This popular sport was invented in 1895 by William Morgan. The founder of volleyball was the director of physical education at the International YMCA School.
Together with his students, the teacher came up with an entertaining game – throwing a ball over a net stretched about 2.5 metres above the ground.
Volleyball is an exciting sport that helps you get a boost of positivity, take a break from your daily worries and relax. The aim of the game is to send the ball to the opponent’s half of the court so that they cannot return it or make a mistake.
Biography of the founder of volleyball
The founder of this exciting game was born in 1870 in the small town of Lockport. In 1891, Morgan graduated from school, where he met the founder of basketball, James Naismith.
It was on the recommendation of his experienced mentor that William became a student at the International YMCA School. After working for about a year as a physical education teacher in Maine, he transferred to another branch of the school located in Massachusetts.
There, he continued to work in his field of expertise and soon rose to the honourable position of director of the YMCA. George Morgan’s job description included the development of effective sports programmes for young men. The director also took an active part in the development of sports and organised sporting events.
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The emergence of volleyball
In the late 19th century, basketball was very popular among active sports enthusiasts. Although the game attracted many athletes, basketball required a lot of physical activity. Untrained players or older people could not run around the field with the ball for long, so they had to take on the role of spectators and watch the more active players from the sidelines.
To meet the needs of athletes of all ages, William Morgan set himself the goal of creating a ball game that was no less interesting but not as dynamic. When creating volleyball, the best elements of other games were borrowed. The ball was taken from basketball, the net from tennis, handball from handball, and the technique of serving the ball from baseball.
Initially, something similar to tennis was considered as a comfortable sport for people of different ages and levels of training. However, organising such a game required a lot of equipment, so the implementation of this idea was somewhat difficult. It was decided to take the net from tennis and raise it to a height of about 2 metres, above the average person’s height. Initially, it was decided to use a basketball as the sports equipment to be thrown over the net, but due to its light weight, it could not perform the functions assigned to it. The basketball itself was too heavy for the game, which made it difficult to serve it to the opponent’s half of the court.
Creation of the ball
After testing all the balls available at the sports school, William Morgan concluded that none of them were suitable for volleyball. The only rational solution was to create a new, special sports equipment. He was assisted in this by Dale Callaghan, a designer at AG Spalding & Bros.
The prototype of the volleyball we know today was presented in 1896. The circumference and weight of the sports equipment were smaller than those of a basketball. The product had a simple design – a chamber covered with leather on top. Over time, the model was improved. In 1900, AG Spalding & Bros officially introduced the first batch of volleyballs.
The first game
In 1896, William Morgan shared his idea for the game he had developed with Luther H. Gulick, director of the YMCA in Springfield. The idea was approved, and the teachers decided to present the sport at a conference attended by delegates from the Sports Community.
