James Naismith was just looking for a way to engage his students when he created the global phenomenon known as basketball
CHAPTER 1 OPENING TIP It started with two peach baskets on December 21 1891 A physical education teacher named James Naismith needed a game for his students to play So he nailed the containers to opposite ends of a balcony in a gymnasium in Springfield Massachusetts Naismith then assembled two teams of nine players each and instructed them to throw a soccer ball into the opposing team’s basket in order to score a point When he blew his whistle his students began the first game of what was then called basket ball It was a moment that would change the sports world forever but the early results weren’t pretty As Naismith remembered it several players received black eyes one
suffered a separated shoulder and another was knocked unconscious The boys began tackling kicking and punching in the clinches Naismith said years later They ended up in a free-for-all in the middle of the gym floor This wasn’t at all what Naismith had in mind He wanted to invent a game that could be played indoors during the winter and promote fitness with a low risk of injury to players Naismith would modify the rules most importantly by requiring ball handlers to dribble the ball rather than allowing them to run with it That stopped tackling and slugging Naismith recalled We tried out the game with those rules and we didn’t have one casualty The first public exhibition of the sport was held in the same gym on March 11 1892 A team of students defeated Naismith and a group of teachers by a score of 5 1 In those days someone would have to fetch the ball
out of the basket following each score either from the balcony or with a ladder Men's basketball became an Olympic sport at the 1936 Games in Berlin Germany In the following years peach baskets were replaced by iron hoops and nylon nets and participation would be limited to five players at a time for each team The game spread relatively quickly across the United States and
