EXCLUSIVE STORY

Papa Jimmy
The grandson of James Naismith remembers the game's inventor as a delightful and sweet man who loved to laugh and have fun.

By Stuart Naismith with Douglas Stark

I do not remember James Naismith as a great basketball man. Instead, I remember him as a grandfather. We called him Papa Jimmy. His wife, Maude, we called Mama Naisee. I did not know that they had any other names beside Papa Jimmy and Mama Naisee.

Papa Jimmy was a delightful, sweet man. He was a very nice grandfather. He used to take us fishing and play with us. He always laughed. He was always fun.

The one big fishing trip that I remember was in 1933 and Papa Jimmy took us trout fishing. He was there along with my maternal grandfather, my father and my brother Jim. There were five of us. I was really too little at the time. I was only five years old in 1933, but they took me along any way.

I remember everyone was walking across a swamp and was stepping from bog to bog. My little legs would not quite make it and I kept falling into the creek. It was muddy and nasty. I was scared and hollered. So, everyone had to carry me to the fishing pond where everyone caught a mess of trout. On the way back, we did some target shooting.

On those trips Papa Jimmy used to tell stories, usually the type of stories you told children. He talked about Canada, about being a boy, about skating and fishing, working, about being in the outdoors in Ontario.

Contrary to what people might think, my grandfather never talked about basketball to me. He talked about athletics such as running and swimming. He spoke a great deal about sportsmanship and how to deal with people. He talked about how to try to win and how not to brag or blow your own horn. He said that even in victory you should congratulate your opponent. He was a sportsman. He was also a medical doctor and he was very interested in human and infant development.

THE YOUNG PAPA JIMMY
My grandfather's lifelong interest in sports, sportsmanship and human development began in Almonte, Ontario, in 1861. My grandfather had two siblings, Annie and Robbie. In 1970, his father John took a job on Calumet Island and within months a typhoid epidemic came and claimed the lives of my great grandparents. My grandfather was orphaned at age nine. So, he was raised by his Uncle Pete, who was his mother's brother, and his sister Annie on the farm in Almonte.

Papa Jimmy grew up on a farm and went to school at Bennie's Corner. He liked to play a game called Duck on a Rock, in which people would toss a stone, called a duck, on top of a rock. During the winters, he liked to skate on Canada's Mississippi River. He did not have skates and was too proud to ask for a pair, so he went into his grandfather's shop and built his own with some hickory and harness leather. He was an inventive youth.

As he grew into his teens, he was renowned for his strength and agility. He used to shock grain. James was fast at tying shocks. He would tie a shock, throw it into the air and tie up another shock before the first one landed. He also worked in the woods a lot and was a good horseman. One time the Mississippi River was frozen over and he thought the ice was strong enough to cross. It was not and the horse foundered and went through the ice. He worked and finally got the horse out of the water. When he was finished, he saw his Uncle Pete watching, who said, "He got himself into that pickle and he will have to get himself out." And he did. That was the type of childhood my grandfather had.

My grandfather attended high school in Almonte, but halfway through, went working in the woods lumbering. At the time, he had some money and lived a wild life. He drank whiskey and it did not show well with him. One time, he encountered an old acquaintance who said, "Your mother would roll over in her grave if she could see you now." That was the last time he ever took a drink because he thought it would displease his mother. He was totally sober the rest of his life.

My grandfather enrolled in McGill University in Montreal to study for the ministry. He did not engage in athletics and spent all his time studying. Some lads came to him and said, "Now, Jim, you should not be spending all this time on your studies. You should be enjoying life and engaging in sports because it's good for you physically."

He went to the gymnasium where he played tumbling (gymnastics using the horses, rings and bars), soccer, lacrosse and fencing. Oddly, some of the faculty got after him about spending all his time with sports, but Papa Jimmy knew that he could play sports and also be a minister. He realized that sportsmanship was not isolated from a goodly life and he decided that he was going to do both.

PAPA JIMMY INVENTS BASKETBALL
By the time he finished at McGill, he had become the head of the sports program at the college. A few years later, he was offered a job at the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts.

While in Springfield in December 1891, he originated the game of basketball. Dr. Luther Gulick, the head of the YMCA Training School and my grandfather's instructor, told my grandfather, "Jim, I want you to think up something that these young men can do that will be good for them physically and that they will not hate so much as they do gymnastics so that they will be in a better humor."

Papa Jimmy reflected on what he wanted the game to be. He wanted a safe game, a sportsmanship game. He wanted a goal, one that was elevated so as to obviate the possibility of injury. He remembered his childhood game Duck on a Rock that involved tossing, so he concluded that the goals would be elevated. Eventually he sat down and wrote the rules for the game of basketball and they are very similar to those that are used today.

Despite inventing the game of basketball, my grandfather did not spend much time thinking of ways of improving the game. Although he is known for basketball, he did many other things that appealed to his interests, such as the ministry, counseling and sportsmanship.

My grandfather was never particularly interested in money. He never made any and he never had any. At a later time in his life, he was offered a considerable amount of money by one of the tobacco companies to endorse cigarettes. It was the only big money he was ever offered. He refused on the basis of his abhorrence of cigarettes.

After basketball was born, my grandfather became the director of the YMCA in Denver, Colorado and became interested in medicine and working on the physical development of males, females, children and infants. As a result, he pursued a medical degree at Gross Point Medical School. While in Denver, he experienced a terrible tragedy. He was spotting a young lad in gymnastics and the child fell and broke his neck and later died. My grandfather was heartbroken. It was one of the great tragedies of his life.

Shortly thereafter, he was offered the job of director of education and dean of men at the University of Kansas. He liked the idea of counseling young men and remained there the rest of his life.

