James A. Naismith was born on November 6, 1861 in Almonte, in then Canada West, now Ontario. Actually he didn’t have a middle name but he chose the initial “A.” on his own when he was a young man.
Orphaned at age 9, James Naismith quit school at 15 to work on his uncle’s farm and only five years later he went back to studying and graduated at high school.
James Naismith studied at McGill University in Montreal, where he practiced several sports. He’s credited for introducing the first helmet for football players. In 1888, Naismith graduated in physical education and became a teacher first at McGill University and later at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts.
During the New England harsh winter, students had to perform their physical activities in the gym so James Naismith was commissioned the creation of a game that would allow them to keep fit in a small space and that wasn’t too tough.
James Naismith analyzed the most popular sports and established the principles of what he called “basket ball” writing the 13 basic rules of what became basketball. Initially he used a soccer ball that had to be thrown into a peach basket. The players, nine per team, couldn’t run with the ball in their hands but had to pass it to a teammate from the point where they took it and the defense couldn’t touch their opponents. After each scoring the game was resumed with a jump ball in the middle of the court.
The first game of “basket ball” was played in December 1891 and the game became popular in a few years. James Naismith went to Denver University, where he took a degree in medicine in 1898 and soon after he became the basketball team coach at Kansas University. In 1904, basketball became a demonstration sport at the Olympic Games in St. Louis.
The rules of basketball became more complex and various strategies were created. Initially, players were limited to passing the ball standing still but soon resorted to the trick of passing the ball to themselves, inventing what evolved in today’s dribbling.
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James Naismith was the coach of Kansas University until 1907 then he held the position of physical education teacher until he retired in 1937. In 1925 he became an American citizen. In 1936, Naismith handed the medals to the teams who reached the podium in the Olympic basketball tournament in Berlin, when the sport was introduced among the official ones of the Games. In those days Naismith was elected honorary president of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA, from the name in French Fédération Internationale de Basketball).
James Naismith died on November 28, 1939 due to a cerebral hemorrhage.
In his life, James Naismith was married twice. On 20 June 1894, he married Maude E. Sherman, with whom he had five children. After the death of his first wife, Naismith married Florence B. Kincaid on June 11, 1939.
James Naismith left us a huge legacy in a sport that has become extremely popular all over the world. Today, basketball is very different from when it was invented but despite the extraordinary athleticism you see today with tough contacts and incredible leaps its foundations basically remained those devised by its inventor.
