The Invention of Basketball

By: Perry Kaplan

Growing up James Naismith was born in 1861 in Ramsay

township, Ontario, Canada. When he was barely 9 years old, his parents, John and Margaret Naismith passed away from the disease typhoid fever. He and his brother and sister were orphaned. They spent the next two years living with their grandmother in Bennie's Corners. Four years later in 1873, James grandmother died. The Naismith kids, James, Annie, and Robbie, were left to be taken care of by their uncle, Peter Young. James was raised most of his childhood in Bennie's Corners, Canada. It is a small town of 75 people. Naismith liked to work in the family fields and woods. He went to Almonte High School, but dropped out after 2 years, to work at a lumber camp, even though his athletic abilities were greater than his academic skills. However, after a 5-year break, he joined school again and completed his secondary education. He earned a B.A in physical education at McGill University in Montreal.

Inventions• In December 1891, Canadian-born James

Naismith, a physical education teacher at the YMCA training school, took a soccer ball and a peach basket into the gym and invented the game of basketball. In 1893, James Naismith replaced the peach basket with iron hoops and a hammock-style basket. Ten years later came the open-ended nets of today. Before that, you had to retrieve your ball from the basket every time you scored. The original game that basket ball was based off of was called duck on a rockthe object of duck on a rock was to hit a duck on top of a rock with another rock.The first basketball was a leather volleyball. The NBA has nothing to do with the invention of basketball. Naismith invented the sport of basketball in 1891 and is often credited with introducing the first football helmet. The first ever college basketball game was played on January 18, 1896, when the University of Iowa invited student athletes from the new University of Chicago for an experimental game. The final score was Chicago 15, Iowa 12, a bit different from the hundred-point scores of today. In 1963, college games were first broadcast on national TV, but it wasn't until the 1980s that sports fans ranked basketball up there with football and baseball.

career• Naismith was a star gymnast, lacrosse player

and football player at McGill University, where he graduated among the top ten of his class with a B.A. Honors in 1887. In 1885-86 he won the Wicksteed Silver Medal as the gymnastics champion of the school's junior class. In his graduating year, he won the prestigious Wicksteed Gold Medal as the top athlete of the university's senior class. He coached and was the first coach for the Kansas Jayhawks men’s basketball team. This is now one of the top programs in the country. Naismith wrote the original basketball rulebook, founded the University of Kansas basketball program, and lived to see basketball adopted as an Olympic demonstration sport in 1904.

Accomplishments• Naismith's contributions to

basketball have earned him several honors, such as in the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame, the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame, the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, the Ontario Sports Legends Hall of Fame, the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame, the McGill University Sports Hall of Fame, the Kansas State Sports Hall of Fame and the FIBA Hall of Fame. The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame carries his name.

James Naismith Memorial

Equipment integration

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SOURCEShttp://inventors.com/library/inventors/blbasketball.htmhttp://www.kansasheritage.org/people/naismith.htmlhttp://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art967.asphttp://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-143524382.htmlhttp://www.naismithmuseum.com/naismith_drjamesnaismith/main_drjamesnaismith.htm