James Naismith

Week Two Article Summary

James Naismith

Being a high school basketball coach, and with the vision of being a college coach one day, I thought that it would be interesting to write about the founder of basketball.

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 basketball. In 1893, James Naismith replaced the peach basket with iron hoops and a hammock-style basket. Ten years later came the open вЂ"ended nets of today. Before that, you had to retrieve your ball from the basket every time you scored.

James Naismith was born in Ramsey township, near Almonte, Ontario, Canada and attended McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. After serving as McGill’s Athletic Director, James Naismith moved on to work at the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891. The game of basketball was inspired by a children’s game James Naismith knew called duck-on-a-rock, in which players throw a small rock at a “duck” placed on top of a large rock in an attempt to knock the “duck” off. The first game of basketball was played with a soccer ball and two peach baskets used as goals. After changing the peach baskets for open hoop nets, James Naismith soon wrote the Thirteen Official Rules of Basketball.

It’s very interesting to think of where we have come with sports. The early founders don’t receive enough recognition for what we have today. Basketball is one of the greatest games, I believe.

References:

Belle, M About.Com: Inventors

Website: http://inventor.about.com/library/inventors/blbasketball.htm