Sports Zone

Sports Zone


Basketball:

Dr. James Naismith is known world-wide as the inventor of basketball. He was born in 1861 in Ramsay township, near Almonte, Ontario, Canada. After serving as McGill's Athletic Director, James Naismith moved on to the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA in 1891, where the sport of basketball was born. In Springfield, Naismith was faced with the problem of finding a sport that was suitable for play inside during the Massachusetts winter for the students at the School for Christian Workers. Naismith wanted to create a game of skill for the students instead of one that relied solely on strength. He needed a game that could be played indoors in a relatively small space. The first game was played with a soccer ball and two peach baskets used as goals. James Naismith devised a set of thirteen rules of basketball.

Soccer No one knows for sure when or where soccer was invented, but many researchers have ideas. One place that many people think soccer was invented is China. People think that soccer was invented as a distraction for soldiers in war. Ancient Chinese Texts say that the Chinese Emperor invented soccer 5,000 years ago, but modern Chinese Historians say that their country invented soccer around 500 B.C. but the modern soccer we know today is created by the English.