Naismith: A celebration of the man who invented the game of basketball, by Jim Van Valkenburg (February 1992)
Description:
This is two pages of the article titled, "Naismith: A celebration of the man who invented the game of basketball" written by Jim Van Valkenburg, NCAA Director of Statistics. It appears in Volume 31, No. 4 (February 1992), front and back page, of the magazine "The Tipoff" which is the official publication of the United States Basketball Writers Association. The article talks about the life of Dr. James Naismith, the history of the creation of the game, and a bit about the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the invention of the game. The insides of the magazine have not been digitized and, on the back page, is the full article "By Joe Mitch: Executive Director's Column."
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James A. Naismith (November 6, 1861 – November 28, 1939), known as "The Father of Basketball" was born in Almonte, Ontario. When he was nine, both of his parents died of typhoid fever and he was raised by his uncle, who later financed Naismith's way through college. He earned his theological degree from McGill University and graduated from Springfield College, then the YMCA Training School, in 1891. After graduation, he was hired as a faculty member, where he taught for five years. It is in his first year as a faculty member at Springfield College that he created the game of Basketball as an activity for an unruly class. In 1895, Naismith enrolled at the Gross Medical School in Denver and received his M.D. in 1898. In that same year, Naismith took the position of department head of physical education at the University of Kansas, where he remained until his death.
