Trampoline Inventor Saw His Sport Enshrined in Olympics

By STEPHEN MILLER

Although some wags held that the modern trampoline was the brainchild of a personal-injury lawyer, it was invented by George Nissen.

Mr. Nissen, who died Wednesday at age 96, was a schoolboy tumbler who said he was inspired to devise the trampoline in 1934 after watching circus aerialists do flips while bouncing in the net beneath the trapeze.

While smaller trampolines—sometimes called "bouncing beds"—had been used by circus clowns and vaudevillians, it was Mr. Nissen who thought to build a large-scale one that could support a sustained routine of tricks. His invention ended up in gyms around the world, giving rise to a new sport that in 2000 made it into the Olympics.

Mr. Nissen was a native of Blairstown, Iowa, a small town otherwise noted for its annual Sauerkraut Days festival. He liked to tell the story of being inspired by flying trapeze artists after he worked his way into the big top visiting nearby Cedar Rapids by toting water for the elephants.

"I said, 'Jeez, if you wanted to, you could keep rebounding into other tricks,' " Mr. Nissen said in a 2006 interview with Acrobatic Sport magazine.

Mr. Nissen's first trampoline was jury-rigged, with a frame made of scrap metal and springs of cut-up inner tubes supporting a sheet of canvas. When the New York Times asked him in 2000 whether there were casualties from his first apparatus, Mr. Nissen responded, "Surprisingly, no."

After graduating from the University of Iowa in 1937, Mr. Nissen joined with two classmates to form an acrobatic troupe called the Three Leonardos. They performed at fairs and carnivals across North America. It was while touring Mexico City that Mr. Nissen said he was inspired to name his invention "trampoline," after a Spanish word for diving board.

In partnership with his university gymnastics coach, Mr. Nissen in the early 1940s founded the Griswold-Nissen Trampoline & Tumbling Co. They had few customers at first, but then found a ready market in the U.S. military, which used trampolines to train pilots and parachutists.

Returning to the business after a stint in the Navy during World War II, Mr. Nissen began spending long periods on the road demonstrating trampolines at schools and other institutions.

"He was an ambassador for the trampoline," says Jeff Hennessy, a famed trampoline coach who was introduced to the sport by Mr. Nissen.

To garner publicity, Mr. Nissen had his picture taken bouncing alongside a kangaroo. Sales jumped as eminences including then-Vice President Richard Nixon, Yul Brynner and King Farouk of Egypt purchased trampolines.

A national fad of "bounce centers" took hold in the early 1960s, but Mr. Nissen didn't approve of them, because they tended to be poorly equipped and encouraged dangerous maneuvers. It was during this period that the problem of trampoline injuries became apparent, news articles from the era suggest.

With several trampoline patents to his credit, Mr. Nissen also invented a self-inflating seat he dubbed the Bunsaver Air Cushion, and he designed and manufactured improved gymnastics equipment. He invented a trampoline sport resembling volleyball he called "Spaceball," and contemplated "rebound races" in which in-line skaters would barrel straight into a vertically mounted trampoline, eliminating the need to slow to turn around.

Always active, Mr. Nissen performed handstands and trampoline back flips into his 80s. He attended the 2000 Sydney Olympics to watch trampoline become an official Olympic sport.

"That was always my goal and my dream," Mr. Nissen told Reuters at the games. "The struggle and the journey—that's the Olympic spirit."