International Volleyball Hall induction week: Katsutoshi Nekoda of Japan

It’s induction week at the International Volleyball Hall of Fame in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Six inductees will join the previous 161 players, coaches, administrators and leaders from 25 countries who have already been enshrined in the museum at the birthplace of volleyball. We have stories on all six, continuing with Katsutoshi Nekoda from Japan:

Shortly before the 1972 Olympics,  Japanese setter Katsutoshi Nekoda went down with a devastating broken leg. Undeterred, Nekoda called his coach, asked him to bring a volleyball to the hospital, and in a wheelchair, Nekoda practiced his craft over and over again. 

And then some.

It paid off. Later that summer at the Munich Games, with Nekoda at the helm, Japan went undefeated in seven matches, losing only three sets total, to capture the Olympic gold medal. 

Such is the legend of Katsutoshi Nekoda, an inductee into the 2023 class of the International Volleyball Hall of Fame.

“He was the best (setter) ever. No question about it,” Bill Neville said emphatically. 

Neville should know. Over the past 56 years, he has had a courtside seat witnessing the greatest players in modern history. His resume includes stints coaching both the USA and Canadian national teams, and in 1984 he was an assistant to Doug Beal when the USA won the Olympic gold medal in Los Angeles. 

“Nekoda did everything with the volleyball except restore it life,” Neville added. “He was a great leader. Just the way he presented himself. Great composure. His choice of sets, their accuracy, the way he conducted the game. He was the equivalent of a great quarterback.”

Nekoda was born in Hiroshima on February 1, 1944, 18 months before the atomic bomb was dropped on that city. He caught the volleyball bug at a young age. Legend had it that between ages 14 and 29 he set 1000 balls a day. Just 20, in 1964 he led the Japanese national team to a bronze in the first Olympic Games that featured indoor volleyball, which happened to be in Tokyo. 

The world quickly took notice.

“Nekoda was a groundbreaker in that he was the first of the 5-1 setters that later became more popular in the international game,” said Terry Liskevych, coach of the USA women for 11 years. “Nekoda was the really the first guy who set the standard for quick sets everywhere on the court. He would jump set and take everything in the air. It made him more deceptive.”

If Nekoda had a weakness, it was his height: He was…