A Team Of N’Gapeths

We have all watched the world of volleyball changing as young players break down some of the barriers of conventional wisdom.  The most prominent is of course Earvin N’Gapeth whose highlights (for example here) now take up a pretty large part of the internet. Apart from being a great player, he has become known for attacking from all kinds of strange situations and not just on the third contact.  Imagine a whole team of players like him.

Well, you don’t have to.  Until 1976 the block counted as the first contact. So once the ball touched the block, a team had to use the next (for us in 2017, first) contact to set up a spiker. The best to do this was the Polish team who won a World Championships and Olympic Gold Medal in the 1970s.  Below is a clip of what it looks like when there are six N’Gapeths on the court at once, when Poland played Japan at the 1976 Olympics.

If you want to watch the whole match from which this clip is culled, here it is.

Tagged Volleyball History, 1976 Olympic Volleyball, Matches From History, Polish Volleyball

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