A winter problem in a Springfield gym

By Rafe Calder

In the winter of 1891, a gym in Massachusetts had a restless class and nothing for it to do. The man who solved that was born on a farm in eastern Ontario.

The assignment

The Canadian Encyclopedia says James Naismith was born on 6 November 1861 in Ramsay Township, near Almonte, Ontario. It says he invented basketball at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, now Springfield College. The physical education director, Luther Gulick, asked him to devise an indoor game for the gymnasium during the winter months. Gulick’s only instruction, in the encyclopedia’s account, was that it be fair to all players and free of rough play.

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography says he was given two weeks with a class and drew on a boyhood stone-tossing game and his analysis of the games he had played in college. McGill University’s athletics office describes the class as restless and Gulick’s request as an “athletic distraction” for the winter.

Duck on a rock

Global News, reporting from the town in 2019, describes it as Duck on the Rock, played outside his one-room schoolhouse: a small stone sat on a larger rock, and players lobbed another stone about four metres to knock it off. Our reading: three sources repeat the link, and none we read quotes Naismith himself, so it is the accepted story rather than a proven one.

Dates in order

Date	What the sources say	Source
6 November 1861	Naismith born near Almonte	Canadian Encyclopedia
1887	Graduates from McGill with a BA	Canadian Encyclopedia; McGill athletics
Fall 1889	Becomes McGill’s first full-time athletics instructor	Canadian Encyclopedia
21 December 1891	First game played	Dictionary of Canadian Biography; McGill athletics says introduced this day
29 December 1891	“First formal game”	McGill athletics
15 January 1892	Thirteen rules published in the school newspaper, The Triangle	Canadian Encyclopedia
12 March 1892	First public game; students beat the faculty 5 to 1	Wikipedia
6 February 1904	First intercollegiate game in Canada, in Kingston; McGill beat Queen’s 9 to 7 in overtime	McGill athletics

Side by side

Point	One account	Another
Date of the first game	21 December 1891 (Dictionary of Canadian Biography), though it adds that some sources give the 15th	McGill: introduced 21 December, first formal game 29 December
Who found the baskets	Canadian Encyclopedia: the building superintendent, who had no spare boxes, only two peach baskets	Wikipedia: the janitor brought peach baskets instead of the boxes Naismith had asked for
The ball	McGill and Wikipedia: a soccer ball	Dictionary of Canadian Biography: “a large ball that could be easily handled”
Players	Dictionary of Canadian Biography: 18 in the first match, five of them Canadians	McGill and Wikipedia: nine per side

The rules

Naismith wrote 13 rules, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, McGill and Wikipedia. McGill says two of them gave the game two fifteen-minute halves with five minutes of rest, and the side with the most goals won.

How the game travelled

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography says basketball reached Ottawa, Montréal and Toronto in 1892 and St. Stephen, New Brunswick, in 1893. McGill says it was played informally on that campus from 1893. The same biography says Naismith watched the United States beat Canada 19 to 8 for the first Olympic basketball gold in 1936; He died on 28 November 1939, in Lawrence, Kansas.

What kind of sources these are

A national encyclopedia, a national biography project, a university athletics office, Wikipedia, a news broadcaster, a travel site and a personal website about Almonte.

What we left out

Prices, hall-of-fame details, living people and disputes about his background that we could only trace to Wikipedia.

Quick answers

When was basketball invented? According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, the first game was played on 21 December 1891 in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Who invented basketball? James Naismith, born near Almonte, Ontario, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia.

How many rules did the original game have? Thirteen, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia and McGill University’s athletics office.

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