The History Of Basketball

Since its beginning over a century ago, basketball has evolved from a simple form of exercise with only a few rules to a highly competitive and complex national sport. Basketball was invented by James Naismith at a YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891 (Fox 11-13). It began as an activity for the “‘ball-game’ void” months of winter (Hanson 65), and Naismith had five standards for the game. He wanted a ball that could be handled by a player’s hands; no one was to run with the ball, and anyone could grab the ball from another player as long as the ball was in play. There was to be no personal contact, and the goal was to be raised from the ground. He created the idea and standards for basketball by combining certain aspects of American
According to Dale Hanson’s book Basketball, the first of these original rules was that the player could throw the ball anywhere with one or both hands; the second rule was that one may hit the ball anywhere with one or both hands. The third rule was that players could not run with the ball, and the fourth rule was that the ball was to be held in between the hands. The fifth of these rules explained that there was to be no fouling, “shouldering, holding, pushing, tripping, or striking in any way” (66), and that a second foul could result in the player being banned until another goal was made. The sixth rule expressed that hitting the ball with a fist would result in a foul, and the seventh rule said that three repeated fouls from the same team would result in a point for the opposing team. The eighth rule determined that a point would be scored when a player shot or hit the ball into the goal from the ground. The ninth of these rules stated that after the ball was knocked out-of-bounds, the ball would be thrown in and only played by the player who caught the ball. Rules ten and eleven pertained to the umpire and referee. The umpire had the ability to disqualify players whereas the referee determined whether the ball was in-bounds, decided to which team the ball belonged, and also kept track of the playing time. The twelfth rule expressed how long
The first men to ever play basketball were a bit skeptical of the game to begin with, and basketball was seen as just “[a]nother new game” (Fox 15). However, author Larry Fox says, “The game was an immediate success … Word of the game began to spread around the campus. Before long the secretaries found themselves playing in front of an audience of fellow students”