The History of Basketball

In 1892, a YMCA gym teacher named James Naismith was at a school in Springfield Massachusetts trying to come up with a new indoor game that would keep children physically active during the cold winter months. The purpose of the game was to keep students ready for spring sports that involved physical activity. He wrote down 13 rules and nailed them to the wall, thus creating basketball.

The game was originally played with a soccer ball, and peach baskets were used as goals; when Naismith presented the idea of using a much smaller ball than that of soccer, kids started complaining about having to retrieve the ball after every goal. Naismith then came up with using two half-circles with a net in between, and the bottom of the basket was put 10 feet above the ground. This is where the phrase 'nets will even' came from. It wasn't until 1901 that a backboard was introduced to help prevent fans from interfering with play by redirecting balls that were going out-of-bounds back into the court.

Basketball became an Olympic sport in 1936, and was played until 1992 as a women's only sport before adding men to compete as well starting at the '96 Olympics. The first three words of the very first paragraph were originally 'In 1891, James Naismith'. One can see that basketball has evolved immensely since its inception. Naismith, sometimes referred to as the 'father of basketball', is considered by many in the world of sports to be one of the best athletes in history due to his achievements in multiple sports including basketball and football where he was captain at McGill University in Montreal.

Not only has the game evolved, but so have the players. When James Naismith developed the game, he envisioned it as a sport that could be played by anyone. Because of this, there were no height restrictions or weight limits at first; however, as the game has evolved and technology has advanced, players' sizes have changed drastically. The first basketball player to ever dunk was Wayman Tisdale back in the 1980s, and since then players have become taller and heavier. The average center in that era was 6'8" tall and weighed 220 lbs; the average center today is over seven feet tall and weighs over 250 lbs.

Back in the 1960s there were no professional leagues for basketball; it wasn't until 1967 when the NBA was created to compete with the ABA. The NBA now consists of 30 teams in two conferences, Eastern and Western. There are also two other professional leagues that have emerged since then: the NBDL, which is a minor league for players not yet ready for play in the NBA; and WNBA, which is a women's league consisting of 12 teams.

Basketball has evolved so much since its inception by James Naismith, and it continues to evolve with the addition of new technology and rule changes. The game now consists of four 10-minute quarters instead of two halves; there are also two referees on each team who are responsible for making calls against players. Today's players are much taller and larger than past players, which has made the game more difficult; this is due to new rules that were introduced by the NBA in an attempt to make things easier for smaller players.

Many great athletes have played basketball over time, like Wilt Chamberlain who was one of the 50 greatest players in history. No matter how much the game changes and evolves, one thing that will never change is James Naismith's vision of a sport that can be enjoyed by all people no matter their size or skill level.