The Trampoline: Bouncing into Innovation

On March sixth, nineteen forty five, the patent for the tumbling device was granted, which is better known today as the trampoline. Here's a story behind this amazing invention today on Daily Sport's History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. Now, to understand the origins of the trampoline, we have to go back even farther than nineteen forty five, when George Nissen, who was a gymnast a didn't a circus in nineteen thirty and saw the acrobats jumping around and falling in giant nets. He got the idea of what if you could jump on those soft bouncy nets. The idea led to a craze and a new sport of tramp Now, before George could go on to create this invention, he actually was a great athlete himself. He was a three time NCAA gymnastic champion while at the University of Iowa, and while there he had a great relationship with his coach, Larry Griswold, and together in thirty four, they built a prototype trampoline with angle iron a canvas bed and rubber springs, and Nissan would take this trampoline all around as After college, he joined an acrobatic group called the Three Leonardos and they would tour mainly Texas and Mexico, and that's where he got the name trampoline. While they were touring Mexico. People keep calling it from tramponine in Spanish, which means springboard or diving board in English. He would go on to trademark that name, which has become synonymous with the piece of equipment we all enjoyed bounce on today. By nineteen forty one, he continued to make advances to the device, including getting rid of the rubber springs for metal ones to enhance durability and bounce, and getting rid of the canvas for netting, and he started the Griswold Nelson Trampling and Tumbling Company, later to just transform into the Nelson Company when Griswold left the company for personal reasons, but Nisson wouldn't give up on his dream of making this reality. He'd loved fitness and was in great shape his entire life, and he continued touring around the nation showing off his device at different conventions. Fares and expos so that anyone could see what was going on, and in World War Two he got a big break when the US Armed Forces wanted to use it to help train their pilots, and he also joined the Navy in nineteen forty three. After the war, he started national rebound tumbling competitions in nineteen forty seven and would marry a Dutch acrobat in nineteen fifty named Annie. This is when he took his trampoline around the world and would get over fifty manufacturers to help market and make his trampoline device, and the nineteen sixties he would go on to help NASA in their journey to get to the Moon and help train their astronauts, and they would even go on to make a game called Spaceball, which has nothing to do with the movie. It's an actual game where a three sided trampoline one on the bottom of two angled upwards that you can jump into, and a hoop hanging above it, and they would shoot a basketball through it and became known as baseball. It was a great experience for astronauts to take a little break. Popularity for the trampoline continued to grow and grow as Nissen never gave up promoting his invention until it reached the pinnacle of what he thought when trampolining was featured in the Olympics in the two thousand Sydney Games and he was able to witness this at eighty six years old and was a great honor for him. He would eventually go on to sell his company, but he never gave up promoting the sport, and even his daughter, who was a world champion trampoliner, continues to this day to train and help trampoliners, and sadly, George passed away in twenty ten at the age of ninety six, but lived a full life and got to see how much potential his invention had on the world. Today, trampolines are used in almost every training around. Their use for workouts, as exercise equipment, their use for a sport in trampolining, or rehab for athletes coming back from injuries, or just kids having fun. Yes, there have been injuries that come from this device, and it's gotten safer over the years, but it's undeniable the impact trampolines have had on the world and have changed how sports are trained and how injuries are mitigated. Thank you for joining us today on Daily Sports History. If you like this, please rate and review wherever you're listening. We'd love to hear how much you love in the show. And come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History.