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Dr Naismith Basketball

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Entering its 125th year, basketball is a sport that has taken the world by storm. A fast-paced and physical game, fans and players devote countless time, energy, and money to the beloved sport. From pee-wee to the NBA, basketball has become one of the world’s most popular sports. Ironically enough, the game of shot clocks and three point lines started with one man, a soccer ball, and two peach baskets. In 1891, in the town of Springfield, Massachusetts, a Canadian physical education instructor at the YMCA Training School was faced with a problem. Dr. Naismith had a Massachusetts winter to face, and he did not have a satisfactory activity to keep his students engaged while indoors. He wanted an activity that would be strenuous for his young …show more content…

These targeted moral and physical benefits of playing basketball are initiative, agility, accuracy, alertness, cooperation, skill, reflex judgment, speed, self-confidence, self-sacrifice, self-control, and sportsmanship (Naismith 186). Sportsmanship was very important to Dr. Naismith; his vision was that all who played his game would be able to lose gracefully and win courteously, accept criticism as well as praise, and appreciate the attitude of the other player. The game was a hit, and through the YMCA, basketball saw a period of tremendous growth, just two years after its invention (Laughed). In 1896, the first college basketball game was played between the University of Iowa and the University of Chicago, and by the following year, teams of five became standard. Many colleges began forming their teams between 1893 and 1895, and with such rapid growth, the game became very popular in Canada and select countries. (Basketball …show more content…

The game was initially played with peach baskets with a small hole in the bottom for a rod to poke the ball out, but they slowed the pace of the game as the ball would need to be removed after a made shot. The first improvement to the peach basket came a year after basketball’s invention when the wire rim was introduced. It was not until 1906 that the metal rim and backboard were made standard (Basketball Equipment). Also, basketball was first played with a soccer ball. When the first ball was designed specifically to be a basketball it was brown, making it hard for players and spectators to track. It was not until the late 1950s that Tony Hinkle, Butler coach and president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches from 1954 to 1955, designed an easily visible orange ball (Basketball Equipment). As for size, the ball was first invented, in 1894, to be thirty to thirty-two inches in circumference, but today it has two general sizes, 28.5 and 29 inches in circumference, the larger size for men’s basketball and the smaller for

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