Mark Tully

Over 125 years ago, Dr. James Naismith invented the game of basketball in 1891 when he was 30 years old.  Naismith was a Canadian working as a physical education instructor at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts.  He was tasked by Dr. Luther Gulick with developing an indoor game that would hold the interest of the young men in his physical education classes between football in the fall and baseball season in the spring and summer.

Two previous YMCA instructors had failed in their attempts to create such a game before the task was assigned to Naismith.  Gulick gave him two weeks to develop a game and on the last day he came up with a game that became known as Basket Ball (two words).  In his game teams tossed a soccer ball into peach baskets nailed to posts at opposite ends of a gymnasium.

The players could not run with the ball but had to pass it from one player to another.  It was not until later that dribbling was added to the game.  The baskets were placed ten feet above the floor and there were two 15-minute halves.  After each score a ladder was used to remove the ball from the peach basket and then a jump ball occurred at center court.  The original rules allowed any number of players to play Basket Ball but the first games were played with nine players on each team.

On December 21, 1891 the first basketball game ever was played.  The players on the winning team included William R. Chase, John J. Thompson, Eugene S. Libby, Edwin P. Ruggles, T. Duncan Patton, Frank Mahan, Finlay G. MacDonald, William H. Davis and Lyman Archibald.  The losing team included George Weller, Wilbert Carey, Ernest Hildner, Raymond Kaighn, Genzabaro Ishikawa, Benjamin S. French, Franklin Barnes, George Day and Henry Gelan.  William R. Chase scored the only goal on a shot from about 25 feet away and the game ended 1-0.