James naismith biography timeline information

Inventor of basketball (1861–1939)

For the chemical biologist, see James Naismith (chemist).

James Naismith (NAY-smith; November 6, 1861 – November 28, 1939) was a Canadian-American physical educator, physician, Christian chaplain, and sports coach, best known as the inventor of the game of basketball.^[1][2][3]

After moving to the United States, he wrote the original basketball rule book and founded the University of Kansas basketball program in 1898.^[4] Naismith lived to see basketball adopted as an Olympic demonstration sport in 1904 and as an official event at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, as well as the birth of the National Invitation Tournament (1938) and the NCAA Tournament (1939).

Naismith studied and taught physical education at McGill University in Montreal until 1890, before moving to Springfield, Massachusetts, United States later that year, where in 1891 he designed the game of baske