Today in Sports History #2 - Volleyball invented February 9, 1895
Steemians - yesterday I started my Sports History serial with an historic event in American Football that took place in the USA on February 8 (1936).
What happened today - on February 9 in Sports History?
Well a lot - but we only pick one event per date. Today in Sports History presents the invention of a form of sport everyone around the world is playing nowadays. They play it on grass, on clay, on the beach, in the gym, in the house. Only 4 years after the invention of Basketball it was a young teacher in Massachusetts, USA that invented Volleyball!
Honestly I never linked Volleyball being from the US so I have been very surprised. So, how did that happen?
The 25 year old teacher William G. Morgan was hired originally to play football at a school now known as Springfield College. While there he realized that basketball was much too exhausting for older men so he invented a game called "Mintonette" for them to play. He borrowed ideas from a few different sports, such as tennis, handball, baseball, and badminton and used the inside bladder of a basketball as the first volley ball. Later this game was also called volleyball - in the early days the number of people on the court did not matter at all, also every team was allowed to hit the ball as many times as they liked before it went over the net.
Nowadays volleyball is one of the most favourite teams sports across the world. In 1985 (after 90 years) William G. Morgan finally became the inaugural member of the Volleyball Hall of Fame.
Interesting? Watch out for more posts about Sports and History.
Text sources from Volleyball.org and Wikipedia
Photos (also used as template) from Pixabay
Mostly, I prefer to play beach 2 against 2.
The best sport, thanks for sharing I had no idea A it started in the US and B that it only came to life in 1936.
It's always captivating to find out the history of an activity that you truly enjoy...