In 1891, James Naismith, a Canadian-American physical
educator, invented basketball.
James Naismith was a sports coach and innovator from Canada.
In 1891, he invented basketball, and he is also credited with designing the
first football helmet. He wrote the first basketball rulebook and founded the
University of Kansas basketball program. For his contributions to sports,
Naismith has received numerous posthumous honors. He died on November 28, 1939,
in Kansas, at the age of 78.
James Naismith Early Life
Naismith was born on November 6, 1861, in Almonte, Ontario,
Canada, the second child of Scottish immigrants. In 1894, he married Maude
Evelyn Sherman in Springfield, Massachusetts, and they had five children. In
1925, he became an American citizen.
Why Naismith Created Basketball
Naismith left his position as athletics director at McGill
University in Montreal around the age of 30 to teach physical education at the
YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts. Naismith was
tasked by his boss with developing an indoor sports game to help athletes stay
in shape during the harsh New England winters. This new game had to be
"fair for all players and not too rough," according to Naismith's
boss.
The end result was a basketball game. Naismith invented
basketball in 1891, with 13 basic rules and 10-foot-high peach baskets as the
goals for each 9-player team.
The game had grown so popular by 1893 that the YMCA began
promoting it internationally, and it served as a demonstration sport at the
Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904. By 1936, the sport had become
an official event at the Berlin Summer Olympics. Naismith lived long enough to
witness the birth of the National Invitation Tournament (1938) and the NCAA
Tournament (1946). (1939).
James Naismith Enthusiasm for Physical Education
Despite the fact that his new sport was taking off, Naismith
was said to be more interested in his career as a physical educator. In 1898,
he moved to Denver to pursue his medical degree after leaving the YMCA in
Springfield, Massachusetts. He then established a basketball program at the
University of Kansas, where he began a long line of prestigious basketball
coaches, beginning with Phog Allen, who famously coached ace
players-turned-coaches Adolph Rupp, Dean Smith, and Ralph Miller. Naismith's
tenure at the University of Kansas spanned nearly four decades. In 1937, he was
a founding member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball,
which later became the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics
(NAIA). During his lifetime and after his death, he received numerous sports
awards.
James Naismith Death and Legacy
Naismith suffered a severe brain hemorrhage in 1939. He died
nine days later, on November 28, 1939, at the age of 78, in his Lawrence,
Kansas, home. Basketball ” its Origins and Development, his seminal work, was
published two years after his death.
