In 1891, 31-year-old Canadian graduate student James Naismith needed to solve a problem in Springfield, MA, where he worked as a gym teacher at a YMCA (now Springfield College). His students, forced indoors because of winter, had become rowdy and needed a way to stay in shape. They had a lot of energy, but no way to burn it off. It was too cold to play football and baseball, and too dangerous to play those sports in the gym.
The school asked Naismith to think of a new indoor sport. Naismith remembered a rock-tossing game he played as a child. How about a game where players threw a ball at a target? The team that tossed the most balls into the target would win.
Naismith called his new game “basketball”.
A photo of Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, practicing with his wife in 1928.
Two peach baskets and a soccer ball were the equipment. Naismith put the baskets at each end of the gym, nailed 10 feet above the floor. The teams each had nine players. Naismith threw the ball in the air for the first tipoff. On December 21, 1891, the game of basketball was born in Springfield, Massachusetts.
However, since there were no rules, the game became very rough with a lot of ‘tackling’ between the players. So, finally Naismith wrote up 13 rules, the first of which is that players could not run with the ball.
The new sport quickly grew in popularity. Naismith’s students went on to become teachers and coaches, spreading the game. Teams sprung up at high schools and colleges. Boys and girls across the nation began playing basketball.
Basketball became an Olympic sport in 1936. For the first Olympic basketball game, Naismith tossed the ball for the tipoff.
The game James Naismith invented as a winter “distraction” had turned into a global sport.
For his new game Naismith selected features of football (soccer), American football, field hockey, and other outdoor sports but (in theory) eliminated body contact between players.
Because his physical education class at that time was composed of 18 men, basketball originally was played by 9 on each side (eventually reduced to 5).
The first games employed half-bushel peach baskets as targets, so a stepladder was needed to retrieve the ball after infrequent goals. Naismith’s original rules, prohibiting walking or running with the ball and limiting physical contact, are still the basis of a game that spread throughout the world.
In 1898 Naismith received an M.D. from Gross Medical College, Denver, Colorado, afterward the University of Colorado School of Medicine. From that year until 1937 he was chairman of the physical education department at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, where he also coached basketball until 1908. In addition to basketball, he is credited with inventing the protective helmet for football players. The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Springfield, Massachusetts, was incorporated in 1959.
About Dr. James Naismith
James Naismith, (born November 6, 1861, Almonte, Ontario, Canada, dies November 28, 1939, Lawrence, Kansas, U.S.), was a Canadian-American physical-education director who, in December 1891, at the International Young Men’s Christian Association Training School, afterward Springfield (Massachusetts) College, invented the game of basketball.
————————————