James Naismith's Founding Rules of Basketball

Fourteen days to invent a game

In 1891 James Naismith was teaching at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, with a rowdy class stuck indoors through a hard New England winter. Luther Gulick, the head of physical education, gave him 14 days to come up with an indoor game that would not take up much room, would keep athletes in shape, and would be fair for all players and not too rough.

Naismith worked from the games he knew. Most injuries came from contact, so players would not be allowed to run with the ball; they had to throw it from the spot where they caught it. The goal went high above the players' heads, opening upward, so it could not be guarded and scoring would take a soft, lobbing touch like the one he had learned as a boy playing duck on a rock in Ontario. He asked a janitor for a pair of boxes to use as goals. The janitor brought peach baskets.

According to the Associated Press account of the 2010 sale, Naismith wrote the rules down on December 21, 1891, on the eve of his deadline, and gave them to his secretary, who typed them on two pages. Naismith pinned the pages to a bulletin board outside the gym. His own handwritten report of the first game says he put the 13 rules on the bulletin board behind the instructor's platform, secured the peach baskets to the gallery railing about 10 feet off the floor, and tossed up a soccer ball between the two center men. Most of the fouls, he wrote, were for running with the ball.

What the thirteen rules say

The rules are short and plain. The ball may be thrown or batted in any direction with one or both hands, but never with the fist. A player cannot run with the ball. No shouldering, holding, pushing, tripping or striking is allowed; a first offense is a foul, and a second sits the player until the next goal is made. Three consecutive fouls by one side count as a goal for the other. A goal is made when the ball is thrown or batted into the basket and stays there.

The game had an umpire to judge the men and a referee to judge the ball, two 15-minute halves with five minutes of rest between, and a winner decided by the most goals. There is no mention of dribbling, which became part of the game a few years later; early players moved the ball only by passing. After every goal the ball went back to the middle of the court for a jump.

The rules first reached print on January 15, 1892, in The Triangle, the school newspaper, under the headline "A New Game." There were calls to name the sport Naismith Ball. Naismith refused and called it Basket Ball.

The man who wrote them

Naismith was born November 6, 1861, in Almonte, in what is now Ontario, to Scottish parents. He was orphaned young and raised for years by an aunt and uncle. At McGill University in Montreal he played football, lacrosse, rugby and soccer and won medals in gymnastics, earned a degree in physical education in 1888, and became McGill's first director of athletics before leaving for Springfield.

In 1898 he joined the University of Kansas, hired as a chapel director and physical education instructor rather than as a basketball coach. He coached the Jayhawks for nine seasons and finished 55-60, the only losing record of any coach in the program's history. One of his players, Forrest "Phog" Allen, became known as the father of basketball coaching and led Kansas for 39 seasons. Naismith spent almost 40 years at the university.

He lived to see basketball played as an official Olympic event in Berlin in 1936, where he handed out the medals, and he died in Lawrence on November 28, 1939. The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield is named for him, and he was in its first class of inductees in 1959.

From a family charity to Lawrence, Kansas

In 2010 the Naismith International Basketball Foundation, founded by Naismith's grandson Ian Naismith, put the rules up for sale, with the proceeds going to the foundation's work promoting sportsmanship and serving underprivileged children. Ian Naismith told the Associated Press that it was a family decision: "It's what Dr. Naismith wanted." The auction house's specialist called the pages "the birth certificate of one of the world's most popular sports."

A Kansas alumnus named Josh Swade spent that year trying to persuade wealthy fellow alumni to bid and bring the rules to the university. He found his backers in David Booth, a Lawrence High School graduate with two Kansas economics degrees (1968 and 1969), and his wife, Suzanne. On December 10, 2010, at auction in New York, the Booths won the rules for $4,338,500 including the buyer's premium, reported at the time as a record for sports memorabilia. Booth said the rules belonged at Kansas, where Naismith had spent 40 years, and credited coach Bill Self's enthusiasm as a factor in the gift.

Swade's campaign became a 2012 ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, "There's No Place Like Home," and a book, The Holy Grail of Hoops: One Fan's Quest to Buy the Original Rules of Basketball.

Kansas then built a home for the two pages. The donor-funded DeBruce Center, attached to the northeast corner of Allen Fieldhouse, opened to the public on April 25, 2016, and the rules were installed on May 13, 2016. Accounts of the building's cost differ: a Lawrence newspaper reported $21.7 million, while another account gives $18 million.

Seeing it today

The rules hang in the Rules Gallery on the second level of the DeBruce Center, a passage between the building's atrium and Allen Fieldhouse that is kept dark by design to protect the paper. The display case was built to strict archival standards for temperature and humidity.

At the press of a button the case lights up, its electrochromic glass turns clear, and visitors hear Naismith's own voice explaining how he invented the game. It comes from a 1939 radio interview, the only known recording of him, which a Kansas professor had recently discovered when the gallery opened.

Accounts of the document's form differ. