William G. Morgan

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William G. Morgan (about 1895)

William George Morgan (born January 23, 1870 in Lockport , New York ; † December 27, 1942 ibid) was an American sports coach and the inventor of volleyball , which he originally called "Mintonette".

Life

William G. Morgan worked as a boy in the boat building company of his father, George Henry Morgan, who immigrated to the United States from Wales , and who married Nancy Chatfield Morgan from Northfield, Vermont . At the age of 14, Morgan ran away from home to join the Great Lakes in the northern United States as a boat boy. In order to get an education, he sought and found admission to the Mount Hermon School in Northfield , Massachusetts . In the school choir, Morgan met his future wife, Mary King Caldwell.

In the fall of 1891, Morgan met James Naismith , the inventor of the basketball game, during a football match . Naismith was the assistant coach of the football team at the International YMCA Training School at the School for Christian Workers, now Springfield College . He was taken with the big, strong player and asked him if he would like to switch to the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association - YMCA) training school . He particularly advertised the opportunities for Christian preaching in sport and the leadership training in Springfield. In addition, Springfield had a legendary football head coach, Amos Alonzo Stagg .

In 1892 Morgan moved to Springfield, where he studied sports science until 1894 . There he got to know the new game of basketball . In Springfield, in 1891, James Naismith had put the first baskets in the gym. While in Springfield, Morgan married Mary King Caldwell on October 7, 1893.

From September 1894 Morgan was the "Physical Director" responsible for the sport, initially at the YMCA of Auburn , Maine , and from mid-1895 to mid-1897 at the YMCA of Holyoke , Massachusetts . In Holyoke, Morgan developed the new game he called "Mintonette". After a final stint at the YMCA in Lockport, New York, Morgan left the Christian Association and worked as a salesman for General Electric and Westinghouse .

Morgan and his wife had one daughter and four sons: Lillian Exsie Morgan (Springfield, 1894-1989), Rufus George Morgan (Auburn, 1895-1925), Robert William Morgan (New Haven, Connecticut, 1897-1968), James Phillip Morgan (Lockport, 1899–1972) and Richard Caldwell Morgan (1911–1982). He did not return to Springfield, where he had introduced the new game in 1896, until 1938. He would not live to see the worldwide success of the game he had invented after the Second World War . His headstone in Glenwood Cemetery reads: "MORGAN, William G., 1870–1942 Inventor of Volleyball".

Invention of volleyball

December 1895 is considered to be the date of birth of volleyball . In Springfield, William G. Morgan got to know fast and intense basketball . While doing sports at the YMCA in Holyoke with many middle-aged workers, he faced a problem: “Basketball seemed appropriate for younger men, but there was a need for something for the older that wasn't as rough and strenuous. I thought of tennis, but you needed rackets, balls, a net and other equipment, ”he wrote years later for Spalding's Athletic Library . The idea of ​​separating the sides with a tennis net stayed: "We raised it to a height of 6 feet 6 inches above the ground, just above the head of an average man."

In addition to basketball, American handball and tennis (net), the fistball game brought by immigrants from Germany had a certain influence on Morgan's new game . He took the name from badminton (shuttlecock): "Mintonette". Morgan's rules for mintonette were: a light ball, a 25 by 50 foot field, and the 6 foot 6 inches (1.98 m) high tennis net. The number of players was not fixed. A match consisted of nine innings, with each team being allowed to serve three times. There was no limit to the number of touches of the ball before the ball was returned over the net.

The ball had proven to be a problem: basketballs were too heavy, so Morgan had experimented with the basketball bubble. But they were too easy and too slow.

He got the ball according to his ideas from the Springfield-based sporting goods company Albert G. Spalding & Bros. , a global brand to this day. To date, volleyballs essentially correspond to Morgan's first ball received from Spalding.

When Luther Gulick , the founder of physical education at the YMCA Training School , invited the sports directors of the YMCA local clubs to a meeting, Mintonette was introduced to the students on July 7, 1896 in Springfield. In the first volleyball game, five firefighters played against five municipal employees. Alfred T. Halstead, a professor at Springfield, was fond of the game, but not of Morgan's chosen name. With the new game “hagle” there are balls (volley: hail or gun salvo ), said Halstead, so why not call the game like that, namely “volley ball”?

Physical Education magazine presented the new game to a wider public in its July 1896 issue: “Volley Ball [sic] is a new game that is particularly suitable for the sports hall, but which can also be played outdoors. Any number of players can play it. The game consists of keeping a ball moving over a high net, which has characteristics of tennis and handball. "

90 years after the first volleyball game, a "Volleyball Hall of Fame" was established in Holyoke in 1985 with Morgan as the first honorary member.

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personal data
SURNAME Morgan, William G.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Morgan, William George (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American sports coach and the inventor of volleyball
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Lockport , New York
DATE OF DEATH December 27, 1942
Place of death Lockport , New York