Birth of Basketball

Born in Ontario Canada, James Naismith moved to the United States at the age of 30 and took a job as a physical education teacher at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts.

It was there in 1891 that Naismith took a course from Luther Goolick and was asked to invent a group game that could be played indoors during the winter — between the time football ended and baseball began. The idea behind it was to physically engage the students during long winters, and also to control their rowdy behavior that resulted from strict discipline.

Naismith analysed the most popular games at the time – rugby, lacrosse, soccer, baseball and football – in hopes of taking the best from each sport.

But Naismith was more inspired by the game Duck On The Rock which he played extensively during his childhood days. In the game the main object is to knock the ‘duck’ off the rock with a ball. Naismith found that he could do this better by arching his shot and so the fundamental shot of basketball began to emerge.

He was guided by this thought and that most of the injuries in other sports happened while running with the ball. Among the thirteen rules he orginally drew up, one of them was that the ball had to be passed. You couldn’t run while in possession of the ball, kick the ball, and you couldn’t tackle. He liked the large soft soccer ball and thought that was excellent for passing. Naismith reduced body contact further by placing the goal, originally peach baskets, above the players heads. They were placed at either end of the gym ten feet off the floor. Goals could only be shot by lobbing, or arching the shot as he’d done playing Duck On The Rock.

The game proved so popular, journalists were writing about it less than a year after its invention. The rules were published in a YMCA magazine and its influence spread. Some wanted to name it Naismith Ball as a tribute to its inventor, but James Naismith demurred and wanted to call it Basketball.

Though he invented one of the most popular games of all time, he played it only twice in his lifetime, considering it an oddity preferring gymnastics or wrestling as better forms of exercise. He played basketball for the first time within a few weeks of its invention and then seven years later after he’d joined the University of Kansas as chapel director and physical education instructor.

He believed that the game with 13 simple rules didn’t really require coaching but still basketball grew out of the Unversity of Kansas with games against local YMCA teams along with a few college teams and one current Big 12 school, Kansas State.

By 1900 there was an eastern college league and basketball was included as a demonstration sport at the St Louis Olympics of 1904. Naismith wasn’t interested in the glory of competitive sport and remained deeply religious. He was determined to use sports and ministry to instil positive ethics in young athletes.

He went on to serve in the military during World War I at the Mexican border and in France. Apart from writing the original basketball rulebook, he published papers, A Modern College in (1911) and Essence of a Healthy Life (1918), and The Basis of Clean Living (1918).

His main work Basketball: Its Origin and Development was published posthumously in 1941 after his death in 1939. Dr. Naismith wanted games to be played for fun and exercise, and not with an unhealthy competitive spirit. He strongly believed that spirituality could be achieved through physical education. His contribution to the world of sports has earned him the title, ‘Father of Basketball’, and he continues to inspire many.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Naismith

The Greeks Knew

In order to understand sports, Naismith researched the origins of sports and as the Y.M.C.A had adopted Ancient Greek philosophies in physical activities with spiritual developments; he would have researched the reasons why the Olympics were born. What was the meaning? And why did the Olympics stop? (Rome 400A.D.)

The Greeks believed the ‘body’ was a temple that housed the ‘mind and spirit’ and sports (gymnastics) were its way of keeping that temple clean and healthy (strong). The mind controls the body and the body will become what the mind wants it become. They believed the ‘soul’ was the driving force behind the individual. This was the ‘three-dimensional concept’ that the Olympics were founded on.

1. Body
2. Mind
3. Soul

People are born equal. We all have internal gifts and natural intrinsic talents (a creative mind). Imagination, passion, intellect, reason, a will to live; we can use our minds to visualise; we can observe our surroundings and adapt to any environment. We can use the mind and create strategies and tactics that separate us from the animal kingdom.

We can breathe, we can see and we can move. All we need is guidance on how to use our minds. This shouldn’t cost anything for the individual, but in today’s world, it’s not designed that way. World sports institutions function by people relying on other people’s content knowledge and methods of teaching (direct, rather than encouraging self-thought)

When we go to school, the gift of self-learning is somewhat stymied and we are taught to look externally and rely on other people’s minds and intellect. Ancient Greek society was about thinking for yourself and using these natural intrinsic gifts. This is how Naismith envisioned basketball should be played. Coaches would have been the furtherest thing from his mind. He was thinking in three dimensions.

1. Use you mind breathe.
2. Use your breathing to feel.
3. Use your body to you what you are feeling.

3D Thinking

To the Ancient Greeks ‘Life’ was a gift from their Gods. We are given a soul which pumps oxygen into our bodies and a spiritual mind to mould the body. The mind resides in the body and uses it to get around and the ancients knew that the stronger the mind, the stronger the body. They knew that before you can have a strong body, you must have a strong mind and that the mind has the following crucial functions; intellectual, emotional, physcological, the ability to reason, to control one’s strength and quality of life.

