Around the age of 30, James Naismith left his athletics director position at McGill University in Montreal to teach physical education at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts. Upon the request of his boss, Naismith was tasked to create an indoor sports game to help athletes keep in shape as they endured the cold New England winters. Naismith’s boss also stipulated that this new game should be “fair for all players and not too rough.”
The result was the game of basketball. Invented in 1891, Naismith created 13 basic rules and started out using 10-foot high peach baskets as the goals for each 9-player team.
By 1893, the game had become so popular that the YMCA began promoting it internationally and, in 1904, it served as a demonstration sport at the Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri. By 1936, the sport became an official event at the Summer Olympics in Berlin. Naismith lived long enough to see not only these honors but also the beginnings of the National Invitation Tournament (1938) and the NCAA Tournament (1939).