Volley ball originated from the United States. More than 46 million Americans play the sport and around 800 million players play volleyball worldwide at least once a week.

William G Morgan (1870 – 1942) created the game in 1895. He was an instructor at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in Holyoke, Massachusetts. He combined elements from other sport games such as baseball, basketball, tennis and handball to create a new game with less physical contact. Only four years before, basketball was invented just ten miles (16 km) away in the city of Springfield.

The ball came from basketball, the use of net from tennis and the use of hands from handball game. While this made up a game of volleyball, it was lent some competitive tone with the introduction of sets that was borrowed from baseball.  

At the time the game was called Mintonette. It was designed to be an indoor sport, no physical contact, for older members of YMCA and still requiring athletic effort.  

On July 7, 1896 the first exhibition game was played at Springfield College (called International YMCA Training school). Morgan took the volley net from tennis and raised it  6 feet 6 inches above the floor. An observer, Alfred Halstead, suggested the name “volleyball” (originally spelled as two words : “volley ball”) for the game to Morgan during the demo. This was due to the players seemed to be volleying the ball back and forth over the net.

Around 1920’s, a variant of this game was born when some men playing volleyball on the beach. Santa Monica, California is considered as the origin of the location where the first beach volleyball was played at the Playground Families.