Who Invented Basketball?

If you are interested in sports history, then you should know who invented basketball. Keep in mind; the more you know about the game, the better it will make you!

In 1861 in a small town in Ontario Canada, the inventor of basketball was born. Mr. James Naismith grew up in an aforementioned small town, where he and his schoolmates would play a game called duck-on-a-rock, the great grandfather of basketball. This common schoolhouse game for the time would go on to influence Naismith in his future sports making endeavors, i.e. basketball. The point of the game was to knock the opponent’s “duck” off of the top of a rock by hitting another rock at it. While this may seem like a far distant game from basketball, if you consider having to throw something and trying to hit the correct spot on the “goal” to score a point, you may start to draw similarities from the game.

James Naismith’s ideas of creating a new game came while working for the YMCA training school in Springfield, Massachusetts. James saw a need for the students to have a game to play inside while it was cold outside, starting the tradition of playing the classic game of basketball in the Winter. The first version of basketball came when Naismith took two peach baskets and two soccer balls and played the game of basketball like it is today with a few exceptions. First of all, there was no dribbling, only passing to other players and shooting. Since Naismith wanted a game that didn’t depend as much on strength, fouls were highly regulated. This first form of basketball is what came to grow and change until it is the same game we see played every day in gyms and on courts across the world.