Our favorite collection of volleyball quotes for players, fans and coaches curated from a variety of secondary resources.
Volleyball Quotes, Sayings, Memes and Images
We’ve set you up with some lists that are here to motivate, inspire and entertain.
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Seven Best Volleyball Quotes
My body is a vehicle for the mechanics of my sport.
Gabrielle Reece
No volleyball play can begin without a serve, and the serve is the only technique that is totally under your control. In other endeavors, you cannot succeed without believing in yourself, and that belief is completely under your control.
Karch Kiraly
It takes a lot of hard work and dedication just like any pro sport. Especially for beach volleyball you don’t have to be tall or as fast as other sports. You just have to have the skills.
Misty May-Treanor
If it’s worth it, then you do it.
Logan Tom
Breathe, believe, and battle. My former coach, Troy Tanner, told us that before each match. Breathe – be in the moment. Believe – have faith that you can rise above it. Battle – you gotta be prepared to go for as long as it takes.
Kerri Walsh
Volleyball anchored me at a time in my life when I needed it. It gave me a reason for being this big, big girl.
Gabrielle Reece
There is pressure on every play. You can’t make a mistake, but that also means your opponent can’t make a mistake. It makes the matches more exciting to watch.
Holly McPeak
Volleyball Memes
You Got Served.
Serving plays such an important role in the game. If you serve well, things usually go well for your team. Playing off the double entendre associated with subpoena servers, this quote about volleyball serves notice that your server is one to reckon with.
Volleyball is just a really intense version of “Don’t let the balloon touch the floor.”
This is a whimsical quote about volleyball that usually can’t help but generate a chuckle or two. Who hasn’t played the “Don’t let the balloon touch the floor”?
Check out Volleyball Court Dimensions and Net Height
If you wanted a soft serve, you should’ve gone to Dairy Queen.
Who is noted for their soft serve ice cream? Duh, Dairy Queen!
Do you want a manicure with that facial?
Here’s an in-your-face volleyball saying that serves your opponents notice that you’re not here to mess around. Ok, let’s face it, you probably don’t want to say this to anyone except a fellow teammate.
Volleyball Images
Your mom called and said you left your game at home.
Turn up your talking smack game. Remember, use this saying with care as you won’t make me friends tossing off comments like this.
Kiss my ace!
This is trash talking at its best or worst depending on your perspective. Again, probably best used with someone you know who can take a joke.
A hard practice make an easy game.
A volleyball phrase that really works for any sport or competitive activity. As they say, “Today’s preparation determines tomorrow’s achievement.”
Bump, set, spike it — that’s the way we like it.
A simple formula for success in volleyball. Plus, the rhyme holds it all together. Who cares if “pass” and “hit” are the preferred terms?
Funny Volleyball Sayings – Authors Unknown
Our game is tighter than our spandex.
If you’re dating a volleyball player, raise your glass. If you’re not, raise your standards.
I’m so good, your mom cheers for me.
Volleyball: More than a sport – it’s a way of life.
Even Cinderella can’t get to this ball.
Volleyball: Invented by men, perfected by women.
There’s no elevator to the top, take the stairs!
Volleyball is my life, everything else is just details.
Title match game. Final Set. Down by two. Dig Deep.
The setter, a hard working, talented volleyball player who receives NO GLORY!
Volleyball Sayings Meme
Short Sayings
Just serve it.
You didn’t lose, you just ran out of time.
You know an ace more than a card.
Sore or sorry? You pick.
PrACTice like a champion.
Volleyball season is every season.
If you want a soft serve, you should’ve gone to Dairy Queen.
For Setters
Life is better when I’m digging and passing.
You know you’re a setter when your wrists turn red from bumping so much.
What all good spikers know: Thank your setters!
Love me, I’m a setter.
You know your a setter when no one understands how difficult your job is.
Why did the setter cross the road? To get to the shanked ball.
My setter is better.
Karch Kiraly
Most people put a hat and glasses on to go incognito. I take them off.
We play at the world’s most beautiful beaches but in the world’s most challenging conditions. It is not like you play one match and you go back to air conditioning. We do it all day long.
Physically I’m not as strong as I was, but I try to make up for it mentally. It’s a big challenge, and I relish it, competing with guys half my age.
The beach game taught me great lessons about how to elevate the play of my teammate, or teammates, and how to anticipate and expect the ball so much more than the indoor game ever could. It taught me — even forced me — to be a much better all-around player. That allowed me to help our USA Olympic Team in many more ways than I ever could have otherwise.
I still get excited just attending a final four, because the process is so long, so arduous, so challenging, that when it finally arrives, the adrenaline can’t help but take over. I love the sense of accomplishment and camaraderie that the indoor game can engender.
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Karch Kiraly Insights
The indoor game is much more of a team game, having to work effectively with a group of 15 to 20 people, striving to improve every day, every drill, even every contact. The beach game is much more of an individual game within a team sport, much less about organized practices with coaches and much more about just playing the game.
I never did. I only prepared to win the next day.
When asked how he prepared to win Olympic gold
It’s the best. And the job site isn’t too bad, either.
About his work outfit (shorts)
It’s hard to give a career like this up, when I tell my wife I’m going to the office, and it’s the beach.
Inspirational Volleyball Quotations
A lot of people had doubts. I tried to tell people I never had doubts.
Misty May-Traeanor, after an Olympic victory
I grew up on the beach and played side-out scoring all my life, but rally scoring is better for our sport. There is pressure on every play. You can’t make a mistake, but that also means your opponent can’t make a mistake. It makes the matches more exciting to watch.
Holly McPeak
Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.
