(Presented within this volume is a detailed history of the...)
Presented within this volume is a detailed history of the origin and development of basketball, with chapters on its rules, evolution, foreign variations, and much more. This book will appeal to all lovers of the sport, and it is not to be missed by collectors of vintage sporting literature. Contents include: 'Bennie's Corners', 'The Need of a New Game', 'The Origin of Basketball', 'Changes in the Game', 'Development of Basketball Equipment', 'Changes in the Rules Body', 'The Speed of the Game in the Unites States', 'The Foreign Spread', 'The Development of Girl's Basketball', etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, high-quality, modern edition complete with the original text and images.
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James Naismith was teaching physical education at the Y...)
James Naismith was teaching physical education at the Young Mens Christian Association Training College in Springfield, Massachusetts, and felt discouraged because calisthenics and gymnastics didnt engage his students. What was needed was an indoor wintertime game that combined recreation and competition. One evening he worked out the fundamentals of a game that would quickly catch on. Two peach half-bushel baskets gave the name to the brand new sport in late 1891.
Basketball: Its Origin and Development was written by the inventor himself, who was inspired purely by the joy of play. Naismith, born in northern Ontario in 1861, gave up the ministry to preach clean living through sport. He describes Duck on the Rock, a game from his Canadian childhood, the creative reasoning behind his basket game, the eventual refinement of rules and development of equipment, the spread of amateur and professional teams throughout the world, and the growth of womens basketball (at first banned to male spectators because the players wore bloomers). Naismith lived long enough to see basketball included in the Olympics in 1936. Three years later he died, after nearly forty years as head of the physical education department at the University of Kansas.
The Crossover: A Brief History of Basketball and Race, from James Naismith to LeBron James
(The history of basketball contains all the drama inherent...)
The history of basketball contains all the drama inherent in America's long struggle with racial intolerance and quest for equality. In ten focused chapters that highlight characters both famous (Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird) and more obscure (John McLendon, Earl Lloyd, Holcombe Rucker), this book explores how what's happened on the basketball court has mirrored race relations in the United States--and often preceded changes off of it.
Doug Merlino has contributed to publications including Slate, Men's Journal, Wired and the Seattle Times. His book, The Hustle: One Team and Ten Lives in Black and White, won the 2011 Washington State Book Award. He lives in New York City. In the summer, he can often be found watching basketball at Rucker Park in Harlem or at "the cage" at West 4th Street.
James Naismith was a Canadian-American physical educator, physician, chaplain, sports coach and innovator. He invented the game of basketball at age 30 in 1891. He wrote the original basketball rule book and founded the University of Kansas basketball program.
Background
James Naismith was born on November 6, 1861, near Almonte, Ontario, Canada.
One of three children, eight-year-old Naismith moved with his family to a milling community in Grand Calumet, where his father took work as a sawhand.
Education
When she died only two years later, an uncle, Peter Young, took over care of the Naismith children.
Young Naismith, whose athletic strength surpassed his early academic performance, attended Bennie's Corners' one-room schoolhouse.
He attended Almonte High School initially for only two years, and dropped out, but four years later he returned and eventually graduated.
In the winter, he and his peers enjoyed snowshoeing, ice hockey, skating, and tobogganing; in summer, they swam in the Indian and Mississippi Rivers.
In 1883 Naismith entered McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, where he applied himself to his studies and became a strong student.
Completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy and Hebrew, he graduated in the top ten in his class in 1887, and went on to study at McGill's theological school, Presbyterian College.
Although he was a good theological student and won scholarships for his achievements, Naismith aggravated his professors by continuing to participate in sports.
After obtaining his diploma from McGill's Presbyterian College of Theology, and becoming an unordained minister, Naismith departed for Massachusetts in the late summer of 1890.
He also taught physical education to local youths, and played rugby with the Y. M. C. A. 's team.
At the Y. M. C. A. International Training School in Springfield, Naismith took courses that combined his two chief interests: spiritual and physical development.
