My Family Tree

Find A Grave Memorial# 2537
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Inventor of Volleyball. Born in Lockport, New York, he was a physical education director at the YMCA in Holyoke, Massachusetts, when he realized that basketball was much too strenuous for the older gentlemen. He set out to invent a game for men as well as women to play with no limit to the number of people on the court at one time. The first game was played on December of 1895 and was called Mintonette. It was a little different from the volleyball we are used to today and each side could hit the ball as many times as they liked before it went over the net. After he did some fine-tuning, the game of volleyball made it's official debut eight months later at what would eventually become Springfield College. The game was accepted as a success and since the object of the game was to volley the ball back and forth, the game was renamed volleyball. Morgan left the YMCA in 1900, to pursue various careers in business, but his game went on to be one of the most popular team sports in the world. He died at age 72 in New York and in 1985, he became the inaugural member of the Volleyball Hall of Fame. (bio by: John "J-Cat" Griffith)