Dr. James Naismith

James Naismith was born November 6, 1861 in Almonte Ontario, Canada, and died November 28, 1939 in Lawrence, Kansas, where he was buried in Lawrence Memorial Park. He invented the game of basketball as a winter indoor sport for the YMCA at Springfield, Massachusetts in 1891. In 1898 he accepted a position at the University of Kansas with the goal of developing the university's Physical Education Department, and he also agreed to coach K.U.'s first basketball team. K.U.'s first games were played either in a local low ceiling roller skating rink or away from home because of poor facilities at K.U. Naismith was instrumental in the development of the first modern gymnasium for basketball, the old "Robinson Gym" on the K.U. campus. The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts is named after him, and he was elected to it posthumously in 1959. He also was a 32nd Degree Mason.

Lawrence, Kansas · United States