Basketball fans, see if you
understand these rules:
1.
The ball may be thrown in any direction with one
or both hands.
2.
The ball may be batted in any direction with one
or both hands (never with the fist.)
3.
The time shall be two 15-minute halves, with
five minutes’ rest between.
Think you know these rules? Well,
as you may have guessed, they are three of the original thirteen rules of
basketball. That’s right. They were first published in January 1892, in the
YMCA International Training Colleges’ (Springfield, Massachusetts) newspaper,
The Triangle.
Of course, the rules were written
by one of their teachers, James Naismith. He was given 14 days to develop an
indoor game that would capture the interest of students who were confined
indoors during the cold weather. Under the gun, Naismith selected features of
soccer, field hockey, and other outdoor sports for his new game. In theory, he
wanted to eliminate body contact between players. (That certainly did not
happen.) As his physical education class at Springfield was only composed of 18
men; basketball originally was played by nine men on each side. The first games
used half-bushel peach baskets as targets, and a stepladder was used to
retrieve the ball after a goal. The original rules also prohibited walking or
running with the ball.
So who was this Naismith fellow
anyway?
Well, he was born in Canada in
1861, and raised by his uncle. He taught physical education at McGill
University in Quebec before his days at Springfield. In 1898 he was hired by
the University of Kansas to coach basketball, teach physical education, and
serve as chaplain.
Naismith was shocked by how popular
basketball became, but thought that wrestling and gymnastics were just as
enjoyable. By the early 1900s, basketball was played between universities. One
of Naismith’s students at Kansas was none other than “Phog” Allen. Allen would
later be known as the “father of basketball coaching.”
At the 1936 Summer Olympics, the
first year that basketball was an Olympic sport, Naismith presented medals to
the three winning North America countries, the United States, Canada, and
Mexico. At those Olympics he was also named the honorary president of the
International Basketball Federation.
Dr. James Naismith stayed with the
University of Kansas until 1937, and died two years later.
As basketball has become an
immensely popular worldwide sport, Naismith’s name has been associated with the
sport. Naismith himself would have been surprised to learn that his original
basketball rules, which were fewer than 600 words in length, has now grown to
contain more than 30,000 words.
Naismith is commonly called the
inventor of the game of basketball.
Collectors are willing to spend a
lot of money to acquire any Naismith-related item.
For example, an “Acme Thunderer”
whistle owned and used by James Naismith sold for $13,145 by Heritage Auctions
in 2006. The whistle was used by Naismith during his University of Kansas tenure.
Naismith’s 18 handwritten pages of
notes from the 1936 Summer Olympics also were auctioned. In those pages he
expressed his pride at being at the Olympics. The pages sold for nearly $7,000.
A basketball card which Naismith
signed shortly before his death in 1939 was sold for nearly $18,000.
A full draft typed manuscript with
Naismith’s handwritten notes of a 72-chapter book from the 1930s titled
“Basketball: Its Origin and Development” went for almost $39,000.
Other notes by Naismith regarding
the birth of basketball went for almost $54,000, while his own handwritten
manuscript detailing the first basketball game was auctioned for $71,700 in
2006.
However, it is the 13 Original
Rules of Basketball that were handwritten by James Naismith while he was
teaching in Springfield, Massachusetts, that has had the most value.
In December 2010, those original
rules were auctioned by Sotheby’s for $4.3 million. They were then donated to
the University of Kansas for display.
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