Philosophy of Sport
History of History and Philosophy of Sport and Physical Education Lauren Swift March 26, 2010 Volleyball has grown over the past couple of centuries starting in 1865 to the 20th century. There are millions of people playing the game of volleyball and growing more and more each day. Volleyball has gone worldwide and many people have accepted the game and has become the most popular sport than any of the other sports in American and international countries. Volleyball became both a recreational as well as a competitive sport in the United States due to its popularity.
The development of volleyball both gave people to play with no stress, fundamental skills, and to just have fun playing this newly developed game. as time went on, competitive play was introduced and more and more teams practiced and developed their skills to become better players at the game of volleyball. Since volleyball’s first origin, the sport has seen amazing changes and variations. Volleyball started out slow but now is in the Olympics every year where millions and millions of people watch the competition of the world’s best teams all over the country.
When people watched volleyball at the Olympics or at a professional (college), they would leave thrilled and excited that the game of volleyball had such an impact on them. The game of volleyball was developed by William G. Morgan who was the physical director of the YMCA in Holyoke, Massachusetts. He attended Mount Herman Preparatory School, but after one year transferred to the School for Christian Workers (now Springfield College) where he received a good background in recreational skills (Bertucci p. 11).
Springfield College was where the first volleyball game was played and consisted of two teams with five players on each side. He was involved with the Playground Movement in 1890-1900 for group games. Morgan developed future studies under Dr. Luther Gulick who said that games should have many participants rather than only a few. Volleyball began in the middle ages and moved all around the country from there. In 1893 the sport was introduced to Italy and then to Germany and they called the sport Faust ball.
Morgan, however, when he developed the game in Holyoke gymnasium he called it mintonette and shortly after in 1896 Morgan changed the name to volleyball. When the first games of volleyball were played and the sport was globally impacting everyone who played the game, volleyball started to become more and more popular. In 1897, the printed rules of volleyball appeared in the first Handbook of the Athletic league of the Young Men’s Christian Association of North America. The game was thus taken by physical directors of the YMCA to countries throughout the world (Bertucci p. 3). In 1915, volleyball became so popular that it was noted as a team sport and was ranked with basketball, football, and baseball as another fantastic game to go into the school programs. Volleyball was also popular near the end or World War 1. The YMCA physical directors introduced to the troops the game of volleyball. The total participation from July 1, 1918 to July, 1, 1919, amounted to nearly a million (985, 876), and the distribution of more than 15,000 volleyballs by the YMCA alone bears out this statement (Bertucci p. 15).
In 1924 in Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania, the first scholastic volleyball program was developed by Harry Batchelor and C. Lawrence Walsh. They taught classes about volleyball, organized leagues, and created intramural teams in 1922. In 1946, schools began to develop club teams like; Stanford University, University of California, and Earlham College. In 1974, the federation of High School Athletics developed a committee to encourage on a worldwide scale that every high school be promoted to championships and to write their own rules and regulations.
In 1956, there was reported that 60 million people were playing volleyball annually on an organized basis. Growth and development was essential to the game of volleyball and has made it to what it is today. Two organizations played a huge part in the game of volleyball to help get its start and room for growth and development; they are the YMCA and the USVBA. The role of the YMCA was to provide leadership and direction for volleyball and they were the only group that had facilities at that time to open to the public to play volleyball and other sports.
The YMCA played such a huge role in the development of volleyball because, when volleyball first started out up until 20 years after the game came into existence, the YMCA ruled volleyball. Things changed after those 20 years and the original rules finally changed. The YMCA in 1916 was the main leaders in having the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) help out with revising the rules and regulations in effect to promote volleyball more efficiently. As a result the Spalding Athletic Library “blue cover” volleyball rulebook was published (Shondell, and McManama p. 7). The YMCA was the main leader in inventing the sport of volleyball, having facilities and gymnasiums where people can come and play indoors whenever they want, and giving the people a chance to experience and play the game of volleyball. The YMCA also was credited for the competitive aspect of the game and sponsored tournaments and also held their own YMCA championship in 1922. The YMCA continued these tournaments and championships while playing indoors until 1928.
The USVBA has been around since 1928 and the first 30 years they were in business, volleyball had no direction or any rules of the game to be enforced. The USVBA was created to regulate the rules worldwide and to hold national open tournaments. The “father of volleyball” was Dr. George J. Fisher and was elected president and served until 1952 of the USVBA. The USVBA had its first actual tournament in Chattanooga, Tennessee that developed three divisions. One division was the maters division, 1949 they added a women’s division, and an armed forces division in 1952 but was cancelled or depleted in 1965.
The USVBA consisted of many national organizations to involve all sport groups to promote the regulation of volleyball. The USVBA was the main company to govern the championships and tournaments, promoting the sport, and the rules and regulations of volleyball. The YMCA and the USVBA were the main two companies’ of the competitiveness of volleyball, but other groups contributed for the growth of the game of volleyball. Volleyball has been more and more educated by individuals over the past 30-40 years.