Career
Graduating from McGill University in 1887, he taught there briefly before going to the International Y. M. C. A. Training School at Springfield, Massachussets, as an assistant director of physical education.
Yet Naismith held to his belief that one could pursue both an athletic and a spiritual life. Living in Montreal, Naismith became acquainted with the Young Men's Christian Association (Y. M. C. A. ), which had been founded in London around 1800 and established branches in Montreal and Boston in 1851.
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 1876 and '86.
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.
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.
Realizing that the baskets or boxes, placed at opposite ends of a court, would make good goals, he adopted them for his new game.
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. )
On that day in December 1891, they were players in the first-ever game of basketball.
The new sport was an instant hit.
Recognized as the Father of Basketball
Always humble and never self-promotional, Naismith avoided drawing attention to himself as the inventor of a popular new sport.
Although his students had suggested he dub the game "Naismith-ball, " their instructor laughed off the idea, choosing the simpler name of basket ball.
After setting his new sport in motion, Naismith went on to pursue the career he had envisioned for himself, combining fitness and spirituality for a healthy body and a healthy mind.
Upon American involvement in the First World War, Naismith served as a captain in the Kansas First Infantry regiment from 1914 to 1917.
In 1916 he and his regiment served for four months on the Mexican border.
Upon the war's end, Naismith was nominated Y. M. C. A. Secretary, and served a nineteen-month post in France before returning to Kansas University in 1919.
He became an American citizen in 1925, and he served as Kansas University's director of physical education until 1937.
Before Naismith died at age seventy-eight in 1939, he witnessed basketball's acceptance as an official international sport at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.
Although he generally shied away from public acknowledgement, Naismith accepted an invitation to the Games' inaugural ceremony, and agreed to throw the ball for the Games' first-ever basketball match.
The uniform on that historic day in December was long gray trousers, short sleeved jerseys and a pair of gym shoes.
The rules called for a refereeand an umpire.
This group of nine is usually recognized as the first basketball team in history. Source: The Early Days of Basketball. "
On November 19 of that year, Naismith suffered a major brain hemorrhage and died nine days later in his home located in Lawrence, Kansas.
Naismith was 78 years old.
Coincidentally, Naismith died eight months after the birth of the NCAA Basketball Championship, which today has evolved to one of the biggest sports events in North America. Naismith is buried with his first wife in Memorial Park Cemetery in Lawrence, Kansas. Florence Kincaid died in 1977 at the age of 98 and is buried with her first husband, Dr. Frank B. Kincaid, in Elmwood Cemetery in Beloit, Kansas.
(The history of basketball contains all the drama inherent...)
Religion
Becoming an ordained Presbyterian minister in 1915, he soon added "chaplain" to his army responsibilities.
Views
Quotations:
In a radio interview in January 1939, Naismith gave more details of the first game and the initial rules that were used:
“I showed them two peach baskets I’d nailed up at each end of the gym, and I told them the idea was to throw the ball into the opposing team’s peach basket. I blew a whistle, and the first game of basketball began. … The boys began tackling, kicking and punching in the clinches. They ended up in a free-for-all in the middle of the gym floor. [The injury toll: several black eyes, one separated shoulder and one player knocked unconscious. ] “It certainly was murder. ” [Naismith changed some of the rules as part of his quest to develop a clean sport. ] The most important one was that there should be no running with the ball. That stopped tackling and slugging. We tried out the game with those [new] rules (fouls), and we didn’t have one casualty. ”
Membership
He was a member of the Pi Gamma Mu and Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternities.
Connections
On June 20, 1894, Naismith married Maude Evelyn Sherman (1870–1937) in Springfield, MA, USA. The couple had five children: Margaret Mason (Stanley) (1895–1976), Helen Carolyn (Dodd) (1897–1980), John Edwin (1900–1986), Maude Ann (Dawe) (1904–1972) and James Sherman (1913–1980).
Maude Naismith died in 1937, and on June 11, 1939, he married his second wife Florence B. Kincaid.