RE: It fools a lot of dumb people that don't know the history
Posted on: October 17, 2019 at 15:37:19 CT
FIJItiger
MU
Posts:
141923
Member For:
21.28 yrs
Level:
Moderator
M.O.B. Votes:
1
Prior to accepting the job to be the Chapel Director in Lawrence, James Naismith created the now famous document 'The Rules of Basketball' on Dec 21st, 1891.
However in the winter of 1890 he had sent a letter to Lambert Will, YMCA director in Herkimer, NY, with an idea for a game called basketball. The game included concepts like rolling a medicine ball along the floor to your teammates, with 9 men on each team on the floor at the same time. It was not received well….players thought that rolling the ball was for babies and passes were too easy to block with that many people on the court. If someone did make a basket, someone else had to climb a ladder to remove the ball from the peach basket.
Lambert Will took those ideas as a framework and evolved them into a game. He had organized the first team, the first league, and he standardized the basketball court in Herkimer. He reduced the number of players, and refined the way the game was to be played. He replaced the medicine ball with a bounce-able rugby ball, and players began to perfect the art of dribbling. The peach basket was replaced with a metal hoop, and his wife invented a net to make it easier to tell when a basket was made. All of this occurred prior to Naismith drafting the ‘original’ rules on Dec 21st, 1891. Lambert Will sent several letters back to Naismith to describe the changes and updates he implemented to great success but never received a response.