James Naismith

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.