The game of basketball has a very clear origin unlike other sports.  With basketball history, there is no evolution from an ancient game or sport from another time.  Instead the person who invented basketball is well known among basketball enthusiasts.

Dr. James Naismith, born in 1861 in the township of Ramsay in Ontario, Canada.  A graduate from McGill University in Montreal, Naismith became a physician and began to show an interest in sports physiology.

While on the job as a teacher of physical education at the YMCA International Training School in the United States, he found himself faced with the problem of finding an indoor game to provide a type of athletic distraction for the students.

He thought about a game called “duck on a rock” that he had played as a child which involved accurately knocking a duck off the top of a large rock, which was done by tossing a different rock at it.  From this game, Naismith created a set of 13 basketball rules that became the origin to the game of basketball.

Students played the first game using a soccer ball and a couple of peach baskets that were nailed 10 feet high and to be used as goals – no traditional hoops or nets!  The court was half the size of the courts today.  Originally, moving the ball up and down while moving up and down the court.  The sport was a nearly instant success.

The popularity of basketball grew extremely fast across the glove.  Even though Naismith did not live to see the game evolve into the sport we love today, he was able to sit back and watch basketball become a Olympic sport during the 1936 Berlin games.