page_title: Beach volleyball
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Beach volleyball / History
caption_attribution_description: Grand Slam Moscow 2011
context_page_description: Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two players on a sand court divided by a net. As in indoor volleyball, the objective of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponent's side of the court, and to prevent the same effort by the opponent.
  Each team is allowed up to three touches to return the ball across the net, and individual players may not touch the ball twice consecutively except after making a block touch. The ball is put in play with a serve—a hit by the server from behind the rear court boundary over the net to the opponents. The rally continues until the ball is grounded on the playing court, goes "out", or a fault is made in the attempt to return the ball. The team that wins the rally scores a point and serves to start the following rally. The four players serve in the same sequence throughout the match, changing server each time a rally is won by the receiving team.
  Beach volleyball most likely originated in 1915 on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii, while the modern two-player game originated in Santa Monica, California. It has been an Olympic sport since the 1996 Summer Olympics.
context_section_description: Beach volleyball is a variant of indoor volleyball, which was invented in 1895 by William G. Morgan. Beach volleyball most likely originated in 1915 on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii, at the Outrigger Canoe Club. According to a 1978 interview of an Outrigger Canoe Club member, George David "Dad" Center put a net up there, and the first recorded game of beach volleyball took place. In 1920, new jetties in Santa Monica, California created a large sandy area for public enjoyment, planting the seed for beach volleyball development in that region. The first permanent nets began to appear, and people soon began playing recreational games on public parts of the beach and in private beach clubs. Eleven such beach clubs appeared in the Santa Monica area, beginning in late 1922. The first inter-club competitions were staged in 1924.
  Most of these early beach volleyball matches were played with teams of at least six players per side, much like indoor volleyball. The concept of the modern two-man beach volleyball game is credited to Paul "Pablo" Johnson of the Santa Monica Athletic Club. In the summer of 1930, while waiting for players to show up for a six-man game at the Santa Monica Athletic Club, Johnson decided to try playing with only the four people present, forming two two-man teams for the first recorded beach volleyball doubles game. The players realized that with fewer players on the court, a taller player's height advantage could be neutralized by a shorter player's speed and ball control. The popularity of the two-man game spread to other nearby beach clubs and eventually to the public courts. Though recreational games continue to be played with more players, the most widely played version of the game, and the only one contested at an elite level, has only two players per team.
  Beach volleyball grew in popularity in the United States during the Great Depression in the 1930s as it was an inexpensive activity. The sport also began to appear in Europe during this time. By the 1940s, doubles tournaments were being played on the beaches of Santa Monica for trophies. In 1948 the first tournament to offer a prize was held in Los Angeles, California. It awarded the best teams with a case of Pepsi.  In the 1960s, an attempt to start a professional volleyball league was made in Santa Monica. It failed, but a professional tournament was held in France for 30,000 French francs. In the 1950s, the first Brazilian beach volleyball tournament was held, sponsored by a newspaper publishing company. The first Manhattan Beach Open was held in 1960, a tournament which grew in prestige to become, in the eyes of some, the "Wimbledon of Beach Volleyball".
  In the meantime, beach volleyball gained popularity: in the 1960s The Beatles tried playing in Los Angeles and US president John F. Kennedy was seen attending a match. In 1974, there was an indoor tournament: "The $1500.00 World Indoor Two-Man Volleyball Championship" played in front of 4,000 volleyball enthusiast at the San Diego Sports Arena. Fred Zuelich teamed with Dennis Hare to defeat Ron Von Hagen and Matt Gage in the championship match, Winston Cigarettes was the sponsor. Dennis Hare went on to write the first book on the subject of beach volleyball: The Art of Beach Volleyball.
  The first professional beach volleyball tournament was the Olympia World Championship of Beach Volleyball, staged on Labor Day weekend, 1976, at Will Rogers State Beach in Pacific Palisades, California. The event was organized by David Wilk of Volleyball magazine, based in Santa Barbara. The winners, the first "world champions", were Greg Lee and Jim Menges. They split US$2,500 out of a total prize purse of US$5,000.
  Volleyball magazine staged the event the next year at the same location, this time sponsored by Schlitz Light Beer. In 1978 Wilk formed a sports promotion company named Event Concepts with Craig Masuoka and moved the World Championship of Beach Volleyball to Redondo Beach, California. Jose Cuervo signed on as sponsor and the prize purse. The event was successful and Cuervo funded an expansion the next yea
caption: United States and Brazil have won most of the Olympic medals of beach volleyball. Picture shows Juliana Silva (left) of Brazil, with Kerri Walsh (center) and Misty May-Treanor of the United States at the 2011 FIVB Moscow Grand Slam.
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