How It All Began

It was Dr. James Naismith, a Canadian physical education professor, who came up with the idea of nailing a peach basket on a balcony, and having the students in his class take turns throwing a ball into the “hoop.”

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The students were members of the YMCA’s training school. Naismith wanted to come up with a healthful, fun sport where the students would be able to burn off excess energy indoors, and yet have the game be accommodated into the confines of a small gym (which also functioned as an auditorium for YMCA plays and activities.)

It was Naismith who named his new game “basket (for the peach basket) ball,” two words that are hardly basketball slang terms. The game was an immediate hit with the students, and quickly spread to other schools. There was an initial problem, though, with the peach basket: if the scorer managed to land the ball into the basket, the game stopped until they could get someone to free the ball up. The basket, nailed high off the floor, still had the bottom intact!

Knocking the Bottom Out

Naismith and his “basket ball” recruits, though, quickly figured that knocking the bottom out of the basket, and allowing the ball to be returned, bouncing, to the players made the game a lot more interesting.

Afterwards, they also figured out that people watching the game who were sitting in the balcony were unwitting targets in case the ball flew passed the basket. Naismith came up with the idea of using a board behind the basket, to protect spectators. That wooden contrivance, now known as the backboard in basketball, is still in use today.

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