James Naismith Bio - James Naismith

By: Mary Bellis

In December 1891, Canadian-born James Naismith, a physical education teacher at the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) 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-ended nets of today. Before that, you had to retrieve your ball from the basket every time you scored.
James Naismith - Background

James Naismith was born in Ramsay 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. While at Springfield, James Naismith invented basketball as a sport to play indoors during the cold Massachusetts winters. 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 thirteen official rules for the game.