Basketball
The sport of basketball was invented at the close of the nineteenth century. By the end of the twentieth century, only soccer surpassed it as the world's most popular sport, as top basketball players from the United States were among the most recognized people on Earth.
Basketball was invented in late 1891 by Dr. James A. Naismith, physical education director at the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in Springfield, Massachusetts. The YMCA students were tiring of standard calisthenics and demanded a new, team sport to be played indoors between the end of football season in autumn and the start of baseball season in the spring. Naismith hit upon the idea of two teams of players maneuvering a ball across a gymnasium towards a set target. He obtained a pair of peach baskets—he originally wanted to use boxes—and nailed them on beams on either end of the gym. The first game ever played resulted in a 1-0 score, with one William R. Chase scoring the lone point with a soccer ball; Naismith and his players quickly realized that the new sport had potential.
Naismith resisted efforts to name his invention "Naismith-ball," preferring "basket ball" instead. He wrote an article describing the sport in his YMCA's magazine in early 1892, and YMCAs across the country and around the world picked up on the sport during the 1890s.
This is a free page. This page contains 201 words. This
article contains 2,721 words (approx. 9 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our Basketball Access Pass.
