This black and white photograph portrait of Alfred Thompson Halsted (1862-1908), a YMCA secretarial student at the YMCA Training School, now Springfield College, in 1891 and faculty there from 1892-1895, shows him sitting in an ornate chair, looking distinguished and staring into the distance on the camera’s right. Halsted is credited for popularizing volleyball. Invented in 1895 by William G. Morgan (1870-1942), a physical director at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in Holyoke, Massachusetts, volleyball was originally intended for businessmen who desired an activity less strenuous than basketball. First played by raising a tennis net to a six foot height and using the inside bladder of a basketball as a volleyball, the game combined the rules of tennis, handball, and baseball. The game did not require a fixed number of players and went for nine innings with three "outs" per team. Although Morgan originally called this game “mintonette,” Halsted suggested “volley ball” (then two words) as a more accurate representative of the game during its 1896 premiere at the YMCA Sports Conference hosted by Springfield College. The photograph is faded, but otherwise in good condition.
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