Dec. 18, 2007

In the fall of 1891, football was all the rage at the International YMCA Training School for Christian Workers (today Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts. The typical New England winter annually sent the school's physical secretaries indoors where they would spend an hour a day on calisthenics, working out with Indian clubs, heavy apparatus, leap frog, tumbling, marching...mundane activity for active young bodies and active young minds. Before long the young men would begin to show their distaste for repetitive, boring gym work.

Dr. Luther Gulick, physical education department head, concerned about the growing discipline problem these young men presented, picked James Naismith, a member of the faculty at the Training School, and challenged him to "invent a game that will please your classmates. Make `em happy. They're in your charge now."

Born in Canada in 1861, Naismith was a divinity school graduate of McGill University who came to Springfield in the fall of 1890 convinced that there was great potential for spiritual growth and character development in physical exercise and athletics. And these principles would serve as the guiding force as Naismith worked to fulfill Gulick's charge. The game of basketball as originally conceived by Naismith would embody the spiritual and athletic values and principles that Naismith valued most.

Amos Alonzo Stagg, a colleague of Naismith's in Springfield, wrote:

"There is a great furor among the boys in the school over a new game which Naismith our center rusher invented, called basket football. It is played indoors in the gymnasium or some good sized room. Any number of persons on a side. A basket with large enough opening to take the ball easily is hung at each end about eight feet from the floor. The object is for the ball to be thrown or pitched into these baskets. The ball cannot be run with, although no limitations are placed on any one when not having the ball. This of course places a premium on passing the ball to others and so work it down the field. Any one has a right to the ball at all times if he can get it."

Naismith faced the challenge put before him earnestly, as he usually did with such a test. His previous experiences brought him knowledge of outdoor games and the comparative values of such games. Shortly before his death, Naismith explained that he rejected all of the games he had been familiar with, football, rugby, soccer, water polo, field hockey, and lacrosse because they could not be adapted to indoor play. But what he did look for were common characteristics.

For example, all of these games involved some kind of ball. This ball should be at least as large as a soccer ball and similarly soft. And the object of these games was to somehow get the ball into a goal. Naismith's genius lie in his visualizing a game played vertically rather than horizontally. Because his game would be played inside with limited space he decided to place the goal high above the field of play and out of reach so that players would have to throw the ball in an arc or curve to score a goal.

Naismith remarked:

"I decided that by making the goal horizontal the ball would have to be thrown in a curve, minimizing the severe driving of a ball. In order to avoid having the defense congregate around the goal, it was placed above their heads, so that once the ball left the shooter's hands, it was not likely to be interfered with."

He also sought a game where there was no contact. The high goal would also limit danger to the goalie of being struck by a hard-thrown ball or of being used en masse. And, perhaps most significantly, he sought a game that was recreational in nature, minimizing competition and rough play.

Naismith again:

"...rules were made to eliminate roughness such as shouldering, pushing, and kicking. The ball was to be handled with hands only. It could not be drawn into the body and thus encourage roughness."

So on the fourteenth day of his quest, Naismith came up with a recreational game that met these criteria and was still vigorous enough to attract football players, simple enough so anyone could play it, difficult enough to challenge even the best, and interesting and competitive enough to satisfy all, and safe enough to play indoors.

In late December, 1891, before the vacation period, Naismith brought his proposed game to his class. The original, handwritten thirteen rules were tacked to the gym wall. There is some dispute as to the exact sequence of the following events, but for certain Naismith selected two of the eighteen students, Eugene Libby and Duncan Patton, as captains of the two teams of nine each.

Had there been more students in the class all of them would have played because Naismith visualized basketball as a game played exclusively for fun and exercise.

Somewhat dubious about Dr. Naismith's new game, the young men listened attentively as he explained what he wanted them to do in the game. The young men, dressed in their standard issue gym suit of black, full-sleeve woolen jerseys, and long, grey trousers, and sporting the handlebar mustaches that were so popular back in the day, quickly lined up on the gymnasium floor in two teams of nine each.

Naismith originally thought boxes of some sort might serve as the goal, however when he approached Building Superintendent, James W. Stebbins, for two boxes 18 x 18 inches to be used as goals Stebbins replied that he had no such boxes. Instead he recommended the use of two half bushel peach baskets.

The baskets were nailed to the edge of the gallery at each end of the gym, ten feet high, the height of the overhang balcony. The bottoms of the baskets remained so if a team was fortunate enough to succeed in making a shot, it would be necessary for someone to go upstairs to the track and take out the ball, dropping it back to the players below.

Over time, someone suggested knocking the bottoms out of the baskets so that the ball would go through and land on the floor. Eventually a long net was added to the hole in the bottom of each basket. Now it would be comparatively easy to tell if the ball had landed in the basket.

The young men greeted Naismith's explanation of his new game with genuine enthusiasm, but during the course of the first match, the teams managed to tally only one score, a halfcourt toss by William R. Chase of New Bedford, Mass.

Almost immediately the game that Naismith had created for fun, exercise, and character building was transformed into an activity destined to pick up speed, intensity, and competition. While the original thirteen rules, published in 1892, have remained at the core of the game, other aspects have changed dramatically, beginning with the peach basket. Wire baskets replaced the peach ones almost immediately. While hardly revolutionary, the new baskets had a hole in the bottom through which a stick could be inserted in order to push the ball out after a goal had been scored. This was a big improvement over having a man bring out a stepladder every time it was necessary to get the ball out of the basket.

According to most credible sources, the first public game was played in Springfield on March 11, 1892. A `crowd' of over 200 spectators attended the first public game played between the "Secretaries" and "Instructors" at the International YMCA School for Christian Workers. Gulick, Naismith, and Amos Alonzo Stagg played for the teachers. The students won 5-1. Stagg, whose roughhouse football tactics annoyed Naismith, tossed the lone goal for the faculty. He also emerged with a black eye.

Basketball is unique among most sports in that all you need to play is a hoop and a ball.

How many of us have endured and enjoyed the loneliness of the solitary basketball player, spring, summer, fall, and winter shooting hoops until the sunlight slipped away?

There is always the gymnasium, the playground, even the office wastepaper basket.

And also unlike other sports, basketball enjoyed considerable popularity from the outset. The spread of Naismith's rules to all parts of the United States and beyond coupled with a widespread need for a game played indoors sparked instant enthusiasm and excitement.

As early as 1893, Senda Berenson Abbott introduced "basket ball" to the women of Smith College in Northampton, Mass. No male spectators were allowed to see the game. Spurred on by members of the YMCAs and those initial few who had seen the first games, basketball rapidly became the game the world played.

It would be a tribute to Naismith's accomplishment to see his creation played for the first time on the Olympic stage at the 1936 Games in Berlin, Germany. A special ceremony was held in his honor on the opening day of the Olympic basketball tournament. On August 14, 1936 Dr. Naismith presented the first Olympic basketball gold medals to the US team that defeated Canada, 19-8, for the championship.