Basketball & Physics: Member's Profile

History of Basketball

Dr. James Naismith is known world-wide as the inventor of basketball. The concept of basketball was born out of his early school days when he played a simple game known as duck-on-a-rock outside his schoolhouse. The game involved attempting to knock a "duck" off the top of a large rock by tossing another rock at it. Naismith served at the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA in 1891, and this is where the sport of basketball was born. Naismith was faced with the challenge of finding a sport that was suitable for play inside during the winter for the students. Naismith wanted to create a game of skill that could be played indoors in a relatively small space. The very first game of basketball was played with a soccer ball and two peach baskets used as goals. After that, he devised a set of rules for that early game and basketball was created.