Sports : Who invented Basketball...by accident?

Before LeBron James was throwing down slam dunks and racking up championship rings, another James was the biggest name in basketball-though most people today might not even know his name.

In 1891, James Naismith was a 30-year-old Canadian grad student at Springfield College in Massachusetts, trying to survive the harsh New England winter like everyone else. His professor, Luther Halsey Gulick, had a problem: restless students who were stuck indoors and driving everyone nuts. The football season had ended, baseball was impossible in the snow, and the gym was filled with guys who had too much energy and nowhere to put it.

So, Gulick handed Naismith an assignment: Invent a new indoor game. Something to keep the students engaged without breaking all the windows. No pressure, right?

Naismith, being the eager student he was, got to work. First, he tried tweaking football. Too rough. Then soccer. Too much kicking. Lacrosse? That ended in disaster, with sticks flying and students leaving the gym looking like they'd been through a bar fight.

Days passed. Nothing worked. Naismith was running out of ideas-and patience. He knew he couldn't go back to Gulick empty-handed. That's when inspiration struck.

"I can still recall how I snapped my fingers and shouted, 'I've got it!'" he later wrote.

The issue with rugby (one of the most popular sports at the time) was all the tackling and running. So, what if running with the ball was against the rules? That would force players to focus on passing instead.

Next, he needed a goal-but not like in soccer or hockey, where the ball stays on the ground. He thought back to a childhood game called "duck on a rock," where kids tossed a rock at a target sitting high above them. That gave him an idea: what if players had to throw the ball into a goal placed up in the air?

He grabbed a soccer ball and ran to the school janitor, asking for two wooden boxes to use as goals. The janitor didn't have any, but he did have two peach baskets. Good enough. Naismith nailed them to the lower balcony rails at each end of the gym-10 feet above the ground (a height that, fun fact, still defines modern basketball hoops today).

He then wrote up 13 simple rules-including no running with the ball, no tackling, and no punching opponents (probably a good call). Just like that, basketball was born.

The first-ever game of basketball was played in December 1891. It was a chaotic mess. There were nine players per team, no dribbling, and a lot of confused running around. But the students loved it. They played like their lives depended on it.

However, there was one tiny problem: the peach baskets still had bottoms.

Every time someone scored, the game had to stop while someone fetched a ladder and fished the ball out. Eventually, someone had the bright idea to cut the bottoms out. Crisis averted.

The game spread like wildfire. Springfield students introduced it to local YMCAs, and soon, high schools and colleges were adding basketball to their programs. The rules were mailed across the country (because email wasn't a thing yet), and before long, international students were taking the game back home to Europe, Asia, and beyond.

By 1898-just seven years later-the first professional basketball leagues were up and running.

A few decades after that, basketball made its Olympic debut in 1936, and in 1949, the NBA was officially formed. What started as a last-minute classroom experiment had turned into a global phenomenon.

Despite inventing one of the most popular sports in the world, Naismith wasn't obsessed with winning. After earning his medical degree, he spent nearly 40 years at the University of Kansas, serving as chair of the physical education department and coaching the school's first basketball team.

Here's the kicker: he's the only coach in Kansas history with a losing record. Why? Because he cared more about character development than championships. Winning was nice, but for Naismith, the real victory was in the way the game brought people together.

Today, his invention is played by over 450 million people worldwide, with the

Today, his invention is played by over 450 million people worldwide, with the NBA alone generating billions of dollars each year. Not bad for a guy who was just trying to stop a bunch of restless students from tearing up the gym!