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ARTICLES ABOUT DR. NAISMITH

A Century of Basketball
Basketball's Inventor, by Chuck Woodling, Topeka Capitol-Journal
Nothin' but Net
A Century of Jayhawk Triumphs
Kansas Sports Hall of Fame

As physical education instructor at Springfield College in the winter of 1891, Naismith was asked to come up with a game that would occupy students' time between football and baseball.

As a former rugby player, he tried to incorporate that game into an indoor contest. Passing the ball, rather than tackling, was instituted and he placed peach baskets above the players' heads for goals. From this beginning, basketball evolved into today's game.

His innovations in sports did not stop with basketball. As a football player at Springfield under Amos Alonzo Stagg, Naismith complained of bruised ears from rough play. He took a football, cut it lengthwise and placed it over his head to protect his ears. Thus, the first football helmet was invented.

The "Father of Basketball,'' Naismith is the only Kansas basketball coach to have a losing record. Dr. Naismith compiled a 55-60 record as the Jayhawks' first coach.

Naismith joined the KU faculty in 1898 and later became the director of physical education. He retired from active teaching in 1937 and died in 1939 at the age of 78.

The National Basketball Hall of Fame, located in Springfield, Mass., is named for him. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1959.

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Baseball's origin is mired in controversy. Who really invented the game? Was it Abner Doubleday? Or was it Alexander Cartwright? Take your pick.

Historians agree, however, about the inventor of basketball. No one disputes it was Dr. James A. Naismith, who founded the basketball program at Kansas in 1898 and coached there until 1907. His teams played in the basement of old Snow Hall, which stood to the immediate north of where Watson Library is located today.

Not too many years ago, a few folks in Holyoke, Mass., conjured up a notion that a physical education instructor at the Holyoke YMCA actually invented the game and introduced it to Naismith for use as a winter training sport for his football team. William Morgan, or so the good people of Holyoke said, actually invented the game in 1888, not 1891 - the year Naismith had peach baskets hung on the balcony of the Springfield YMCA.

Earlier, folks in Herkimer, N.Y., also claimed their YMCA director, one Lambert Will, staged the first game in February of 1891, several months before Naismith's inaugural contest. Neither claim was ever substantiated, of course, although each caused a slight tremor at the time.

Naismith, who spent his last 41 years in Lawrence - he died in 1939 at the age of 78 - apparently never acknowledged allegations, either in his writings or to friends or relatives. Or so says Steve Jansen, director of the Elizabeth M. Watkins Community Museum in Lawrence. "There is a legitimate controversy over the origin of baseball," Jansen said. "But if others did invent basketball, they sure gave up on it."

Naismith often talked about basketball, as one would expect, explaining how he incorporated a game called "Duck on the Rock" with the idea of placing a box or basket on a wall above the particpants' heads so they would have to toss the ball in an arc instead of on a straight line. "By talking about his childhood game," Jansen said, "to me he was attempting to make the point that nothing is totally original, but that he had variations in his mind."

Naismith was hardly a horn-tooter. In fact, his game spread throughout the country via the YMCA grapevine, not because he promoted it. For example, while it's generally believed Naismith introduced basketball to Lawrence, newspaper stories confirm people were playing basket ball - it was two words then - at the Lawrence YMCA in December of 1894. Naismith did not arrive until 1898.

Interestingly, Jansen believes Naismith never would have invented basketball if he hadn't been born in a small town in rural Ontario. "If he'd have grown up as an American, he would have been familiar with baseball," Jansen noted. "But he was in an isolated area where he was mainly familiar with rugby football. So he had less baggage, so to speak, in terms of inventing a new sport." Indeed, it's abundantly clear Naismith invented basketball as a kinder and gentler alternative to football and not, as some suggested, as a competitive way for football players to stay in shape during the winter.

Football was a brutal sport in those days - a push-and-shove, dog-pile, scrum-like, body-bashing free-for-all that often resulted in deaths. None but the brave carried the football in the late 19th century. Obviously, a game in which it was illegal to carry the ball would be much, much safer. Safety wasn't first among Naismith's original rules, but it was third.

Rule No. 3: A player cannot run with the ball. The player must throw it from the spot on which he catches it.

Further, check out Rule No. 5 and its anti-football connotation: No shouldering, holding, pushing, tripping or striking in any way the person of an opponent shall be allowed. What Naismith seemed to be saying was that physical exertion transcended physical destruction in competitive sport.

