for his classes of businessmen which would demand less physical contact than basketball. Morgan borrowed the net from tennis, and raised it 6 feet 6 inches above the floor, just above the average man's head. Mr. Morgan originally called the game Mintonette. After an exhibition match in 1896, a man named Alfred Halstead noticed there was a lot volleying in this game and it soon was known as Volleyball.
William Morgan was born in the state of New York and studied at Springfield College, Massachusetts. Strangely enough at Springfield, Morgan met James Naismith who invented basketball in 1891. Morgan was motivated by Naismith's game of basketball designed for younger students to invent a game suitable for the older members of the YMCA. William Morgan's basis for the new game of Volleyball was the then popular and similar German game of Faustball.
The first rules of volleyball were a lot different back then. A match lasted nine innings, comprised of three serves for each team in each inning, and there was no limit on the number of hits per side before the ball had to sail over the net. On serve, if a player didn't hit it over the net, he was allowed a second try. Also, each team could have an unlimited number of players on the court.
Volleyball became very popular quickly. After...