James Naismith
From Hoopedia
By Robin Deutsch and Douglas Stark
from the NBA Encyclopedia
(November 6, 1861 – November 28, 1939) The father of basketball was a high school dropout who eventually earned four college degrees. Dr. James A. Naismith was a modest man who neither sought publicity nor engaged in self-promotion. He was a remarkably versatile and humble man who in 1891 invented a game that is now played by more people than any game in the world.
It's doubtful that even Naismith's creative mind could have envisioned his game's vast global popularity little more than a century later, or a National Basketball Association consisting of 29 teams spanning North America. All he was seeking was an indoor activity that would provide an outlet for sometimes-unruly students during the long, cold New England winters.
In late 1891, Dr. Luther Halsey Gulick Jr., the superintendent of physical education at the International YMCA Training School (now Springfield College) in Springfield, Mass., challenged Naismith to create a new indoor game "that would be interesting, easy to learn, and easy to play in the winter and by artificial light." Naismith reflected on popular games of the day (baseball, football, lacrosse, rugby and soccer) and the games from his childhood (duck on a rock), and assembled the pieces that would become Basket Ball. It would be 30 years before it would be shortened to one word.
Naismith had the school janitor, Pop Stebbins, nail two peach baskets to the lower rail of the gymnasium balcony, one at each end, while the secretary, Mrs. Lyons, typed the original 13 rules. Then he nervously awaited his students' arrival.
"There were 18 in the class," Naismith said years later. "I selected two captains and had them choose sides. I placed the men on the floor. There were three forwards, three centers and three backs on each team. I chose two of the center men to jump, then threw the ball between them. It was the start of the first basketball game and the finish of trouble with that class." (See article on The First Team.)
The game was an immediate success. On December 21, 1891 the students played the entire class period and finished the game with a 1-0 score. Within a few weeks, basketball quickly spread on campus by word of mouth and across the United States through the YMCA network.
Naismith was a humanitarian who cared deeply about the well-being of others. He was a minister who regularly spoke to civic organizations later in life. He was a doctor by degree, although he never actually practiced medicine. He was a physical education instructor who lived by the credo "a sound mind is a sound body."
As a teen, Naismith worked as a lumberjack, but eventually he became a Presbyterian minister. At a time when he should have been contemplating retirement, the 55-year-old Naismith volunteered for the Kansas National Guard and served a short term of duty as a chaplain during the 1916 Mexican border war against Pancho Villa. And that was after he invented the football helmet. Basketball was only one piece of Naismith's colorful life.
Naismith always felt his mission was to improve the way people lived their lives, both athletically and socially. He earned a degree in religion from Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Montreal in 1890, but was never affiliated with a church because he wanted to combine his love of sports with his religious interests. In 1939, he was honored with a Doctor of Divinity degree from Presbyterian.
Although Naismith was particularly productive while in Massachusetts--inventing basketball in 1891 and the football helmet during the same period--he didn't rest on his laurels. He left Springfield in 1895 and traveled to Colorado, where he studied medicine at Gross Medical School and served as physical education director at the Denver YMCA. In 1898, Naismith moved to Kansas and embarked on a 39-year career as professor of physical education and chaplain at the University of Kansas. Ironically, the inventor of basketball is the only coach in Kansas men's history with a losing record (55-60).
While Naismith did not benefit financially from his invention, he was afforded a glimpse of the game's potential appeal in 1936 when he attended the Berlin Olympics, where basketball was played as a medal sport for the first time.
One popular historical textbook in 1995 listed Naismith as the fourth (of 100) most influential sports figures in America in the 20th century. If Naismith were alive to hear what he would consider nonsensical banter, he would laugh and wonder what all the fuss was about.
That was James Naismith.
