Volleyball

Volleyball is a team game contested by two teams of six or more players each. They play on a court longer than it is wide, one that is bisected into two zones, one for each team. A net that stretches from one long side to the other forms a midcourt line that divides the two teams. One team serves the ball, hitting it over the net to the other team’s zone. That team then rallies, attempting to hit it back before the ball touches the ground. No more than three players can touch the ball before it is hit back to the other side. If they succeed, play continues, and the serving team then must return the ball, again with no more than three touches. A team scores a point if the ball hits the ground within the playing area of the other team before it is returned. A team also scores a point if the opposing team hits the ball out of bounds.

Volleyball has become wildly popular, and it is played by men and women both in the United States and internationally. Competitors come in all ages. It has also become a highly visible sport in international competitions and has been a part of the Olympic Games since 1964. In the early 2020s, the international governing body, the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB), had 220 national federations as members, making it the largest international sporting federation in the world.

Volleyball is typically played indoors. An outdoors offshoot, beach volleyball, which has only two or four people on each team, has become extremely popular, and it also became an Olympic sport in 1996.

Origins and History

Volleyball, like basketball, was invented by an official of a Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in western Massachusetts in the 1890s. William G. Morgan invented volleyball in 1895 in Holyoke, and, in fact, he created it as an alternative to James Naismith’s game of basketball, which had been invented four years earlier. Morgan had been concerned about the rough, physical play he saw in Naismith’s game, which often included violence that left players with various injuries. Hoping to develop a sport that was safer but still enjoyable, Morgan devised volleyball. He initially called it mintonette, based on the similarity of the sport to badminton. Soon after, a professor at nearby Springfield College suggested the name "volley ball" to reflect the volleying back and forth between teams. Morgan adopted the name, which became one word in 1952.

When he devised the game, Morgan developed the basic concept and the court size. Initially, the net—a tennis court net—rose only 6 feet, 6 inches above the ground, making it slightly higher than the average male. Two of Morgan’s friends came up with the first ten rules. The sport was played initially in YMCAs, and the rules were revised and formalized in 1897. By 1916, the sport had an estimated two-hundred thousand players in the United States. Two years later, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) published its set of rules for the sport, which helped boost its popularity further.

The YMCA held the first US national tournament in 1922. In 1928, the US Volleyball Association was formed to take control of the sport outside the NCAA’s collegiate jurisdiction. Since 1928, this association has held annual tournaments for men in two age classes (under thirty-five and seniors who are thirty-five and older). The first national women’s tournament was staged in 1949; a senior women’s tournament was added in the 1970s.

YMCAs spread the game around the world; it reached Canada in 1900 and Burma, China, India, Japan, and the Philippines by the 1910s. The first international competition took place in Asia in 1913. In Asia, until the 1940s, the rules were somewhat different because the court was larger, the net was placed lower, and each team had nine players. The sport was also carried to Mexico and South America. It reached Europe during World War I, when American soldiers serving there introduced it.

The FIVB formed in Europe in 1947 with thirteen charter members, including the United States. Two years later, the FIVB staged the first male world volleyball championship, which became an annual event. A woman’s championship was introduced in 1952.

Beach volleyball was invented in California in 1930. Just eighteen years later, the first tournament was staged. The sport became a world championship event in 1986, ten years before becoming an Olympic event. A variant of beach volleyball played in snowy conditions, snow volleyball was first developed in Austria in 2008. In 2015, the European Volleyball Confederation started a snow volleyball tournament, and the sport was featured as a demonstration sport at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. In 2019, the FIVB Snow Volleyball World Tour began.

Rules and Regulations

Volleyball is played on a smooth-surfaced court 59 feet long and 29.5 feet wide, which is divided into two areas of equal size. Members of one team cannot enter the other team’s area. Each team area has a line 9.8 feet from the center line and parallel to it. This zone is the only area in which a player can strike the ball into the other zone with his or her hand above the top of the net—an action called a spike. The top of the net is just under 8 feet above the floor in men’s competition and 7.4 feet above for women and players under the age of fourteen. Each team’s zone also has a designated service area behind the right-hand corner of its area that is 29.5 feet deep, within which a player serving the ball must remain. A free zone that is 9.8 feet wide extends around all sides of the court.

Each side has six players, three positioned in the forecourt and three in the backcourt. International rules introduced a new position, the libero, in 2000, and this rule has been adopted elsewhere. The libero, a defensive specialist who can play only in the backcourt, cannot participate in any offensive action for his or her team.

Play begins when a player on one team serves the ball into the other team’s area; the other team then attempts to return the ball. The server continues serving until his or her team loses offensive possession. When a team loses service, the other team becomes the serving team, with its players rotating one spot on the floor before serving. A given play ends when the ball goes out of bounds, touches the floor, or is not returned to the other team’s area in three or fewer touches. Fouls or penalties can also end play. Either team can earn a point at the end of a play (originally, only the offensive team could gain a point). Matches include three or five sets. To win the first four sets (or two sets in three-set matches), a team must reach 25 points with a margin of at least 2 points; only 15 points are needed to win the final set. If teams are tied at 24 or 14 points each, the first to score two consecutive points wins the set.

Beach volleyball has a slightly smaller court (52.5 × 26.25 feet) and a free area. Matches have two or three sets, with the victory going to the team that wins two. The first two matches are played to 21 points, and the third, if any, is played to 15. As with regular volleyball, a team must win a set by 2 points; ties at 20–20 and 14–14 are handled similarly. Snow volleyball is played with three-person teams.

