Basketball: How It All Got Started By Carlos Lintons It would seem that Basketball has been with us forever. Yet it was only in 1881 that Dr. James Naismith created the game that now is one of the most popular games in the United States. What you may not also realise is that Naismith was actually born in Canada, and some wonder if the sport would be so popular in the US had he not been living in Massachusetts at the time he invented it.
Before he went to work at the YMCA Training School in Massachusetts, Naismith was the athletics director at the University of McGill in Montreal. It all started because he was trying to find a game for students to play inside during the cold winters. A soccer ball and two peach baskets were used to play the first game. At first a broomstick was used to push the ball out of the basket. Later they cut holes in the bottoms of the baskets, which is how the hoop and net we're used to eventually developed.
The YMCA promoted basketball worldwide and many people in a variety of countries play it as a hobby or a profession today. No other country has embraced it as widely as North America.
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