The History of Basketball and Volleyball

The History of Basketball and Volleyball From its Early Origins to its Status Today

Franz Wegener

Armstrong Atlantic State University
Team Sports Techniques II

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the games Basketball and Volleyball. It traces their histories back to the early roots of the games and creates an outline of how they developed into their present form and status. The paper emphasizes the chronological succession of the events and gives an overview about the most important information that is available about volleyball.

Ancient Predecessors

In 100 B.C. until 1100 A.D. the empire of the Maya was spread over big parts of Middle and Northern America. Findings on the peninsula Yucatan/Mexico prove that the Mayas played a certain game for cultic reasons in which a rubber ball was shot through a ring that was placed in approximately 30 feet height at a wall. To get the ball through this ring the players had to use their hips or shoulders. Resulting from these complicated circumstances, the first point was usually made after several days of playing (Geschichte des Korbballs, 2004). Also, other ancient cultures used to play similar games. Under the name Top-Tapok it was also known to the Aztecs and the Inca. The Normans played this game and they called it Soule-Picarde and even old Persian texts confirm that forms of basketball existed there (Deutscher Basketball-Bund, 2004). With the fall of these early empires, the game of shooting a ball though a ring was forgotten.

Modern Basketball

A long time after that, in 1891, the modern basketball was invented. The idea was born when a young Canadian boy, later known worldwide as Dr. James Naismith, “played a simple child′s game known as duck-on-a-rock outside his one-room schoolhouse.” (History of Basketball,2004) The object of that game was to hit a duck off a large rock by tossing stones at it. Instead of strength, much throwing skill was needed to get a point in this game. After having studied at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and being athletic director at this same University, Naismith moved to Springfield, Massachusetts to join the YMCA Training School there. Being a physical educator he was dealing with the problem that his students and workers could not play sports outside in winter and that the rooms for indoor sports where rather small (History of Basketball, 2004). His primary goal was to invent a game that, like duck-on-a-rock, did not rely on physical strength only, but was useful to develop the player’s motor skills (History of Basketball, 2004).

The result was a fairly simple game, where a soccer ball was tossed into a peach basket hanging high on a wall. He was not aware of the similar games that already existed long before he was born. Because one player had to climb up to the basket with a ladder in order to remove the ball after a point was scored, soon the bottoms of the peach baskets were removed in order to increase the speed of the game (Wilkes, 1982, p. 68).

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