The name James Naismith is well known in the sports world, but up in Canada, chances are the average Canadian is unaware that the Canadian was the inventor of basketball.
The Doctor was more than just the inventor of the sport. A teacher growing up in the town of Almonte just outside Ottawa, Naismith became a chaplain and physician.
The journey to discovering the sport started in his childhood following the death of his parents at age 9. Raised by his uncle, Naismith spent the majority of his time in the outdoors, playing a game called 'duck on a rock’;
The idea was to knock a rock off the top of a larger one roughly four metres away, while opponents would try to block the shot
The concept eventually morphed when he became a P.E. teacher in the year of 1891 in Springfield, Mass. During the winter months, his students would play a game where they'd huck soccer balls into a basket pinned against the wall under the instruction of Naismith.
Come 1936, basketball was in the Olympics, with Springfield becoming the eventual home of the basketball hall of fame.
To learn more about how the sport was founded and rapidly gained popularity, we've stumbled across a rare interview with Dr. Naismith himself that gives fans of the sport a peak into how the sport became to be.
127 years later, the Toronto Raptors are on the verge of bringing the first NBA Championship to Naismith's home country. Naismith's grandson, James Naismith III will watch the Raptors seek out the Larry O'Brien Trophy.
“I always remind Americans that in addition to this being a great American game it’s also a Canadian game and one with Scottish roots,” said his grandson via the Toronto Sun.
“It has been an interesting thing my whole life being the grandson of the man who invented basketball because I have seen just how much the game has meant to people,” he said in an interview. “It was not long ago a man came up to me and said that game that your granddad invented saved my life.
