James Naismith

Who was James Naismith?

James Naismith was a Canadian American sports coach and innovator. He invented the sport of basketball in 1891. He wrote the original basketball rulebook, founded the University of Kansas basketball program, and lived to see basketball adopted as an Olympic demonstration sport in 1904 and as an official event at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, as well as the birth of both the National Invitation Tournament and the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship.

Born in Canada, Naismith studied physical education in Montreal before moving to the United States, where he developed basketball in late 1891 while teaching at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts. Naismith also studied medicine in Denver, taking his MD in 1898 before moving to the University of Kansas. After a decade serving there as a faculty member and part-time basketball coach during the sport's fledgling years, he became the Kansas Jayhawks' athletic director. He became a U.S. citizen in 1925 in Lawrence, Kansas.