Strategy and Tactics

The players on a team fill different roles. The server serves the ball and then enters the playing zone. A passer volleys the ball to a teammate. A setter volleys the ball in such a way as to set up the spiker, who tries to deliver the ball into the opponent’s zone in such a way as to prevent a return. Two roles are defensive: The digger’s job is to prevent the ball from hitting the floor and keep it in play; the blocker leaps near the net to try to divert a spike back into the spiker’s zone.

Players serving the ball attempt to serve an ace, a ball that lands on the floor of the receiving team’s zone without being touched. Almost equally effective is a serve so well-placed or strong that only one player on the receiving team can hit it, and he or she can only send it to the floor or out of bounds. Both of these plays are, of course, difficult to execute. Another effective serving strategy is to place the ball deep in the other team’s zone, which makes it more difficult to volley the ball back to the server’s team. Serves that move a player sideways, as well as serves away from taller frontcourt players, can also be effective.

The receiving team’s goal is to set up the spiker, who tries to hit the ball so decisively that the other team cannot return it. Setting up the spiker involves placing the ball near and above the net, while giving them enough space to take one or two steps before jumping and striking it. This tactic allows the spiker to gain momentum and power, which allows them to reduce the spin on the ball. Setters try to hit the ball with both hands over their heads. Spikers strike it with one hand moving downward.

Professional Leagues and Series

FIVB stages international competitions on a four-year cycle that begins with the World Cup, which is held the year following the Olympics. In year two, the world championships are held. Year three is the time for regional tournaments. Year four concludes the cycle with another Olympics. The winners of the World Cup, world championship, and Olympic events are considered world champions in that year. FIVB also has annual events called the World Grand Prix for women (begun in 1993) and the World League for men (launched in 1990).

The Soviet Union dominated international competition from the inception of FIVB’s world championship events until 1982, taking twelve of the nineteen men’s championships and eight of the seventeen women’s world championships. Another major volleyball power in those years was Japan, which collected six women’s and one men’s championship. Since 1982, the sport’s major power has been Brazil. Other highly successful countries since 1982 include Cuba, the Soviet Union and Russia, China, and the United States. The US women's national team took home the gold medal at the 2020 Olympic Games.

American men and women's teams each won three of five Olympic beach volleyball championships from 1996 to 2012, with powerhouse duo Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings taking all three of the women’s titles. Brazilian men and women have dominated the beach volleyball world championships, held biannually beginning in 1997, and they have claimed five of ten titles each. Brazilian men also have eight second or third place finishes in those years, and its women have ten, showing how dominant that nation has been in the sport. US women won four beach volleyball championships, and three of those wins were by May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings.

In the NCAA, only a handful of Division I schools compete in men’s volleyball. California schools took nearly all of the Division I men’s championships from 1970 through 2000, and the University of California, Los Angeles, leads the way with nineteen overall titles. Springfield College of Massachusetts—William Morgan’s alma mater—has won four of the five Division III titles. The major collegiate powers in women’s volleyball are Stanford University (winner of nine championships as of 2023) and Pennsylvania State University (seven titles as of 2023).

In 2012, a professional league was organized in the United States, the USA Premier Volleyball League (USAPVL). The league began with a women’s division in 2012, adding a men’s division the following year, but the league was disbanded in 2017. In early 2024, a professional league called Pro Volleyball Federation began its inaugural season in the US. Comprising the nation's best women's volleyball players, the league played home and away games in major venues across the US from January through May. The league had seven teams in 2024.

Popularity

Volleyball has remained a popular sport. USA Volleyball (USAVB), the national organization that oversees the sport in the United States, claimed to have more than 300,000 members in 2013, including players, coaches, and officials, as well as more than 5,300 junior clubs, which have child and teen players. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations' annual athletics survey, more than 470,000 girls played volleyball in high school during the 2022–23 school year, making it the second most popular female high school sport. About 77,000 boys played volleyball that season. The collegiate sport has grown in popularity, especially the women's tournament; women's volleyball at the collegiate level became one of the most-watched live college sports on television during the early twenty-first century.

Holyoke, Massachusetts, the birthplace of volleyball, opened an International Hall of Fame for the sport in 1985. William Morgan was the sole inductee that year. The following year, the only inductee was Harold T. Friermood; for more than three decades, he served as the head of the US Volleyball Association and was a tireless—and finally successful—advocate of putting volleyball in the Olympic Games. The Hall of Fame has honored over 160 individuals, more than half of them from outside the United States.

Bibliography

American Volleyball Coaches Association. The Volleyball Drill Book. Human Kinetics, 2012.

Dearing, Joel B. The Untold Story of William G. Morgan: Inventor of Volleyball. WingSpan Press, 2007.

"Frequently Asked Questions." Pro Volleyball Federation, provolleyball.com/faqs. Accessed 29 July 2024.

"High School Athletics Participation Survey." The National Federation of State High School Associations, 2023, www.nfhs.org/media/7212351/2022-23‗participation‗survey.pdf. Accessed 29 July 2024.

"History." FIVB, Fédération Internationale de Volleyball, www.fivb.com/volleyball/the-game/history/. Accessed 29 July 2024.

Jones, Hayden. The Essential Beach Volleyball Drill Book. 2nd ed. Beach Volleyball California, 2014.

Schmidt, Becky. Volleyball: Steps to Success. Human Kinetics, 2016.

Zartman, Sharkie, and Pat Zartman. Youth Volleyball: The Guide for Coaches and Parents. Betterway Books, 1997.