Educators fully understood that volleyball was a team sport just like football, baseball, and basketball. The NCAA promoted that volleyball be given to a huge facility to where college students could take place in organized activities. From there volleyball was put into many different aspects of schools, and intramural programs in college settings. In 1960, Midwestern institutions formed an Intercollegiate Association (MIVA) and the main goal was to get volleyball to be included and discovered in Midwestern colleges while regulating the volleyball competition.
The MIVA while being respectable were responsible for many types of leadership such as area, international, and national. In the 1960’s intercollegiate sports involved the overall goal of competitive volleyball. The NCAA and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) conducted investigations into the addition of volleyball to their national championship programs (Shondell, and McManama p. 59). When making intercollegiate history the NAIA made volleyball their 15th competitive sport. By making volleyball their 15th sport the coaches associated was put in place for the first time.
The high schools added volleyball as a recreational sport to their physical education classes. The AAHPER “American Association of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation” gave leadership in volleyball for education purposes. The AAHPER provides charts, newspapers, journals, and many other printed materials to help the teachers with their profession. They were the main contributor to the game of volleyball both competitively and recreationally through the division for Girls and Women’s Sports (DGWS).
The spread of volleyball internationally was a huge success and United States armed forces did everything they could to make this happen. England got first introduced to the game of volleyball in 1914 and moved rather quick and fast to Europe. Soldiers even though their training, recreational programs, and busy schedules they were also given a task to promote volleyball in other countries and at home with their families. The YMCA has the credit for promoting volleyball abroad as well spreading the news to Canada, Southern Hemisphere, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, and Brazil.
The foreign countries when introduced to volleyball they chose to take the competitive side, and they also played recreationally but when it came down to team strategy, and the skill they were very competitive. The International Volleyball Foundation was founded in 1947 in Paris and published rules and presenting or hosting yearly world championships. In 1949 the international competition was under way and the championships were held in Prague. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) designated volleyball as an Olympic team sport in 1957, and it was included in the 1964 and 1968 Olympic Games (Shondell, and McManama p. 0). International competition affected many techniques, riles, and equipment that were used in the United States. For example, the Filipinos made to where you can only hit the ball three times on your side then you have to get it over the net. In effect to the number of hits on each side and the development of “the spike” in volleyball by international countries, the United States saw radical changes being made and the United States eventually changed the rules to what the international countries came up with.
Volleyball had cultural impacts and contributions when the game was evolving. John D. Giles and Hill were YMCA directors and promoted the sport and they stressed that people should develop strong, positive characters. Both Giles and Hill stressed these important values in the very first volleyball rulebook. Playing with friends, family, or with new people that you just met can be fun and socially interactive. You can play the game and be competitive while socializing and therefore creating new friendships.
A volleyball player or the team cannot mesh well together or work effectively if they don’t have loyalty, courtesy, agreeableness, and cooperation. Many volleyball teams can have problems and are usually created by negative attitudes. By playing volleyball you can improve your moral judgment in addition to your skills. For example; if a ball is out and you touched it with your hand then you should be a moral person and be honest about you touching the ball. There are many other values that are good to have with volleyball; alertness, determination, and persistence.
Recreational and competitive volleyball is relaxing, fun, and stress free and in today’s society many people could use some stress free time to just relax and have fun. The values of volleyball are very important as to how this sport really flourished. President Eisenhower and President Kennedy encouraged more and more people to get out there and exercise and to be . The tools and equipment needed to play volleyball are not expensive to get and is a fun game for everyone to play and is easy to get access to as well.
Volleyball can promote being active and to while not doing too much of a strenuous workout, it gives you time to rest and to collect your thoughts. Volleyball has come a long way in the past 40-50 years since it was first invented. It has made groundwork for new organizations, scholarships, and traveling around the world by playing and creating the game of volleyball. Many changes were made in the United States and in foreign countries and we all came together to experience the joy of volleyball and to help the game flourish.
I only played volleyball my senior year of high school and I have never played the sport before but I wish I would have played it earlier because once I experienced the game of volleyball, I fell in love with the game and now I got a scholarship and a great opportunity to keep playing the sport I love. In a sense, volleyball has opened a new door for men, women, kids, and teenagers to experience something new and eventually made its way through history to become one of the most popular sports today. Works Cited Bertucci, Bob.
Championship Volleyball by The Experts. Volume 12. West Point, N. Y: Leisure Press, (p. 11-18). Print. Egstrom, Glen H, and Frances Schaafsma. Volleyball: Physical Education Activities Series. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Company Publishers, 1966. (p. 40-47). Print. Shondell, Donald, and Jerre McManama. Volleyball. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1971. (p. 55-62). Print. Thigpen, Janet. Power Volleyball for Girls and Women. 2nd ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Company Publishers. 1967, 1974. (p. 3-10). Print.
