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Dr. James Naismith is known world-wide as the inventor
of basketball. He was born in 1861 in Ramsay township,
near Almonte, Ontario, Canada. The concept of basketball
was born from his school days in the area where he
played a simple child's game known as duck-on-a-rock
outside his one-room schoolhouse. The game involved
attempting to knock a "duck" off the top of a
large rock by tossing another rock at it. Naismith went
on to attend McGill University in Montreal, Quebec,
Canada.
After serving as McGill's Athletic Director, he moved
on to the YMCA Training School in Springfield,
Massachusetts, USA in 1891 where the sport of basketball
was born. In Springfield, Naismith was faced with the
problem of finding a sport that was suitable for play
inside during the Massachusetts winter for the students
at the School for Christian Workers. Naismith wanted to
create a game of skill for the students instead of one
that relied solely on strength. He needed a game that
could be played indoors in a relatively small space. The
first game was played with a soccer ball and two peach
baskets used as goals.
In addition to the creation of the sport, Naismith
graduated as a medical doctor, primarily interested in
sports physiology and what we would today call sports
science and as Presbyterian minister, with a keen
interest in philosophy and clean living. Naismith
watched his sport, introduced in many nations by the
YMCA movement as early as 1893. Basketball was
introduced at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Today
basketball has grown to become one of the world's most
popular sports.
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