While Basketball has fans all around the world, not a lot of people know how it started. Unlike some other sports, Basketball’s creation can be traced back to one person, James Naismith.
James Naismith was a Canadian-American teacher, physician, and sports coach. He was born in Almonte, Ontario, where he studied and became a physical education instructor at McGill University. In 1890, he moved to Springfield Massachusettes, and became an instructor at a local YMCA school, where he took on the role of director of athletics.
In 1891 Naismith was given 2 weeks by his boss, Dr. Luther Gulick to create an indoor sport that could be played during the winter. He did this by thinking about his favorite sports that he had played. As a child, Naismith played a game called Duck on a Rock, in which the objective was to knock down a large stone by throwing smaller rocks at it. He used this concept as inspiration for his new sport but still made many changes and additions to make his game unique.
His idea was to have a ball be thrown into boxes, instead of being used to knock something over. Also to make the game more unique and reduce physical contact, he decided to raise the goal so that there could be no single person defending it.
Once Naismith had the basic idea for his game he asked a janitor for a soccer ball and two boxes but was given peach baskets instead, which he hung 10 feet up on the gym's balcony. The game did not have many rules but he thought it was easy enough to understand and ready to test out.
On December 21, 1891, Naismith called students into the gym for the first-ever game of basketball. Naismith divided them up into teams of nine and gave them a little soccer ball and showed them two peach baskets he nailed up at each end of the gym, and told them the idea was to throw the ball into the opposing team’s peach basket. He blew the whistle, and the first game of basketball began.
As the game went on it was not going exactly as Naismith had expected. The problem was that he had provided very few rules for the first game, resulting in the players immediately starting to tackle and punch each other to try and get the ball. By the end of the first game, there were many injuries and one boy was even knocked out. The game had been violent but the boys enjoyed it, and they wanted to play it more often. Naismith agreed, but he was worried about the large number of injuries, so he made up some new rules. The most significant rule change was making running with the ball illegal as this was when injuries most commonly occurred. After trying the game again with new rules, Naismith's new game was a success, and the first public game took place at the school on March 12, 1892.
After the first public game, basketball grew quickly thanks to the YMCA. The rules of the game were printed and mailed to YMCAs throughout the country, to help spread the game. Naismith’s college also had a large number of international students, who helped introduce the sport to foreign nations. In 1894, the soccer ball, which had been used in basketball, was replaced with its own ball, making the game easier to play. This is because at the time soccer balls had laces on them, making them harder to handle. As the game quickly spread, professional leagues began forming around the country, and the first professional league, The National Basketball League, was formed in 1898.
As an increasing number of leagues formed and schools started playing basketball, the game became an official winter sport in 1905. In 1906, the peach baskets were removed from the game and replaced by metal hoops with backboards. The game continued to grow until the National Basketball Association that we know today was formed in 1946.
Sources:
“James Naismith.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Oct. 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Naismith.
Klein, Christopher. “Who Invented Basketball?” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 15 Dec. 2016, https://www.history.com/news/how-a-canadian-invented-basketball.
Toole, Tucker C. “Here's the History of Basketball-from Peach Baskets in Springfield to Global Phenomenon.” History, National Geographic, 4 May 2021, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/basketball-only-major-sport-invented-united-states-how-it-was-created.