Introducing The Sport
The first time Morgan revealed his sport to the other Directors of Physical was at the YMCA located in Springfield, in 1896. He presented his new, creative idea to Dr. Luther Halsey Gulick (director of the professional physical education training school) and the rest of the YMCA Directors of Physical Education. Dr. Gulick was so pleased that he asked Morgan to present his sport at the schools new stadium.
In preparation for his big debut, Morgan created 2 teams of 5 men, who would help in demonstrating “Mintonette” in front of the conference delegates in the East Gymnasium at Springfield College.
On February 9, 1895, William Morgan presented his new sport to the world. When Morgan was explaining the game before the demonstration, he named a few key guidelines in the game of “Mintonette” such as that the game was created so that it could be played in open air and in gyms as well as the objective of the game was to keep the ball in action as it goes from one side of the high net, to the other.
One of the conference delegates, Professor Alfred T. Halstead, loved the game of Mintonette, but he felt like something was just not right. Professor Halstead suggested that the name of the game should be Volleyball, since the main point of the game was to “volley” the ball to a player or over the net. Morgan agreed with Halstead’s idea and since then the original game of “Mintonette” has been referred to as Volleyball.
Morgan continued to tweak the rules of the game until July 1896, where his sport was added into the first official handbook of the North American YMCA Athletic League.
Read more about this topic: William G. Morgan
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