Sports History: A Soccer Ball, Some Peach Baskets and a Plan
Written by Daniel Turner, Tuesday April 28 2009
Winters are cold in New England. Face it; summers can be cold in New England. It certainly wasn’t any warmer in 1891. In fact, it may have been colder. That’s why James Naismith, a Canadian born seminarian working at a YMCA in Springfield, MA needed to devise a game that his young charges could play indoors.
Naismith wanted to create an activity that would rely more upon skill than strength to level the playing field for the kids who would participate. So, using a soccer ball and two peach baskets he worked out the prototype of the game we know as basketball.
While the rudiments of the game were present in his inaugural edition there are sophistications that streamlined, simplified and added to both the excitement and competition. For instance, in Naismith’s original game the teams consisted of nine players on the floor. It is easy to realize that 18 NBA sized players running up and down a court today would closer resemble a demolition derby than it would the game we have come to know and love, so in terms of participants, it was eventually realized that smaller is better.
Also, dribbling was not incorporated in the origin of the sport. A player could not run and hold the ball, but instead of going between the legs, or behind the back, the ball was passed to team mates. Scoring could result from either throwing or batting the ball into the basket, but the batting motion had to be an open handed slap. Punching the ball to score, or advance it down the court was prohibited. Scoring and ball control had to be obtained with the use of the player’s hands. Arms and other body parts could not be used to control the ball.
Perhaps because he was a cleric Naismith was vehement in promoting basketball as a non contact sport. Shouldering, elbowing, body blocking and tripping were fouls. If a foul was committed the offender had to leave the court until a basket was scored. In other words, instead of foul shots the fouling team would play a man down. If the foul was deemed to be malicious in nature and intended to cause harm, the offending player was ejected from the game and the team remained shorthanded for the duration of the contest. If a team committed three fouls consecutively without the other team incurring a call a basket was awarded to the other side.
While these were some of the rules that were later amended a five second rule regarding inbounding the ball was established by Naismith. The original time frame of a game was two 15 minute halves with a five minute rest period. It is unknown if tumblers, acrobats and mascots entertained the fans during the break.
Naismith claimed he altered the game from a childhood activity he participated in when growing up in Ramsay, Ont. The game he referenced was called duck on a rock and was played by placing a stone on a rock and attempting to knock it off by hitting it with other rocks. I’m uncertain as to how that came to be the game he created, but that is the source he credited.
Whatever the inspiration, Naismith’s game spread quickly through both the US and Canada. By the mid 1890’s the teams had been pared to five players and was being played by both men and women. By 1893 the game was already being played by college teams who were blissfully unaware that in centuries to follow sports networks would cover the every move of those who followed in their canvas shoes.
By 1898 the National League was formed as the first professional basketball association. The reason for establishing a league was to prevent the economic exploitation of the players and to control the physical activity of the games. In short, players were getting their brains beat out and stiffed on their paychecks.
By 1915 the first dominant team in the NL was formed as the New York Celtics. Throughout the ‘20’s they were the team to beat and the box office favorite until a team formed strictly for exhibition cut into their popularity. The Harlem Globetrotters easily dazzled the novice sports fans with their stylized ball handling.
In 1934 Madison Square Garden hosted its first basketball game as a college tournament was staged in the arena. As was the case with football the college game was more popular than the professional league and helped pave the way for the NBA’s existence. Still, we were years away from March inducing madness in the populace.
As the game he invented was spreading in popularity Naismith was graduating from medical school as he augmented his clerical degrees with a doctor’s certificate. In addition to being a Presbyterian minister he practiced sports physiology and was a trail blazer in what is now known as sports medicine. It seemed only fair that having created a game where players ran up and down an unforgiving wooden surface he dedicated himself to healing the injuries it would incur. He began studying medicine in 1898 at Kansas University and helped to form their basketball team while working toward his degree. The YMCA where he had introduced the sport later became Springfield College.
By the 20th century Naismith’s game had reached international proportions and in 1936 it was introduced as an Olympic sport in the Berlin games. As its creator, Naismith was flown to Germany to witness the event in person. Without the benefit of a dream team the US won the Gold medal in the first international staging of the game.
The Basketball Hall of Fame was established in Springfield, MA to honor the location as the birth of the sport. Until his death in Lawrence, KA in 1939 Naismith continued to promote his game. As a sports physiologist he also continued to pursue sports medicine and many credit him with inventing an early version of the football helmet. Although he watched its international infancy Naismith never got to appreciate the full measure of the worldwide appeal of a game he invented on a winter’s day in New England.
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