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.