James Naismith’s Handwritten Notes On The First Basketball Game
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Young_Chitlin
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By: Sean Newell
These are handwritten notes from James Naismith describing the circumstances of the first game of basketball. They are not newly discovered, they were part of an auction from December 2006, but that does not make them any less fascinating. In all, there are eight pages worth of Naismith's thoughts and anxieties regarding the game.
The pages, among many other basketball related items, were found by Naismith's granddaughter, Helen Carpenter and put up for auction. This manuscript sold for $71,700. Naismith's 13 rules of basketball were also recently auctioned off, going for $4.3 million in 2010 and Kansas recently announced the rules will take up permanent residence in a new building to be constructed next to Allen Fieldhouse. The efforts to bring the rules back to Kansas will be the subject of a 30 For 30 feature.
The auction site transcribed all seven pages (but only made two full pages available to view, see below) and shows how meticulously Naismith crafted the sport, and how enduring his efforts were. 10 foot rims, a jump ball to start the game, the prevalence of traveling. It's all there. And here.
Comments
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cool ? . ? got bad hand writing cant read ?
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Dude had the WOAT handwriting
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...And if he knew how many Black millionaires this game would create he would've...
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id like to read it but i cant understand his handwriting.
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greenwood1921 wrote: »...And if he knew how many Black millionaires this game would create he would've...
then they would just be a stock pile of ? in baseball. -
Dr James Naismith has some of the worst hand writing I've ever seen . I can't read that ?
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that ? look like my handwriting now..maybe that's why i can read it
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He didn't say much of worth in those pages. In the first one he just talks about how while he was putting up the goals, he was watching the students come int to see what their attitudes were like at the time. He was a bit nervous because he wasn't sure if the game would maintain their interest and at that point he believed there were about even odds that the whole endeavor could be a success or failure. The second page just talks about him explaining the rules a little. He also came up with the idea to have to officials to call the game and make sure the rules were followed. He explains that they were going to use a soccer ball, and he asked the person helping him if they had any baskets of some size he specified. No baskets of that type were available, but his helper did come up with the idea to try peach baskets.
