William G. Morgan William G. Morgan William George Morgan (January 23, 1870 – December 27, 1942) was the inventor of volleyball, originally called "Mintonette", a name derived from the game of badminton which he later agreed to change to better reflect the nature of the sport. He was born in Lockport, New York, US. He met James Naismith, inventor of basketball, while Morgan was studying at Springfield College in 1892. Like Naismith, Morgan pursued a career in Physical Education at the YMCA. Influenced by Naismith and basketball, in 1895, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, Morgan invented "Mintonette" a less vigorous team sport more suitable for
James Dyer Ball James Dyer Ball James Dyer Ball (波乃耶) (4 December 1847 in Canton, China – 22 February 1919 in London, England) was a Hong Kong scholar and author born in Canton. He is noted for works on Chinese culture and for contributing to the development of the system of Cantonese Romanisation. Ball was the son of the Reverend Dyer Ball of Massachusetts, United States, and his much younger second wife, Scottish missionary Isabella Robertson. Apart from preaching, his father ran a dispensary and opened a school in Canton, Guangzhou. At age 7, Ball's family began three years of travel in Britain