The Invention of the Game

The court at the Springfield YMCA, the first basketball court

In early December of 1891, while Dr James Naismith was a physical education professor at the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School (now the Springfield YMCA) in Springfield Massachusetts, he needed a game for his students to play indoors on a rainy day, After spitballing and rejecting a few proposed ideas, Naismith devised a game where 2 teams tried to shoot a ball into a basket suspended above the floor. The game was played with a peach basket nailed to the balcony above the floor and a soccer ball, but having to climb a ladder each time to retrieve the ball was deemed unnecessary, so Naismith cut out the bottom of the basket so the ball could be poked out with a long pole. Thus, the game of basketball was invented.