Like last week, l wanted to tell you about another athlete
who invented something that we see everywhere now. It’s the Trampoline!
George Nissan was a son of immigrants. He was born in Iowa in 1914. He loved Gymnastics and participated on that
team and the Diving team while in High School.
It was then that he went to the Circus and saw the trapeze artists do
their tricks and then fall into the nets.
When they landed, they’d bounce back up and strike poses and do
flips. George was always trying to find
more ways to improve his dives and his gymnastic moves. If he could jump on something springy he
could have more opportunities to practice his moves.
In his parent’s garage, George cobbled together a metal
frame from pipes he had scavenged from a local junkyard. He stretched a canvas inside the frame using
rubber inner tubes to attach it to the frame.
He tried it and loved it. He was
just 16 years old when he made this first prototype.
George began college
at the University of Iowa. He consulted
with his Gymnastics coach and the engineering department at the school. They helped him build a stronger rig that he
could commercialize in 1934. George
brought his contraption to a summer camp where he had a job as a camp counselor. When he saw how much fun the kids were having
jumping on it, he knew it would be a hit.
Some of the kids would rather jump than swim! George studied Business so he could know how
to market his invention and graduated from University of Iowa with a Business
degree in 1937. While in college, George
won the Inter-Collegiate National Championship three times in Gymnastics,
probably due to extra training time on his invention.
George rounded up a couple of friends (they called
themselves the ‘Three Leonardo’s) and they took the Trampoline around America
and Mexico to demonstrate fun moves on it, in an effort for it to catch on and
sell. While in Mexico, he named it a
‘Trampoline’ after the Spanish word (el trampolin) that means ‘diving board’ or
‘spring board.’ George began making them
for customers, first with canvas and then with nylon as the netting. One of his first big customers was the US
Government. World War 1 had broken out
and the trampoline was used to train parachutists, pilots and divers to
reorient themselves midair.
George joined the Navy in 1943, and after serving during the
war, he spent years demonstrating the utility and enjoyment Trampolines
offer. He incorporated the ‘Nissan
Trampoline Company’ to build and market it. He married an Acrobat and they travelled
around the world to showcase tumbling on the Trampoline. He even arranged for a Kangaroo to jump with
him on one of his demonstrations in New York’s Central Park. Another time, he assembled a trampoline on
top of an Egyptian Pyramid and jumped high above it.
George
was thrilled in 1947 when ‘Trampoline’ or ‘rebound tumbling’ became a Gymnastic
event. Many years later, in 2000,
‘Trampoline’ became an Olympic Sport for the first time at the Sydney Olympic
games. George was so happy to hear this
that he bought himself and his family tickets to each of the Trampoline events
there in Australia.
A crazy idea to help a 16 year old boy train in his chosen
sports of Gymnastics and Diving became a world sport and a common backyard
toy. Don’t discount the ideas that you
or other kids have. They might just
change the world.
For more, see:
Hevesi, Dennis.
“George Nissan, Father of the Trampoline, dies at 96.” April 13, 2010, New York Times. Found at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/us/13nissen.html?_r=1
_____, MIT Inventor of the week website, March 2004, found
at: http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/nissen.html
Nelson, Valerie J. “George Nissan dies at 96; Inventor of the
Trampoline,” April 10, 2010, Los Angeles Times. Found at:
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/10/local/la-me-george-nissen10-2010apr10apr10
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