Volleyball History, Rules, and Olympic Evolution

Introduction to Volleyball

Volleyball is an Olympic sport in which two teams separated by a high net use their hands, arms, or — rarely — other parts of their bodies to hit a ball back and forth over the net. Each team is allowed three hits to get the ball over the net to the opposing team. A point is scored if the ball hits the ground in the opponents' court, if the opponents commit a fault, or if the opponents fail to return the ball properly (NCAA). Volleyball can be very active, and vertical jumping is an athletic skill particularly emphasized in the sport, since many offensive plays involve contacting the ball above the top of the net.

Volleyball is played on courts 18 meters long and 9 meters wide. The court is divided in two by a one-meter-wide net placed so that the top of the net is 2.43 meters above the center of the court for men's competition and 2.24 meters for women's competition. There is a line 3 meters from and parallel to the net in each team's half of the court, known as the "attack line." This line divides the court into "back row" and "front row" areas (Laveaga, p. 45).

The team courts are surrounded by an area called the free zone, which is a minimum of 3 meters wide. If a ball comes in contact with the boundary line, it is considered "in." Players may enter and play within the free zone after the service of the ball. The volleyball itself is round, 65–67 cm in circumference, made of leather or synthetic leather, and inflated with compressed air (FIVB, 2006).

History of Volleyball

On February 9, 1895, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, William G. Morgan, a YMCA physical education director, created a new game called Mintonette as a pastime that could be played by any number of players. The game drew some of its characteristics from tennis and handball. The following year, after a demonstration at the YMCA in nearby Springfield, the name "Mintonette" was replaced with "Volleyball" when an observer, Alfred Halstead, noticed the volleying nature of the game. The rules were written up by the Springfield YMCA and spread around the country (Rules, p. 5).

It was not until 1900 that the rules became generally as we know them today and a ball was made specifically for the new game. In 1916, the skill and power of the set and spike were introduced, and four years later a "three hits" rule and back-row hitting guidelines were established. In 1917, the game was changed from 21 to 15 points. In 1919, American Expeditionary Forces distributed 16,000 volleyballs to their troops and allies, providing a significant stimulus for the growth of volleyball outside the United States.

Canada was the first foreign country to adopt volleyball, in 1900. Cuba discovered six-man volleyball in 1906, thanks to a North American army officer, Agusto York, who participated in the second military intervention on the Caribbean island. The sport subsequently became popular in Brazil, throughout Europe — where Italy, the Netherlands, and Serbia have been prominent since the late 1980s — Russia, China, and the rest of Asia. Volleyball reached Japan in 1908, when it was first demonstrated on YMCA courts in Tokyo. It was brought to the Philippines by YMCA director Elwood Brown in Manila, and shortly afterward there were 5,000 public and private courts in that country.

In 1912, the court size was standardized at 35 × 60 feet. A uniform size and weight for the ball was established, the number of players on each team was set at six, and rotation before service was introduced. Volleyball was included in the program for the first Far Eastern Games held in Manila in 1913, where teams were made up of 16 players. The recreation and education program for American armed forces in 1914 included volleyball, at the initiative of George Fisher, secretary of the YMCA War Office. World War I brought volleyball to Africa and Egypt. In 1916, volleyball became part of the program of the NCAA, the body that oversees college and university sports in the United States.

American airmen introduced volleyball into Italy at the Allied Forces air base in Porto Corsini, near Ravenna. Volleyball made its first official appearance in Russia in 1920, in the Volga region — Gorky and Kazan — and simultaneously in Khabarovsk and Vladivostok. In 1922, the first national federation was founded in Czechoslovakia, quickly followed by Bulgaria. The first national championship in the United States was played in 1922, contested only by YMCA teams. In 1928, the U.S. Volleyball Association was founded under YMCA principles as a leisure sport.

Cuba organized the first men's tournament under "American" rules at the Caribbean and Central American Games in 1929. Between the World Wars, great efforts were made to establish a single set of rules and create an international federation, though nothing concrete materialized at first. The first national championship in the USSR was held in 1933, by which time the country already had over 400,000 registered players. In January of that year, a celebrated challenge match between Moscow and Dnepropetrovsk was played on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre (U.S., p. 145).

In 1945, the first postage stamp on a volleyball subject was issued in Romania. In January 1946, the Spartak Prague team traveled to play in Poland, with efforts directed at creating an international volleyball organization. That meeting produced the first document of the future FIVB, establishing a commission for the organization of an international federation, promoting a constituent congress, and resolving to launch a European or world championship. In 1947, the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) was formally founded, and the first World Championships were held in 1949 for men and 1952 for women. In 1948, the first European Championship was held in Rome and was won by Czechoslovakia (FIVB, 2004).

By 1994, the AVP held 27 events, including an Evian-sponsored indoor event at Madison Square Garden and four Nestea-sponsored events, with $4,000,000 in prize money. NBC broadcast 10 of these events, totaling 21 hours, signaling that volleyball had reached the mainstream of American sports.

Volleyball in the Olympics

Volleyball was first played at the Olympics as part of an American sports demonstration event in 1924. After the foundation of the FIVB and several continental confederations, it was considered for official inclusion. In 1957, a special tournament was held at the 53rd IOC session in Sofia, Bulgaria, in support of this request. The competition was a success, and the sport was officially included in the program for the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Originally, the Olympic volleyball tournament was a straightforward competition in which all teams played against one another and were ranked by wins, set average, and point average. The number of participating teams has grown steadily since 1964. Since 1996, both men's and women's events have included twelve nations, with each of the five continental volleyball confederations represented by at least one affiliated national federation (Montgomery, p. 20).

The USSR won men's gold in both 1964 and 1968. After taking bronze in 1964 and silver in 1968, Japan won the men's gold in 1972. Women's gold went to Japan in 1964 and again in 1976. That year, the back-row attack allowed Poland to defeat the Soviets for the men's title. With the USSR boycotting the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, the United States swept Brazil in the men's final for the gold medal, while Italy won its first medal — a development that foreshadowed a rise in prominence for Italian volleyball teams. In 1985, for the first time, a volleyball representative, FIVB President Acosta, was named to an IOC Commission — the prestigious Olympic Movement Commission.

At the 1988 Games, the U.S. men's team won a second consecutive gold medal. In 1992, underrated Brazil upset favorites from the CIS, the Netherlands, and Italy in the men's competition to claim their first Olympic gold. On September 21, 1993, the International Olympic Committee granted beach volleyball Olympic medal status. In 1996, at the Atlanta Olympics, the Netherlands — men's silver medalists in 1992 — returned under team leaders Ron Zwerver and Olof van der Meulen for a five-set victory over Italy. Serbia and Montenegro (competing in 1996 and 2000 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), a men's bronze medalist in 1996, beat Russia in the gold medal match in 2000. In 2004, Brazil won its second men's volleyball gold medal, defeating Italy in the final.