Generally sports evolve over time from pastimes that people started to play informally. Not so with basketball, history indicates that it has the honour of being a planned or designed game. Basketball was invented in December 1891 by the Canadian clergyman, educator, and physician James Naismith. He wanted to devise a game that emphasized skill rather than one that would depend solely on strength.
Naismiths students, who were studying to be Pe teachers, were justifiably irritated doing just excercises and tumbling during those long New England winters. They were desperate for active team games. His first intention was to bring indoors, outdoor games such as soccer and lacrosse.
Naismiths formula for basketball was founded in a basic child’s game he had played outside his one-room schoolhouse as a child, which was called “duck-on-a-rock”. The game involved attempting to knock a “duck” off the pinnacle of a large rock by tossing another rock at it. Early basketball evolved from this idea. The first basketball match was played with a soccer ball, vegetable baskets and nine men to each team. This first basketball game is understood to have been played Dec. 21, 1891. By 1897-1898, teams of five took the job of standard.
About James Naismith:
Naismith eventually was promoted to master of the physical education department at Kansas, and designed the first golf course in Kansas. His favorite sport was fencing at which he was excellent. He created basketball for fun, as a basic physical education activity, not as something to be taken seriously! Naismith often said, “Basketball is just a game to play. It doesn’t need a coach you don’t coach basketball, you just play it.”
Nevertheless, he was promoted to basketball coach at Kansas in 1900, and was beaten in his first game 48-8 to Nebraska. He coached for eight years and his won-loss record was barely 50%. But he began a strong Kansas tradition.
For years, the Kansas Jayhawks had one of the most winning programs in all of college basketball. Phog Allen (Kansas, record: 590-219), Adolph Rupp (Kentucky), and Dean Smith (North Carolina) were all Jayhawks. Naismith never patented his game, and did not make any money from it. Legal friends advised that he get a patent, however he was always expressly against the idea. Later his bank balance was so bad that his home in Kansas was repossessed by the bank. Dr. Naismith worked with the famous football coach, Amos Alonzo Stagg. Naismith’s personal diaries, discovered by his granddaughter in early 2006, tell us that naismith was not confident in the new game he had designed as many other created pastimes had failed before it. Dr Naismith never benefitted monetarily from basketball but his name will live for being the man who invented basketball.
