James Naismith Had Two Weeks to Invent an Indoor Sport, and Nailed Two Peach Baskets to a Gym Wall

In December 1891, James Naismith was a 30-year-old physical-education instructor at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts (now Springfield College). The problem he'd been handed was specific. The school's director, Luther Gulick, wanted an indoor activity for the eighteen members of his "incorrigibles" gym class — a group of restless young men who refused to participate in the Indian-club drills and gymnastics that filled the New England winter. Football and rugby weren't options indoors. Gulick gave Naismith two weeks to design something.

Naismith spent ten days trying to adapt existing outdoor sports and gave up. He started instead from a list of constraints. The activity should be playable indoors, on a wooden floor, by 18 men. It should be possible to score without running into each other. The ball should be moved by passing, not running, to limit collisions. There should be a goal that didn't reward velocity, so a thrown ball couldn't injure anyone defending it. He settled on baskets mounted at a height that required arched throws — high enough that a forceful straight throw was useless. The school's janitor, Mr. Stebbins, brought him two peach baskets from the basement.

Naismith nailed the baskets to the railing of the gym's elevated running track, which sat at exactly ten feet — a height that has stuck. He typed up 13 rules and pinned them to a bulletin board. The first game, in mid-December 1891, used a soccer ball, nine players per side, and ended 1–0 on a single basket from about 25 feet. Goals had to be retrieved from the basket each time someone scored, by an attendant on a ladder. The game spread internationally through the YMCA network within two years; cutting the bottoms out of the baskets came in 1894.