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James Naismith, Canadian-American physical-education director who, in December 1891, at the International Young Men’s Christian Association Training School, afterward Springfield (Massachusetts) College, invented the game of basketball. (Read James Naismith’s 1929 Britannica essay on inventing
James Naismith, (born November 6, 1861, Almonte, Ontario, Canada died November 28, 1939, Lawrence, Kansas, U.S.), Canadian-American physical-education director who, in December 1891, at the International Young Men’s Christian Association Training School, afterward Springfield (Massachusetts) College, invented the game of basketball. As a young man, Naismith studied theology and excelled in various sports. In the autumn of 1891 he was appointed an instructor by Luther Halsey Gulick, Jr., head of the Physical Education Department at Springfield. Gulick asked Naismith and other instructors to devise indoor games that could replace the boring or dangerous exercises used at the school during the winter.