English 11 Rough Draft Paper

Tyler Deeter
Mr. Alexander
English11, Period 2
8 May 2014
Basketball History James Naismith does the name mean anything? Well it should, because of Naismith we have the game basketball. Naismith was born in Almont, Ontario, and was educated at McGill University and Presbyterian College in Montreal. Naismith was the physical education teacher at McGill University from 1887 to 1890 and at Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts 1890 to 1895 (Bellis). It wasn’t until 1890 that Naismith was given the job to create a new game by Dr. Luther Halsey Gulick, the director of the physical education department (McCuaig). After Naismith thought about his future, he decided that the only real satisfaction that would derive from life was to help his fellow man. 1883 Naismith left Almont for McGill University where he earned a degree in theology. Naismith was now in search for a new game that could be played inside during the winter months. This job was one of the hardest and was given to Naismith and a class that was completely uninterested in the routine exercises. There had been three previous instructors that have gone down in defeat trying to rouse enthusiasm in that group of young men. Naismith had a long fought struggle with the class of young men with no success. “I had pinned my hopes on these two games and when they failed me, there seemed little chance of success,” Said Naismith (McCuaig). He tried to modify both football and soccer with no luck he then turned to lacrosse a game that he learned in Almont thinking this would work seeing how there were a few members of the group that were from Canada and knew how to play the game but still had no luck getting the group to want to participate (“Basketball in America”). After so many failures Naismith finally had a break through with the group introducing a brand new game that consisted of a peach basket nailed to the wall ten feet from the ground and a soccer ball till they had enough money to design a new ball. The basic plan was to see if you could make the ball into the basket more times then the other team. This was a hit with the group and worked at first till rules were required to keep it fair and even. There were nineteen people on one team and nineteen people on the other team or nine on nine Naismith knew the teams were too big so he cut the teams down to five on five and they played for thirty minutes at a time. This game became called basketball and was picking up momentum to be a big game. The first actual game ended in at score one to zero the first basket was scored by William R. Chase. Naismith now had a new game and wanted to spread it so he thought “if you want a new game to catch on, teach it to a room full of future P.E. teachers who are getting ready to head home for Christmas break.” Naismith’s students took the game to their hometown gyms. Only after two months the game had spread and different YCMA’s met for the first competitive game (History of Basketball). There are many different rules for basketball and fundamentals such as passing. Passing is the best way to keep possession of the basketball and is much faster may of moving down the court and getting people open to score. There are three main types of passes first is the bounce pass bouncing the ball off the ground to your teammate. The second is the chest pass throwing the ball to your teammate without the ball hitting the floor. Third is the overhead pass used for long passes to your teammate threw the air. The second fundamental is shooting there are three different types of shots. First is a layup just laying the ball up into the basket second is the set shot catching a pass from a teammate and being set before you shoot the ball. Third is the jump shot shooting the ball off the dribble and elevating off the ground and shooting (“Basketball Rules and History”).