Volleyball Hall has meager space to honor popular, global sport

By Scott Benjamin

HOLYOKE, Mass. – No it’s not Orlando and it sure isn’t Vegas, but the Pioneer Valley is a tourist destination.

Six Flags New England has Bugs Bunny, the Big E has the Budweiser Clydesdales and the Naismith Hall of Fame has a large metallic silver basketball-shaped sphere as part of its structure near Interstate-91 and a plaque for Michael Jordan, who co-starred with Bugs Bunny in Space Jam.

At the Holyoke Border the sign says, “Home of Volleyball.”

William Morgan invented the sport there in 1894 at the local YMCA as an alternative to basketball. The first game was played a year later at Springfield College, where James Naismith, who was one of Morgan’s teachers, had invented basketball four years earlier.

The Volleyball Hall of Fame - which is 5,000 square feet total with about 4,000 square feet devoted to displays - shares space with the Holyoke Children’s Museum in a building owned by the city. The Basketball Hall of Fame – just nine mines south - has three stories covering 35,000 square feet, three theaters and a Subway restaurant.

George Mulry, who has been the executive director of the Volleyball Hall of Fame since 2011, says they have two storage areas of materials that they can’t fit into their museum.

The Volleyball Hall of Fame averages 7,000 to 8,000 visitors a year. UPI.com reported in 2013 that the Basketball Hall of Fame gets more than 200,000 guests annually.

How could this be if Karch Kiraly garnered three Olympic gold medals and Michael Jordan only captured two, and Bugs Bunny and the Budweiser Clydesdales don’t have a gold medal between them?

In fact, Kiraly, who was inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2001, garnered one of his gold medals in beach volleyball, which has been part of the Olympics since it was a demonstration sport in Barcelona in 1992.

Olympic beach basketball doesn’t exist.

Could Michael Jordan dribble a basketball or could Bugs Bunny escape from Elmer Fudd while running through sand?

Marc Bird wrote in Volleyball Country in 2016 that volleyball is the fifth most popular sport worldwide, behind football, cricket, ice hockey and tennis.

If Pulitzer Prize-winner Thomas Friedman of The New York Times needs a new topic for globalization, then consider: The Volleyball Hall of Fame’s 140 inductees come from 24 different countries.

ESPN.com has reported that according to the National Federation of State High School Associations by 2015 more American high school girls were playing volleyball than basketball.

“Despite that, there just isn’t the awareness about volleyball in this country that you have in some other countries,” explains Mulry, who has been coaching volleyball since 2000 and has directed the Longmeadow (Mass.) High School girls’ team to eight Western Massachusetts regional championships in the last twelve years.

“People who take up the sport aren’t thinking about how they could someday be in the Hall of Fame,” he added. “You don’t have as many visible role models in the United States.”

Mulry said there are three professional volleyball leagues in Puerto Rico but none in the United States.

The field hockey coaches say the challenge is getting a player to make a stick and extension of her body.

In volleyball you can’t catch the ball, nor can you trap it with a foot or a stick.

“I think one of the big challenges,” Mulry said, “is having to keep a ball in the air and rebound it all the time. It’s frustrating. A lot of players give up. We lose a lot of players early on. It has nothing to do with height. It has to do with rebounding the ball consistently.”

Viewers of the Summer Olympics telecasts are amazed that when a ball is spiked at locomotive speed and you would think an opposing player would be lucky to get a finger on it, instead the result is a diving dig perfectly placed to the front row.

“What’s happening on every single play gets people excited,” said Mulry. “But the technique is very difficult. You don’t have to jump to hit a baseball or to swing at a tennis ball.”

Yet volleyball attracts a diverse clientele.

“There are opportunities for players of all abilities and body types to be involved in the sport,” Mulry explained.

Mulry, the only full-time employee at the Volleyball Hall of Fame, is assisted by a part-time paid guest receptionist and 15 volunteers.

Money is raised through contributions and annual tournaments at area colleges, including one at Springfield College that is named after Morgan, who was the first inductee in the Hall of Fame.

Mulry said there are plans to repurpose existing space to get some items out of storage and into the display area.

He said the ultimate goal would be a new site with more space. However, that is probably “eight to 10 years” away.

If the fifth most popular sport in the world needs a higher profile in the United States then maybe the answer is for Michael Jordan to try a new venue.

Between his first retirement and second retirement from the NBA he was unsuccessful in becoming a major league baseball player. His acting career didn’t take off after his feature film with Bugs.

If he’s in one Hall of Fame in the Pioneer Valley then why not two.

Nike could develop an Air Jordan pair of volleyball shoes

Perhaps Kiraly could loan Jordan his famous purple hat.

The Volleyball Hall of Fame – located at 444 Dwight Street in Holyoke, MA.- is open Thursday through Sunday from noon to 4:30 p.m., except for major holidays. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for youngsters aged 7-17, $5 for active and retired military personnel and free for children 6 and under.