Volleyball was originally invented by William Morgan in 1895. He was an athletic director at the YMCA and was trying to come up with a game that would be fun, like basketball, but less taxing. Of course the rules have changed some since then, but it quickly became a popular sport at the YMCA. The name volleyball came about when a man named Alfred Halstead noticed how the game had a volleying nature. People started calling it volley ball and the name stuck. Volleyball was first played as an official Olympic sport in the 1964 Olympics. Japan won the first gold medal in women’s volleyball and the USSR won the first gold for men’s volleyball.
