History of Spiking

Articles In This Section:

· The Spike

· History of Spiking

· Requisites of the Good Spiker

· How to Contact the Ball

· Where to Contact the Ball

· Position of Ball at Contact

· Position of Ball in Relation to Shoulder

· Position of Ball in Relation to Net

· How to Take Off, Hit, and Land - Part 1

· How to Take Off, Hit, and Land - Part 2

· Strategy in Spiking

· Recovery and Defense

· General Skills

· Team Play and Morale

We have a game called volleyball being played around the world today that is not volley-ball. The reason it is not volleyball is due to the spike which has come into common use in advanced play. It is an element intended to score for the attacking team. William Morgan, the inventor of volleyball, probably did not have this in mind when he took his Holy-oke, Massachusetts, YMCA team down to Springfield College for its first match.

Americans have been proud of the fact that volleyball, now a world-wide sport, was invented in this country. It may come as a shock to those with a high degree of nationalism in their blood to learn that the spike, which revolutionized the game, was not an American invention.

"Something new was added" to volleyball by a backwoods team of the Philippines, who were the sensation of a tournament in Manila, by "hoisting the ball high into the air, near the net" and having a big rangy bushman run from center court and "slug the ball." No one could stop such an attack, nor could they find anything in the rules to prevent this method of scoring. So back to America came the news of "punching, slugging, whacking, thumping," or if you like, "spiking" the ball.

Today, for perhaps too many players, spiking means just one thing, and that is power. No one doubts the difficulty of coping with a real powerful spike, but the increased skill of the blockers within the past ten years has cut down greatly on the point-scoring effectiveness of sheer power.