Do you know something called “Mintonette”? How about volleyball? Ring a bell? Not so many people know that Mintonette and Volleyball are actually the very same thing. So how come nobody called it Mintonette anymore Well, that’s because the name has officially changed into Volleyball not very long after this remarkable sport was introduced by William Morgan, the YMCA Physical Education Director in Massachusetts.
The name of William G Morgan is probably not as popular as Misty May Treanor or Karch Kiraly, but anyone who know the volleyball history will never deny that he is actually the most important figure in this fantastic sport. It was William G Morgan Who invented this game in 1895 when he served as Director of Physical Education at the YMCA in Massachusetts. Morgan decided to name the game Mintonette, but the name was no longer used after the game was demonstrated and a spectator of the game said that the game is all about volleying the ball, after that the name volleyball was started being used.
There were several elements of other sports taken to created the volleyball game like Faustball, Tennis, Baseball, Handball, and also basketball. Volleyball quickly gained its popularity and so did William Morgan, the man who invented it. The popularity of volleyball actually really helpful on Morgan’s teaching career, when he became the Director of Physical Education for the YMCA Holyoke in 1896, his classes were favored by the students and always grew in numbers.
Seeing the potential of this sport, some national and international organizations began to form to manage it, and this improvement made volleyball accepted a huge popularity all around the world. Volleyball became one of the most played sports in the world like Soccer and Basketball after it was finally competed in the Olympic in the year 1964 in tokyo, Japan. This sport didn’t stop evolving since then, it continued to transform into a better game and one of its transformation finally gave birth to a new sport called Beach Volleyball which makes volleyball even more popular in the world.
There are actually a few different opinions about where and when the beach volleyball history begins. There is an opinion that says sand volleyball was initially played in a nudist beach in France, and another opinion says it was played for the first time in Hawaii in 1915 on Waikiki Beach. But most people believe that the history of beach volleyball began in Santa Monica, California around 1920’s when a lot of people play volleyball on the beach during their holiday.
Beach volleyball tournaments started to be held during the 1950’s after this sport gaining more and more popularity. However at the beginning this was not just a sporting event, in order to attract more people, they mixed it with some other forms of entertainment including beauty contest. After that the spreading of this new exciting sport was just unstoppable, the sponsors started to appear and this sport began to travel far beyond the borders.
Beach volleyball really gained the world recognition when it was played in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona as a demonstration sport, and then officially included in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Today beach volleyball has been played by hobbyists and professional athletes from all over the world, and also more world class tournaments are being held. The invention of beach volleyball is also a significant stage in the history of volleyball game, and it has proven to us that what was first just a leisure game could become a competitive sport played in world class tournaments including the Olympics.