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James Naismith
Doctor James Naismith,
(November
6, 1861
–
November 28,
1939) was
the inventor of the
sport of
basketball and the first to introduce the use of a
helmet
in
American football.
He was born in
Almonte,
Canada
West, the older son of
Scottish immigrants who had arrived in the area in
1852.
Naismith was a graduate of
McGill University in
1887, where
he studied
philosophy and
The Presbyterian College, Montreal in
1890. He
also earned a
physical education degree from
Springfield College, the
YMCA
Training School in
Springfield, Massachusetts in
1891. In
1898, he
received a
medical degree from
Gross Medical College in
Denver
(which merged in
1911 with
the
University of Colorado in
Boulder ), and the
Doctor of Divinity degree, honoris causa, from
Presbyterian College in
1938.
In
1891, while
working as a
physical education
teacher
at the
YMCA International Training School in Springfield, he was asked to
look for a way to relieve his students' boredom during indoor winter gym
classes.
Inspired in part by a game
he played as a child in Ontario called Duck-on-a-Rock, Naismith's
basketball started
December 15, 1891 with thirteen rules, a
peach
basket nailed to either end of the school's gymnasium, and two teams of
nine players. On
January 15,
1892 Naismith published the rules for
basketball.
Basketball became a popular
men's sport in the
United States very quickly, and spread to
other countries as well. Additionally, there were several efforts to
establish (under modified rules) a women's version; this met with great
resistance in some circles and was consequently far slower to become
truly widespread.
The men's sport was
officially added to the
Olympic Games program at the
1936 Summer Olympics in
Berlin.
There, Naismith handed out the medals to three North American teams;
United States, who defeated
Canada
19-8 for the Gold Medal, in a game that was played outdoors in rain,
and Mexico,
the Bronze medal. Women's basketball finally became an Olympic event in
Montreal during the
1976 Summer Olympics. Previously, there had been a men's basketball
competition, in connection with the
1904 Games at
St. Louis, USA.
Naismith moved to the
University of Kansas, in
1898,
following his studies in Denver, and became a
professor, and the school's first basketball
coach. U of Kansas went on to develop one of the nation's most
storied college basketball programs. Ironically, Naismith is the only
Kansas coach to have a losing record during his tenure at the school
(55-60). However, Naismith coached
Forrest "Phog" Allen, who then became the one of winningest coaches
in college basketball history, and Naismith's eventual successor.
In the late
1930s he
played a role in the formation of the National Association of
Intercollegiate Basketball, which later became the
National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. In August
1936, while
attending the
Berlin Olympics, he was named honorary President of the
International Basketball Federation.
Naismith married Maude
Sherman in 1894.
They had five children. Naismith became a
naturalized American
citizen
on May 4,
1925. After
Maude's death in
1937, he
remarried Florence Kincade on June 11
1939, less
than six months before his own death, in
Lawrence, Kansas, of a
cerebral hemorrhage. He is buried there alongside his first wife.
On
February 17,
1968 the
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame opened in
Springfield, Massachusetts. Named in his honor, he was the founding
inductee. He has also been honored in other nations, including
Canada.
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