James Naismith

At the Y.M.C.A. International Training School in Springfield, Naismith took courses that combined his two chief interests: spiritual and physical development. He also taught physical education to local youths, and played rugby with the Y.M.C.A.'s team. In the summer months, Y.M.C.A. youths enjoyed a wide range of sports, including football, baseball, and track and field, which peaked in interest in the 1870s and '80s. But the athletes' winter options—mainly calisthenics, gymnastics, and drills—were much more limited.

In the winter of 1891, during his second year with the Springfield Y.M.C.A., Naismith found himself in charge of the indoor physical education program. His students consisted primarily of bored, troublemaking youths and of mature men who had begun to tire of the indoor sports options. Realizing that interest in the indoor program was beginning to wane, the head physical education instructor, Luther Gulick, charged Naismith and his co-trainees with the task of developing new indoor games. Gulick gave the trainees two weeks to come up with their new games, and to submit proposals for them. Naismith rose to the challenge.

To create a new sport, Naismith looked for inspiration to outdoor sports like soccer, lacrosse, and football, and attempted to modify them to suit an indoor format. But since the game would be played on a hardwood floor, sports involving excessive running, tackling, and rough-housing were out of the question. Brainstorming for other ideas, Naismith recalled a childhood game called "duck on the rock," which involved throwing balls into empty boxes or baskets. Realizing that the baskets or boxes, placed at opposite ends of a court, would make good goals, he adopted them for his new game. To pose more of a challenge to players, and to emphasize skill instead of force as a key to winning, Naismith decided to raise the goals above the players' heads.

His new game was beginning to take shape, and the head instructor, Gulick, was beginning to take notice. In fact, Gulick chose Naismith's plan over the other trainees' proposals, and helped him develop some rules for a promising new indoor sport. Four basic rules were the among the first to be adopted: (1) no running with the ball in hand (hence the practice of "dribbling"), (2) no tackling or rough body contact, (3) a horizontal goal above players' heads, and (4) freedom of any player to obtain the ball and score at any time.

With the help of a janitor, Naismith found two empty peach baskets that were about 15 inches in diameter around the top. With a hammer and nails, he secured them to the rails of two lower balconies on opposite ends of the gymnasium, about ten feet above the floor. (In these early days, the basket retained its bottom, and a step ladder was placed next to the basket for retrieval of the ball.) He was then ready to try out his new game with his students, who at the time did not realize they were making sports history. On that day in December 1891, they were players in the first-ever game of basketball. The new sport was an instant hit.

News about the game spread quickly, as the Y.M.C.A.'s nationwide newspaper, the Triangle, printed an article about the new game, along with thirteen formal rules, in January 1892. American military and naval academies also adopted the game, and arranged tournaments at home and abroad. And since the Springfield Y.M.C.A. was an international training school, trainees from around the world got wind of "basket ball," and took the game with them to their home countries. Within only two years, basketball had made its debut in more than a dozen countries.