William Morgan - The Designer Of Volleyball Game

William G Morgan

In volleyball, we know a lot of famous names like Al Scates, Sinjin Smith, or Flo Hyman, unfortunately not too many people know about William G Morgan, the most significant figure in the volleyball history. William G Morgan was the man behind the invention of volleyball in 1895 when he served at YMCA Holyoke, Massachusetts as Director of Physical Education. At first he called the game he just invented, Mintonette, but the name changed into volleyball later on after someone noticed that the game involved a lot of ball volleying during the demonstration of the game.

William G Morgan was born in Massachusetts and he studied at Springfield College. That was the place where Morgan first met James Naismith, a genius who invented Basketball in 1891. Morgan was so impressed with this new game, in fact, that's what gave him motivation to invented volleyball.

Basketball is a really interesting game and fun to play, however this was designed for energetic young players and also involved a lot of physical contact. That was the reason why older people and older members of the YMCA could not participate in the game. That's what gave William Morgan the idea of creating a new game that can be played by people of all ages.

When creating volleyball, Morgan took a few different aspects of other sports like Tennis, Handball, Faustball, Baseball, and Basketball then combined them to compose a great game. It didn't take very long for volleyball to caught people's attention and quickly it became a popular sports, and that made William Morgan's name also known to the public. The popularity of volleyball actually realy helpful on Morgan's teaching career, when he became the Director of Physical Education for the YMCA Holyoke in 1896, his classes were favored by the students and always grew in numbers.

Volleyball has become an international sport, all through the years this game has gone through so many improvements and supported by many international sports organizations until finally it's performed in many kinds of worldwide class competitions that includes the Olympics. Today volleyball has become a very popular sport in the world and recognized as the second most played sports in the world after Soccer. In honoring the founder of this amazing game, every year The Morgan Throphy is presented for the most dedicated male and female players of the collegiate volleyball by the William Morgan Foundation.

Mintonette - One Of The Most Famous Sports In The World

Can you tell me what Mintonette is? No clue? How if I ask you what is volleyball? I bet you can tell me the answer. Not so many people know that Mintonette and Volleyball are actually the very same thing. A few years after this game was created by The Physycal Education Director of YMCA Massachusetts, William G Morgan, the name Mintonette is no longer used for this game and not so many people know about this term since then.

It all started in 1895, the time when Basketball just caught the attention of many sports fan in the USA after it was introduced a few years before in the Springfield YMCA by James Naismith. Basketball got extremely popular almost instantly, young people in America really enjoyed playing this full-action game, however not a lot of older people can really enjoy this sport because basketball also involves lots of physical contacts that could become quite rough. Seeing that, William Morgan had an initiative to make a sport as an alternative to basketball that can also be played by older people, he intended to create a sport with less physical contacts but still full of action, and that becomes the beginning of the volleyball history.

William Morgan put together several elements from different other sports like Basketball, Baseball, and Tennis in order to create a game that he desired, and then he chose the name Mintonette for the sport he just invented. Even though the rules, also the skillsets and techniques being used in this game back then were very much different with what we can see today, Mintonette was actually created to be suitable for indoor and outdoor game. Back then, any numbers of player can participate as long as they can fit into the court, the game begins with a serve, then the players just need to keep the ball in motion from one side to the other until one side fails to hit and the ball touches the ground.

One of the first improvements of this sport is actually the name, the name Mintonette was thought to be not very much appealing and less descriptive, so according to how the game is played, finally volleyball was chosen to be the proper title of this game. Since then, the name Mintonette is no longer used, and the rules also started to change, in 1917 the score was changed from 21 to 15 and a few years after that the three hits per side rule was introduced.

As volleyball growing in popularity some national and international organizations managing this sport were started to appear, and this made volleyball travel far away from its origin to many different countries. This game finally made it into the Olympic for the first time in 1964 when it was held in Tokyo, after that it didn't take very long until it became one of the most played sports in the world. The improvements of this sport didn't stop there, it continued to evolved until it initiate the invention of a new kind of sport named Beach Volleyball, and that makes volleyball even more favored by so many people.

From The Sand To The Olympic - The Story Of Beach Volleyball

Soon after William Morgan invented the volleyball in 1895 this sport quickly spread throughout America and around the world. Some of the reasons why people really enjoy playing this game are probably because it's so fun and only requires some basic equipments so they can play it just about anywhere including on the beach. Those people didn't even had an idea that what they were doing will become a really revolutionary stage in the volleyball history.

Actually there are some different opinions as to when and where the beginning of the beach volleyball history. A few believe that beach volleyball was first being played in Waikiki Beach in Hawaii around 1915, and others really believe that it was played for the first time in France on some nudist beach. However the most popular story says that it begins in California in the 1920's when many people play this game during their holiday in Santa Monica Beaches.

However, this game was really having a blast during the great depression in 1930's. A lot of people were looking some low cost activities that they can do for recreation and playing volleyball on the beach was a really cool and inexpensive option. During this era most people played beach volleyball with 6 players on each side, but they also began to vary the number of players like playing 2 on 2, 3 on 3, also 4 on 4.

The 1950's is probably the first important stage in the beach volleyball history because tournaments are started to held. However at the beginning this was not just a sporting event, in order to attract more people, they mixed it with some other forms of entertainment including beauty contest. From that moment, the development of beach volleyball seemed to be unstoppable, more and more people in America and even the rest of the world were in love with this sport and the sponsors were starting to come.

One of the very first sponsors of beach volleyball was Winston Cigarettes in a tournament in 1975. With many sponsors came along, the beach volleyball tournaments were also getting better, and in 1979 one of the most important beach volleyball tournaments was held for the very first time, The King Of The Beach Tournament. As the popularity increased, people started to play beach volleyball anywhere even in the middle of the city where they built artificial sand courts, with this improvement even the people who live in countries with no coastlines are able to feel the sensation of playing volleyball on the sand.

Beach volleyball even became more popular around the world after being played as a demonstration sport in 1992 Olympics and soon after, officially being competed in Atlanta for the 1996 Olympics. Today beach volleyball has been played by hobbyists and professional athletes from all over the world, and also more world class tournaments are being held. There is no doubt that the creation of beach volleyball marked a very important stage in the history of volleyball game, and this is also a living proof for us that a humble pastime activity could become a world class sport.