James Naismith

In 1891, James Naismith served as a physical education teacher at the YMCA International Training School (later Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts, and was also the American football coach at McGill University in Canada. Naismith was tasked with finding a fun and easy-to-learn game that would kill students' boredom in winter indoor physical education classes. Naismith was inspired by the game of some Canadian children throwing balls into peach baskets, known in Canada as "Duck-on-a-Rock". Naismith's basketball game was initially conceived on November 15. The earliest rules did not include dribbling, but only allowed the ball to be passed on the court. He later wrote 13 basketball rules, 12 of which are still in use today. At first, Naismith nailed two peach baskets to the railing of the stand in the key room. The upper edge of the peach basket was 3.04 meters above the ground. He used a football as a game tool to throw at the basket. The ball was scored 1 point, and the winner was determined according to the number of points scored. After each shot, he had to climb a ladder to take out the ball and start the game again. Later, the bamboo basket was gradually changed to an iron basket with a live bottom, and then it was changed to a net hanging under the iron ring. After a hundred years of improvement, the current basketball rules were formed.