Vince Lombardi
You touch every other ball and, if you screw up, you only have one more person to back you up. You can’t go hide in the corner.
Kerri Walsh
We don’t have a World Series or a Super Bowl, so to be able to come home with a gold medal is amazing. I want to do it again in four more years.
Kerri Walsh
Don’t ever let the ball hit the ground without a body hitting the ground with it.
Unknown
Motivational
A great defensive play is worth about five points in emotion.
Caren Kemner
Don’t fire your opponents up. If they’re down, don’t tick them off. Let them stay down.
Sinjin Smith
If you want to stay fit, surround yourself with a couple of chicks who are fired up, so that the one day you’re not, you can feed off their energy.
Gabrielle Reece
Volleyball is the sport through which I am able to express my God-given talents of being an athlete. It is a sport which involves relating, pushing, and encouraging your teammates. It has helped evolve me into the person I am today.
David Beard
Inspiring
The best passing drill is pass-set-hit. The best setting drill is pass-set-hit. And, the best hitting drill is pass-set-hit. Anything less than a game situation, unless very well planned, has the possibility of introducing artificial situations, and complete transfer to the game might not occur when drills are constructed in this manner.
Marv Dunphy
A hard practice makes an easy game.
Unknown
Anyone serious about playing indoor, you should play outdoor.
Sean Scott
Volleyball is one of the most interactive games going. It is a game of intuition, imagination, improvisation – but most of all, of reciprocity – of teamwork. There is no way to freelance in volleyball.
Marv Dunphy
To be true to one’s self is the ultimate test in life. To have the courage and sensitivity to follow your hidden dreams and stand tall against the odds that are bound to fall in your path. Life is too short and precious to be dealt with in any other fashion.
Flo Hyman
Volleyball rules are simple. If it is on the floor, pick it up and get it into the air. If it is in the air, keep it off the floor.
John Kessel
Gabrielle Reece
I didn’t get into this to pick up a new hobby, I don’t want to be a golfer. I want to be the best.
Stay calm and aggressive.
It’s sort of like, our bodies are designed to keep moving, and when we don’t move it, we’re not going to feel great.
I think any time people behave in a way that’s truly them, then they never fail. You get in trouble when you try to copy others.
Misty May-Treanor Volleyball Quotes
From Misty: Digging Deep in Volleyball and Life
We’d shared a once-in-a-lifetime experience over the past eight years, and we’d be forever joined. Sisters. Friends. Teammates. Business partners. Trailblazers. (On teammate Kerri Walsh.)
There are a lot of people out there who would love to trade spots, so I have nothing to complain about. but we are spread pretty thin. People don’t see that. Sometimes they thin we just come here and play volleyball.
In the beach volleyball world, every major decision goes through Karch. He is the Obi-Wan Kenobi of the sport, the Jedi Master of the sand, reminiscent of the wise, exalted character in the Star Wars universe who teaches Luke Skywalker the ways of the Force. He’s all-knowing, all-seeing.
Was I the only person who wasn’t exhausted after the gold medal match? Was I the only one who wasn’t blubbering away? Sheesh. For once, I bet I was more amped up than Kerri. I was flying high, floating on a cloud, living life at 310 percent, with an angel on my right shoulder.
…Olympic gold medals aren’t about the awards; instead, they’re all about the rewards. I want to spend the rest of my time on earth experiencing the gifts of my Olympic gold medals, connecting and building relationships with others, and sharing and expanding upon their strength, power, beauty, and majesty.
History of Volleyball
Unlike the somewhat well-known name of James Naismith, who invented basketball, volleyball’s creator has enjoyed a much lower profile. Read on to find out more.
Who invented Volleyball?
William G. Morgan was the inventor of volleyball. A native New Yorker, Morgan met James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, while studying at Springfield College. The game was originally called Mintonette, which is a derivation of badminton.
While working at a YMCA, he noticed the game of basketball favored the more athletic and that some folks had a hard time getting up and down the court quickly enough. His desire was to create a game that anyone could play, despite their age or athletic ability.
When was Volleyball Invented?
In the winter of 1895, William G. Morgan developed the game Mintonette, that became known as volley ball, and then ultimately, volleyball (one word).
Where was volleyball invented?
Morgan was a YMCA physical education director in Holyoke, Massachusetts when he invented the game.
William G. Morgan Quotations
In search of an appropriate game, tennis occurred to me, but this required rackets, balls, a net and other equipment, so it was eliminated, but the idea of a net seemed a good one. We raised it to a height of about 6 feet, 6 inches (1.98 metres) from the ground, just above the head of an average man.
…content in the knowledge that the game brought a richer life to millions of people throughout the world.
We needed a ball and among those we tried was a basketball bladder, but this was too light and too slow. We therefore tried the basketball itself, which was too big and too heavy.
Wilt Chamberlain Quotes
I assume that most people know that I’m a volleyballer of some renown. In fact, for a long time, volleyball became as big a part of my life as basketball once was.
Everything is habit forming, so make sure what you do is what you want to be doing. (A View from Above)
I believe that good things come to those who work.
Nobody roots for Goliath.
The man who won’t loan money isn’t going to have many friends – or need them.
I started playing volleyball very late in my athletic career, around the age thirty-three or thirty-four, but I became quite proficient. It’s a highly skilled and very fast-paced game. Being able to hold my own against the best in the world, on the beach or indoors, is something I’m very proud of.
They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they’d make up their minds.
Tip: Use these volleyball quotes for photo captions, locker signs and inspirational notes to players.
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Whether you’re a middle hitter, a setter, a libero, spiker, coach or fan, we hope you enjoyed the collection above.
1 – Volleyball Quotes – You’re Here!