But were basketball players regarded as sissies in those days, men without the courage to play football? Perhaps. If so, though, the derision probably was dropped as dribbling was introduced and a metal hoop replaced the basket. Surely the skills required to dribble a ball and shoot it through a horizontal hoop 10 feet off the ground overcame the perception basketball was a game for fops, dandies and Little Lord Fauntleroys.

As a matter of fact, basketball wasn't Naismith's first attempt at devising something to reduce or prevent injury. Boxed ears suffered while playing football in the 1880s prompted Naismith to design and wear a cloth headgear, an innovation then but a necessity now.

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As physical education instructor at Springfield College in the winter of 1891, Naismith was asked to come up with a game that would occupy students' time between football and baseball.

The "Father of Basketball,'' Naismith is the only Kansas basketball coach to have a losing record. Dr. Naismith compiled a 55-60 record as the Jayhawks' first coach.

Naismith joined the KU faculty in 1898 and later became the director of physical education. He retired from active teaching in 1937 and died in 1939 at the age of 78.

The National Basketball Hall of Fame, located in Springfield, Mass., is named for him. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1959. He is buried in Lawrence, Kan., in Lawrence Memorial Park Cemetery.

Source: Nothin but Net

In a 1914 speech to the eighth annual NCAA Convention, Kansas physical education professor Dr. James Naismith said the ideal basketball player was “primarily a gentleman, secondarily a college man, and incidentally a basket ball player.”

Naismith, basketball’s inventor, might well have thought of himself as primarily a doctor, secondarily an educator and incidentally the Jayhawks’ first basketball coach.

Kansas chancellor Francis snow was looking for a physical education director and prayer leader for daily chapel in 1898 when he called his friend, University of Chicago chancellor William Harper. The message was relayed to Chicago football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg, Naismith’s former coach at Springfield (Mass.) College. Naismith was working at the Denver YMCA when he accepted Snow’s offer, which said nothing about coaching basketball. It couldn’t. Kansas didn’t have a team.

Basketball had been played in Lawrence before naismith’s arrival – by women. But it didn’t catch on. Football was the dominant sport of the day and the annual game with Missouri in Kansas city was the year’s most important athletic event.

Naismith organized basketball at Kansas and interest grew rapidly. A tournament was held to select the first team, and on Feb. 3,, 1899, Kansas played its first game in Kansas City, Mo., against the Kansas City YMCA. The Jayhawks lost 16-5.

But Kansas proved to be an able team. It won six straight after the loss, including a rematch with the Kansas City YMCA in Lawrence. The first Jayhawk team finished 7-4. there wouldn’t be another winning season until 1905-06, when a freshman named Forrest C. Allen was the star player.

Kansas won its first game against another college, defeating neighboring Haskell 29-8 in 1899. In its first game against a future conference opponent, Kansas lost at Nebraska 48-8 in 1900. the outcome stands as the largest losing margin in Kansas history.

Naismith’s career mark of 55-60 makes him the only coach in the program’s history with a losing record. But naismith didn’t consider himself a coach. He officiated many of the games – that’s mostly why he accompanied the team on the road. He usually didn’t attend practices.

Naismith handed over the team to Allen in 1907. he remained in the physical education department at Kansas for the next three decades and died in 1939, two years before the Naismith Hall of Fame opened in Springfield.

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Dr. James Naismith, the "Father of Basketball," invented the game in Springfield, Massachusetts, in December of 1891. He is officially listed as the first individual enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame named in his honor in Springfield. Naismith's idea of "Basket-Ball" came during the winter of 1891 when he was asked to come up with an indoor game to keep his YMCA students interested in exercising indoors during bad weather. Using a soccer ball, two empty peach baskets, a ladder and ten handwritten rules, Naismith introduced his game that would become the most watched and played indoor sport in the world. A Canadian native, who was orphaned at the age of nine, Dr. Naismith attended Almonte High School in Ontario for two years, dropped out for four, and returned to graduate in 1883. He came to Kansas University in 1898 as the Director of Physical Education after spending three years at the Denver (CO) YMCA. Thus began a career of 39 years for Naismith at the University of Kansas. Dr. Naismith was the head coach for the first-ever basketball game involving KU on February 3, 1899. He was also a minister, doctor and educator, and served with the YMCA in France during World War I. He retired from KU in 1937. Naismith had the thrill of seeing basketball grow from his idea in 1891 to an international sport at the 1936 Berlin Olympics when the sport was included in the Olympic program for the first time.