James Naismith (1861-1939)

• inventor of the sport of basketball
• born in Almonte, Ontario
• educated at McGill University and Presbyterian College in Montreal
• taught physical education from 1887 to 1890 at McGill University, and from 1890 to 1895 at the YMCA Training School (now Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts
• in 1891, aided by the American physical-education specialist Luther Halsey Gulick, he invented basketball as an indoor sport. Naismith developed the game as an activity for his students during the harsh winter months.
• director of physical education at the YMCA in Denver (1895-1898) and at the University of Kansas (1898-1937)
• Naismith was voted to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1959; officially called the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame, the institution was named in his honor and is located in Springfield
• in 1978 he was also inducted into a Basketball Hall of Fame in Almonte, Ontario
• information on Almonte

back to the Well Known Canadians Page