While at Kansas, my grandfather became the first basketball coach in the school's history. Interestingly, he is the only coach in Kansas' storied basketball tradition with a career losing record. He felt that basketball did not need a coach. He looked upon basketball as a game to play, get physical exercise and to gain skills. However, one of his students, Phog Allen, disagreed, and felt the game should be coached. My grandfather never did agree with that thinking.

ONE OF GOD'S NOBLEMEN
His fondness for counseling young men and his sense of right and wrong eventually led him to cross paths with John McLendon. A Hall of Fame coach, John McLendon was the father of American black basketball and was one of god's true gentlemen.

John McLendon was a student of my grandfather's at Kansas in the early 1930s. When he was in high school in Kansas, he told his father that he wanted to be a basketball coach and to study basketball. John wanted to go away to school. His father replied, "Why do you want to go away to school? If you want to learn about basketball, the fellow that originated the game of basketball is right here at the University of Kansas, so why don't you go there?"

So, John enrolled and went to my grandfather's office and said, "My name is John McLendon and I am here to learn to be a basketball coach. You are to be my advisor."

My grandfather replied, "Who said that I am supposed to be your advisor?"

McLendon replied, "My father said so."

"Well, fathers are always right, so I must be your advisor," answered Naismith.

My grandfather did follow basketball, but he was not preoccupied with it. Basketball followed him rather than he followed basketball. I remember that he took me to a game in 1937 in Madison Square Garden. The game featured Long Island University, led by Hall of Fame coach Clair Bee, against another school. I was 10 years old at the time. I recall that he stood in line and bought his ticket like everybody else. That was his nature.

We watched the game and it was a good spirited game. Papa Jimmy enjoyed it. He did not holler or hoot or shout. He smiled and applauded but made no spectacle of himself. At some point during the game, someone in the audience recognized him. The game was stopped and a spotlight was shown on him and he was announced to the audience. The entire crowd at Madison Square Garden stood up and applauded. He nodded and accepted the applause and then sat down. After the game, he took us out to dinner. He had tripe, which is chopped up cow's stomach. He thought it was wonderful. I probably had a hamburger.

That was the last time I saw him.

BASKETBALL'S PRACTICAL JOKER
Despite his unassuming nature, James Naismith loved to laugh and loved to play practical jokes on people. He had a wonderful sense of humor. One time, my grandfather brought home a goat named Jasbol. It was a mean male goat that butted people. It terrified the neighbors, but he thought it was a great joke. It once butted my grandfather and he still thought it was funny.

One time, Jasbol got out of the yard and saw a trolley coming down the tracks and he decided that he was going to take on the trolley. The trolley driver did not want to run over the goat and instead shooed the goat off the track. However, the goat chased the driver back into the car and transportation was at an impasse. After the matter was settled, Jasbol retired to a farm outside the city. I do not think the Naismith household ever had a pet again.

As much as he was devoted to his wife, Maude, he still loved practical jokes. My grandmother always wanted a diamond ring, but my grandfather never had enough money. One year for Christmas, Papa Jimmy told my grandmother that she was going to get a piece of carbon. Of course she thought she was going to get a diamond. When he gave her the box it contained a big chunk of anthracite coal. She was heart broken and he was ashamed of himself. Shortly thereafter, he bought her a diamond.

Papa Jimmy loved to tell stories, play the banjo, listen to Scottish music and watch movies. He was particularly fond of westerns and Steve Mix, who was a great western hero at that time. He would hoot and holler when Steve Mix chased the bandits.

His students wanted to know when Doc Naismith went to the movies because if you sat in the back you got two shows for the price of one. One was on the screen and the other was watching Doc jump around in his seat!

My grandfather was a great horseman but a terrible driver. He sometimes used to preach at neighboring churches in town when the local ministers were absent. One time, he was driving on a Sunday morning and he was practicing his sermon and waving his arm, and of course, he forgot he was driving. The car flipped. My pregnant mother was in the car, but she got out all right. A couple local farmers helped roll the car over and they arrived at church on time, where he delivered his sermon.

He was a man who promoted sportsmanship, good feeling, camaraderie and dignity. Although I can not speak for him, I think that he would be appalled by the game today. He used to tell me never to show off or to express outward pleasure when succeeding in something over an opponent. He always felt that it is important to support your opponents because without them you would not even have a game. I think that he would be shocked and probably not pleasantly surprised at the great money and pressure for money in sports. He would probably be disappointed that it is not easy to go down and, for a small admission, watch a game.

Despite that, I think that he would recognize the game today. It is basically the same game that he originated with the goal, competitiveness and structure of the game. I think that he would be surprised by the height and size of the players. People were not giants in his day. When he originated it, it was for ordinary people.

As for myself, I am not a big basketball fan, but I will go see a high school game once in a while. I enjoy watching the girls play because they play a good team game. I am not interested in slam dunks and showing off at the end of the court or hanging onto the net. It is not the game I enjoy watching.

At times, it has been difficult being Stu Naismith. People will sometimes come up to me and say "Naismith, just like the basketball fellow?" I can usually accept that with aplomb. People assume that I can play the game, but I was never really good at the game. I have tended to stay away from the game. I could never have lived up to unrealistic expectations.

When I speak with people who knew my grandfather, there are two words that come to mind. They say he was a lovely man and a sweet man. These are adjectives that we normally do not attribute to a man.

What I want people to remember about my grandfather is that he was a very simple and unassuming man. He had two precepts in life -- honesty and kindness.

Above all, he was a very kind man. He preached acceptance, tolerance and love, qualities he passed on to young students, people he worked with and to his children and grandchildren.

Stuart Naismith, one of James Naismith's grandchildren, lives in Binghamton, New York. Douglas Stark is the Librarian and Archivist at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.