BASKETBALL Born 122 years ago

Origins  Unlike other sports that require multiple people and a lot of equipment, Basketball only requires a Ball and the willingness to play.  The First basketball type game may have been played by the early Olmec people of ancient Mexico as early as 500 years go  The Aztec, and Mayan cultures also had a game similar to basketball, only instead of a rubber ball they used the decapitated skulls of their conquered enemies

 First true basketball game as we know it was on January 20th, 1892 in Springfield, Massachusetts

Canadian Doctor James Naismith

 Invented the game for the YMCA; Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts  Winter months  Simple rules for the game  Nailed up two peach baskets for hoops  Most of original Naismith rules are still in place today  Of the 13 rules, nine have been modified and kept in the modern game of basketball, the rest have been disregarded.  Rules that have changed:  bouncing the ball was prohibited

First Game  Didn’t have the money to design a new ball they used a soccer ball  Concept of the game must have been foreign: 30 minutes and the final score was 1-0  William R. Chase made the ball go into the peach basket, and thus became the first player to ever score in a basketball game  someone suggested a name for this new sport, Basketball.

Growth  Most of the YMCA centers in the North Eastern United States, and Southern Canada had facilities to accommodate players  After a decade, most YMCA centers began to ban the game because of the rough style of play associated with it  New Basketball leagues  The Amateur Athletic Union  Intercollegiate Athletic Association

Growth  By 1896 enough colleges had formed teams that the first extramural competition was held, but now with only five players to a team.  Addition of nets to the baskets, which allowed the ball to fall through and be retrieved on the court; earlier, a referee or player had to climb a ladder to pluck the ball from the wooden baskets of old

First Competitive Leagues  Local leagues: larger east coast cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Boston  November 7, 1896  This was the first known professional basketball game  In Trenton New Jersey between the Trenton YMCA and the Brooklyn YMCA

Spread  It became an official Olympic event at the 1936 Berlin Games  Cold War: international basketball courts took the place of battlefields, with the United States and the Soviet Union competing neck-and-neck for domination of the game

Assignment  Pick an important basketball player and research them  3 paragraphs describing your player due at the end of class today  Also, please make groups of 3 and share your information with others  Take notes on their players!