Basketball takes its roots from a couple of peach baskets and a Canadian physician and physical education teacher, Dr. James A. Naismith. Naismith was born on this date in 1861 in Almonte, Ontario. In 1890 he enrolled at the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Mass. Because of the severity of the New England winters, the superintendent of the "Y" asked the students to create a game that could be played indoors. Naismith attached a peach basket to the bottom of an elevated running track at either end of the gymnasium. Then, using a soccer ball, he had two teams toss the ball back and forth until someone landed it in the basket. Naismith received a medical degree in 1898 and spent the remaining years until his retirement as a professor of physical education at the University of Kansas.

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