By Darin Football is joined by baseball, basketball, hockey, and soccer as the major sports, especially at the collegiate and professional levels. We have looked previously at the connections of football to soccer and rugby, but did you know that basketball is somewhat of a branch off the American football tree? Well, at least they share a common story and innovator, Dr. James Naismith.
Naismith and Football
You already know this man: the inventor of basketball, a game famous for speed, skill, and supposed lack of contact.
What if I told you the modern, bone-crushing sport of American football owes its most iconic piece of safety gear… to the inventor of hoops and March Madness owes its existence at least in part to football?
19th Century Muscular Christianity
The year is 1891. Dr. James Naismith is a physical education instructor at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts. But before he was the ‘Father of Basketball,’ he was a powerhouse on the gridiron.
He played center for the YMCA International Training College football team in his post-graduate Divinity studies with classmate and coach Amos Alnzo Stagg, but had previously played football at McGill as an undergraduate. The game was brutal. No helmets, no pads. Mass plays were common. Players were getting paralyzed. Some were dying.
As a center, Naismith endured constant hits from opponents scrambling to tackle his quarterback. Naismith was among the first to design and wear a padded, flannel headpiece (made by his future wife) to protect his ears during play.
He is credited with pioneering the concept of head protection on the gridiron.
By late 1891, now tasked with teaching a rowdy class, Naismith faced a crisis. The brutal New England winter made outdoor sports impossible. His boss demanded a ‘non-rough’ indoor game that would keep these football and lacrosse players in peak condition without the injuries.
These athletes wanted to tackle and fight, but Naismith had just 14 days to create a sport that kept them from injuring each other.
The first solution, introduced in the winter of 1891, was called “Basketball.” It used a soccer ball, peach baskets, and 13 original rules specifically banning tackling, running with the ball, and striking. This game was initially designed as a physical conditioning drill for the football players who would normally be knocking each other out.
The drill he invented to save football players from themselves became the second-most-popular sport on Earth.
So next time you watch a wide receiver make a catch, remember: the sport survived—and the helmet on his head exists—because of the same man who encouraged players to stop tackling and start shooting.
