Clean Living With Basketball

23 Clean Living With Basketball Americans go wild over basketball. Many Americans youngsters grow up dreaming of “ shooting hoops" one day in the professional leagues. Basketball has always been an American game. Today, however, basketball is slowly being transformed into a global sport. Its inventor, Dr. James Naismith, would be astounded to see the current appeal of the game he invented in 1891 whenhe was an athletic director at a YMCA training school in the U. S. A. Naismith grew up in Canada, where he surely played a popular children's school game called “ Duck on a Rock" . A target, known as the “ duck" was situated atop a large rock. The object of the game was to throw another rock high into the air and make it land in a way that knocked the duck off the large rock.

When Dr. Naismith began working at the men's training school, he remembered this childhood game. He had his hands full with tough young teenagers who were in trouble with the law. His goal was to educate these troubled young men, and to help them turn their lives around in a positive way. Dr. Naismith wanted a game where strength was not enough for victory. He wanted to show the young boys that using their brains was a far better way to succeed. He nailed a peach basket about four metres above the floor at each end of a small gymnasium. A soccer ball was used as the first basketball, and a simple set of thirteen rules was drawn up. From these humble beginnings, the game we now know as basketball was born. Over the years, it has changed quite a bit. The rule book of thirteen rules has grown by leaps and bounds, but the simple elegance of the game can still be appreciated. By the time of his death in 1939, the game Dr. Naismith loved was well on the way to taking its place as a top world sport. Right up to the end, Dr. Naismith maintained his belief that basketball could provide an outlet for troubled kids who needed a sport where skill was more important than strength-where the values of clean living ruled.