These were the gifts from their Gods that distinguished them from the entire animal kingdom. Man had the ability to ask himself, “Why am I here?” He would then use his intellectual capabilities to search for an answer. I believe these same ideals or concepts influenced Naismith’s thinking while he was inventing basketball.

• The Doryphoros:
  The Perfect Athlete

James Naismith, a keen sportsman himself, must have looked into his world of sports, and basketball was born, on the same basic fundamentals of the mind, body and spirit from which Ancient Olympics were founded. This was the concept of ‘free-thinking’. When you ‘idolise’ someone or something, then the freedom to think is neglected and you look externally for something to motivate and enlighten you. Looking inside yourself, analysing your successes and your failures and looking at how to improve yourself or preventing a mistake from re-occurring is 3D thinking.

Naismith’s invention was a game based on skill, rather than brute force and strength. He invented the world’s first three-dimensional form of exercise, something that was ahead of its time. In spite of this, basketball has evolved into a one-dimensional sport or way of life that is based around winning! The three-dimensional concept never eventuated as the focus on Naismith’s principles was lost.

A Game to Play

Naismith once said “Basketball is not a game that can be coached, but a game that should be played”.

When you ‘play’ basketball it’s 3-dimensional because you are using your own mind, body and soul. You are teaching yourself, as you are working things out for yourself.

When someone is constantly telling you what and how to do something, you are being denied the opportunity of discovering those same things for yourself. Your independence is restricted. The coaching aspect was something Naismith never intended.

“As I am not a fan of sports teams or players, I do not practice idolatry!” I respect athletes and teams for their dedication to their sport and respective competitions and I watch and support athletes who aspire to reach for the top.

As basketball’s popularity grew, it became more hostile, aggressive and competitive, far more than Naismith or the YMCA envisioned. The YMCA disapproved of this because it was bringing out the dark side of people’s nature and subsequently banned the game. Naismith would have been watching the meaning and purpose of his gift being highjacked and manipulated for external and personal gain.

Naismith became poor, and died poor, but a happy and content man. He never accepted money for preaching, medical bills and sports. People couldn’t understand why he didn’t make money. His satisfaction came from knowing he had given something to the world that could be enjoyed by the masses. Most people couldn’t understand why he imparted with so much knowledge and not charge the recipients money.

Basketball today has become so big, that very few people can grasp it. The majority will fail to grasp (in today’s systems) it leaving a few to enjoy its false privileges. It is controlled by rules, federations and associations. It’s controlled by greed, egotism and idolatry.

Most basketball players often play a position that suits their height. They’ll play that position and they spend the rest of their lives being told what to do and they hope their coaches are well informed on how to coach them in their specific position. And there the true meaning of basketball that Naismith envisioned has been lost.

“We have been caught up in the coaching aspect, when Naismith fully saw it as a ‘game’, not something that strategy from the sideline would dictate. The difference between a game and a sport is important. He saw it as a game”. (Fiba, The Story of a Game)

Coaching Is The Business

In the last 100 years of basketball’s evolution we have seen the elevation of the coach. Coaches have evolved, not because of the needs of the players, but because of the needs of the coaches.

It is the result of basketball becoming a sport, and the sport became a business. Sports are only about winning, business is about making money. Combine the two and you have modern day sports. This is what sports offer to kids around the world; if you do as you’re told you can become the ‘next big thing’. We have become conditioned to believe that this is what sports is all about!

Unfortunately, the main philosophy in modern day sports is about winning. This creates intense competition but also desperation among competitors. People lose the sense of common decency and moral ethics and more and more athletes end up disgracing themselves, or never reaching any level of true potential. We teach children to not cheat in life, but when it happens in sports its okay, especially if it helps your team win.

Basketball has become a very complex sport, and yet it’s very simple. There are so many different interpretations that it becomes very intimidating and people tend to get overawed and walk away from the game. Some pick it up quicker than others. Gaps widen and people go different ways. It is external and only offers you a life in basketball. In a sense you become a slave to a business. The more complicated basketball is for people to understand, the more money that can be sucked out of them. If people understood the simplicity behind the sport then there would be greater freedoms for people and boundaries would be taken down. This would minimise the importance of the coach, and idolatry would be a thing of the past if we adopted freedom of thought.

1. Be free to educate yourself through practical learning and actual experiences.
2. Be free to think for yourself and be able to make your own decisions.
3. Be free to use your own imagination, feelings and passion (inner strength).

Coaches in basketball today have overstepped their true value. Coaches are basically salesmen. Coaches have to convince people they are the best in order to secure jobs. So they have to make themselves look good and knowledgeable. Many coaches will exaggerate their importance and how much they really know and all this leads to complicating the simplicity of the game.

This is why so many people around the world struggle to grasp the game, and why so many people are discouraged to play it. Most people who choose to play basketball never reach the levels of their dreams.

A large proportion of today’s coaches appear to be ‘mind manipulators’ and ‘control freaks’. They suffocate their player’s minds so they can’t think for themselves.