Volleyball

Volleyball, like basketball, is a sport whose origin is known almost to the day. Oddly, both sports were invented at the same college and within a few years of one another. Volleyball was invented in 1895 by William G. Morgan, a student at Springfield College and a director of the YMCA at Holyoke, Massachusetts. The game was originally called “minionette”.

Volleyball quickly spread around the world and became more popular in other countries than in the United States. The sport was introduced in the Olympics in 1964 by the Japanese, although it was never contested as a demonstration sport at the Olympics. No country has been truly dominant in volleyball, although the Soviet Union still has the most medals, with 12 medals and 7 golds. Originally the Japanese had the world’s best women’s players while the United States had the best men’s team in the world for most of the 1980s. In recent years, the Cuban women’s team has dominated, and four Cuban women have earned three gold medals. Only Inna Ryskal, of the Soviet Union, and Escadhinha of Brazeil have won more medals, with two golds and two silvers.

Volleyball has now reached new heights of popularity, spurred on by beach volleyball, played by the ocean or on any sand-covered court by two-man teams of scantily-clad players. In 1993, the IOC approved beach volleyball as an Olympic sport and it has been contested since the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

The international governing body of volleyball and also of beach volleyball is the Fédération internationale de volley-ball (FIVB), which was formed in April 1947 and had 222 member nations as of 2020.