How old was James Naismith when he invented netball?

Answer 1

Naismith was born November 6, 1861. He is credited with inventing Basketball in 1891. In 1891 he was teaching a "rowdy" physical education at the Springfield, Massachusetts YMCA. Weather outside was nasty and not very favorable for outside athletic activities. Under orders from Dr. Luther Gulick, head of Springfield YMCA Physical Education, Naismith was given 14 days to create an indoor game that would provide an "athletic distraction". The game he came up with was "Basket Ball" where players were only allowed to pass the ball to each other and scored goals by lobbing a soccer ball into a peach basket located well above their heads at either end of a gymnasium. The first game of "Basket Ball" organized by Naismith was played in December 1891.

According to some sources, the first basketball game was actually played on Feb. 7, 1891 in Herkimer, New York, nearly a full-year prior to the Naismith and Springfield claims. According to the book "I Grew Up With Basketball", in the winter of 1890 Lambert G.Will a YMCA director in Herkimer, NY, a little village of 2700 received a letter from James Naismith of Springfield, Massachusetts, with an idea for a game called "basketball." Lambert was intrigued: Naismith's game could be played indoors, perfect for snowy villages like Herkimer. But when Lambert assembled a group of 18 boys, they found Naismith's game disappointing: you rolled a medicine ball along the floor to your teammates, and eventually one would throw the ball into a peach basket nailed high up on the wall. The boys thought that rolling the ball was for babies and passes were too easy to block. If someone did make a basket, someone else had to climb a ladder to remove the ball from the peach basket. And nine men on a side was just too many. Lambert Will had written a letter to Naismith in 1891, who at the time was employed as the Athletic Director at the Springfield Y.M.C.A., asking him if he would organize a team to play Herkimer. Will had included in the letter, the concept and rules of this new game. (Naismith never responded to Will's letter.) According the claims in the book, the first basketball game played by the revised rules devised by Will actually occurred on Feb. 7, 1891 in Herkimer, New York, nearly a full-year prior to the Naismith and Springfield claims. A team photo shows Will's team with a basketball dated 91-92. If these claims are true, then Naismith would qualify as a co-creator of the sport.