The Birthplace of Basketball

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The Birthplace of Basketball
Basketball is built into the fabric of Springfield College. The game was invented by Springfield College
instructor and graduate student James Naismith in 1891, and has grown into the worldwide athletic
phenomenon we know it to be today.
Springfield College students continue to be innovators and leaders in their fields. Learn how you can
join the prestigious alumni network by exploring our academic programs at the undergraduate and
graduate levels, offered both in-person and online.
Where Basketball Originated
It was the winter of 1891-1892. Inside a gymnasium at Springfield College (then known as the
International YMCA Training School), located in Springfield, Mass., was a group of restless college
students. The young men had to be there; they were required to participate in indoor activities to
burn off the energy that had been building up since their football season ended. The gymnasium
class offered them activities such as marching, calisthenics, and apparatus work, but these were pale
substitutes for the more exciting games of football and lacrosse they played in warmer seasons.
James Naismith, the Person Who Invented Basketball
The instructor of this class was James Naismith, a 31-year-old graduate student. After graduating
from Presbyterian College in Montreal with a theology degree, Naismith embraced his love of athletics
and headed to Springfield to study physical education—at that time, a relatively new and unknown
academic discipline—under Luther Halsey Gulick, superintendent of physical education at the College
and today renowned as the father of physical education and recreation in the United States.
As Naismith, a second-year graduate student who had been named to the teaching faculty, looked at
his class, his mind flashed to the summer session of 1891, when Gulick introduced a new course in
the psychology of play. In class discussions, Gulick had stressed the need for a new indoor game,
one “that would be interesting, easy to learn, and easy to play in the winter and by artificial light.” No
one in the class had followed up on Gulick’s challenge to invent such a game. But now, faced with
the end of the fall sports season and students dreading the mandatory and dull required gymnasium
work, Naismith had a new motivation.
Two instructors had already tried and failed to devise activities that would interest the young men.
The faculty had met to discuss what was becoming a persistent problem with the class’s unbridled
energy and disinterest in required work.
During the meeting, Naismith later wrote that he had expressed his opinion that “the trouble is not
with the men, but with the system that we are using.” He felt that the kind of work needed to
motivate and inspire the young men he faced “should be of a recreative nature, something that
would appeal to their play instincts.”
Before the end of the faculty meeting, Gulick placed the problem squarely in Naismith’s lap.
“Naismith,” he said. “I want you to take that class and see what you can do with it.”
So Naismith went to work. His charge was to create a game that was easy to assimilate, yet complex
enough to be interesting. It had to be playable indoors or on any kind of ground, and by a large
number of players all at once. It should provide plenty of exercise, yet without the roughness of
football, soccer, or rugby since those would threaten bruises and broken bones if played in a confined
space.
Much time and thought went into this new creation. It became an adaptation of many games of its
time, including American rugby (passing), English rugby (the jump ball), lacrosse (use of a goal),
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soccer (the shape and size of the ball), and something called duck on a rock, a game Naismith had
played with his childhood friends in Bennie’s Corners, Ontario. Duck on a rock used a ball and a goal
that could not be rushed. The goal could not be slammed through, thus necessitating “a goal with a
horizontal opening high enough so that the ball would have to be tossed into it, rather than being
thrown.”
Naismith approached the school janitor, hoping he could find two, 18-inch square boxes to use as
goals. The janitor came back with two peach baskets instead. Naismith then nailed them to the lower
rail of the gymnasium balcony, one at each end. The height of that lower balcony rail happened to be
ten feet. A man was stationed at each end of the balcony to pick the ball from the basket and put it
back into play. It wasn’t until a few years later that the bottoms of those peach baskets were cut to
let the ball fall loose.
Naismith then drew up the 13 original rules, which described, among other facets, the method of
moving the ball and what constituted a foul. A referee was appointed. The game would be divided
into two, 15-minute halves with a five-minute resting period in between. Naismith’s secretary typed
up the rules and tacked them on the bulletin board. A short time later, the gym class met, and the
teams were chosen with three centers, three forwards, and three guards per side. Two of the centers
met at mid-court, Naismith tossed the ball, and the game of “basket ball” was born.
The Year Basketball was Invented
Word of the new game spread like wildfire. It was an instant success. A few weeks after the game
was invented, students introduced the game at their own YMCAs. The rules were printed in a College
magazine, which was mailed to YMCAs around the country. Because of the College’s well-represented
international student body, the game of basketball was introduced to many foreign nations in a
relatively short period of time. High schools and colleges began to introduce the new game, and by
1905, basketball was officially recognized as a permanent winter sport.
The rules have been tinkered with, but by-and-large, the game of “basket ball” has not changed
drastically since Naismith’s original list of “Thirteen Rules” was tacked up on a bulletin board at
Springfield College.

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The Birthplace of Basketball

Where Basketball Originated

James Naismith, the Person Who Invented Basketball

The Year Basketball was Invented

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