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#JAMES NAISMITH PROFESSIONAL#
In 1898 the first professional basketball league was formed. During a game in 1962, Chamberlain scored a record 100 points. The most famous was Wilt Chamberlain, who became one of Basketball’s first superstars.
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Many of Allen’s players became popular stars of the game. Allen won 771 games as a coach at the University of Kansas. Allen played for Naismith at the University of Kansas. Naismith’s legacy includes coaching and launching the first great college Basketball coach, Forrest “Phog” Allen (1885-1974). Naismith’s name adorns the world’s only Basketball Hall of Fame. However, after his death in 1939 his many accomplishments and his historic invention of Basketball were widely and enormously acclaimed. Naismith never earned money or fame for his unique invention during his lifetime. His biggest reward was when he was sponsored by the National Association of Basketball Coaches to witness his game of Basketball become an official Olympic sport at the 1936 Games held in Berlin. Naismith never imagined or witnessed the immense popularity and huge financials of Basketball as we know it today. Naismith was a serious student and he was most proud to have earned four degrees in diverse fields of Religion, Physical Education, Philosophy and Medicine.
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He embraced recreational sports but was not enamored with the glory of competitive athletics. His main interest was his career as a physical educator. Naismith and his players disseminated the rules of Basketball freely and the need for an indoor sport by many schools and organizations helped spread the popularity of the game.Īs Basketball grew in popularity, Naismith did not engage in promotion of the game or push for publicity or self-promotion. The graduates of the YMCA school traveled across the country and introduced their new game to people in towns and cities across the land. The fans also liked the idea of not having to go outside in the cold to watch this new and fun game.īasketball became popular very quickly and its popularity spread widely. Moreover, the idea of getting a good exercise workout without having to go outside in the very cold winter was very attractive to the players and the coaches. The students found the game easy to play and the rules easy to understand. The game of Basketball became an instant success. It is believed that Naismith drew up the rules of his new game of Basketball in about an hour. Confronted with the problem of constantly needing someone to remove the ball from the basket, Naismith cut out the bottom of the basket, allowing the ball to fall through. Having trouble finding boxes, Naismith used discarded peach baskets from the school cafeteria. With creativity now flowing through his mind, Naismith had the idea of attaching boxes high on the wall and having players attempt to throw a ball into the box as a score. He also remembered observing rugby players throwing a ball into a box in the gymnasium. Called “duck on a rock”, the game involved tossing rocks at another, larger rock atop a boulder and knocking the rock down. Running out of time and at the limits of his patience, Naismith recalled a game he played as a child in Canada. However, such outdoor games were not feasible due mainly to the small indoor space of the school gymnasium. At first he thought to bring outdoor games such as soccer or lacrosse inside. He struggled to come up with a game that met the objectives of his directive. Naismith’s invention did not happen quickly.
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The goal of this directive was to provide a creative and healthy indoor “athletic distraction” for a rowdy class of students during the brutal New England winter. Luther Gulick, the head of the School, Naismith was given 14 days to create an indoor game. Naismith was a Canadian-American Physical Education teacher at the School for Christian Workers located in Springfield, Massachusetts. The person responsible for the popular game was Dr. Basket Ball (as originally spelled) created in 1891 in a Springfield, Massachusetts YMCA gymnasium has grown into a game played worldwide by more than 300 million people. One of the most popular sports in the world, played daily by millions of people had humble beginnings. The Origin of the Game of Basketball 1891 - Springfield, Massachusetts, USA