The first official basketball game took place at the YMCA gymnasium in Springfield, Massachusetts. There were two nine-man teams. A soccer ball was used and peach baskets were nailed 10 feet above the floor on the balcony.
55 years before the NBA ever existed, a game began, which would go on to change the sports landscape forever...
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 foes. The 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 to play during the winter months a year earlier in 1891. Naismith wrote simple rules for the game, and nailed up two peach baskets for hoops, most of original Naismith rules are still in place today. Some of the rules have changed a bit, and new rules have been added since then, such as in the original game bouncing the ball was prohibited. Of the 13 rules, nine have been modified and kept in the modern game of basketball, the rest have been disregarded.
The First game consisted of 18 players, or nine to a team which was standard to the baseball teams of the day. Since Naismith or the YMCA didn’t have the money to design a new ball they used a soccer ball. The concept of the game must have been foreign to the players as the game was played for 30 minutes and the final score was 1-0. Halfway though the game however William R. Chase made the ball go into the peach basket from 25 feet on a court that was half of the current standard NBA court, and thus became the first player to ever score in a basketball game. It was during this game that someone suggested a name for this new sport, Basketball.
Originally, a ladder was set up to help retrieve the balls from the peach baskets. Once metal baskets became popular,a pole was used to knock the ball out of the hole of the metal
basket. This eventually evolved into the use of a metal hoop with an intertwined cord netting attached to the hoop. Backboards were created in order to curtail spectator interference with the shots made by the players. The use of the soccer ball was ended, replaced by laced leather balls with rubber bladders, then the laces were removed from the ball, and finally leather-covered balls were introduced, which still remain in use even until today.
The rules of basketball originated from a frequent participant of rugby matches, who disliked the physicality of sport. He felt that basketball would be a much better game if the amount of physical play was restricted by implementing a system of rules that would restrict physical play. Naismith decided to adopt 13 rules which he termed the "fundamental principals " of the game of basketball. The rules contained a penalizing system for offensive and defensive players if they broke any of the rules of the game. Virtually all of Naismith’s original rules have lasted for more than one hundred years in the rule books of the game of basketball.
Basketball’s popularity quickly soared to new heights.Within a decade of its invention, women’s teams began to form. Intercollegiate basketball games were also being played soon after the invention of the game. Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Cornell were the first colleges to adopt a basketball program. In the earliest games usually no more than 15 to 20 points were scored. This style of play was maintained for a number of years as the ivy league teams dominated the college basketball spotlight. Eventually, other colleges began playing basketball serious teams, causing the need for a league to be formed, and thus the NCAA was created. The first national pro league was formed in 1935, but it was not until 1946 when the BAA/NBA was formed before a league would stick.
Naismith would later say, “The invention of basketball was not an accident. It was developed to meet a need. Those boys simply would not play, “Drop the Handkerchief.”
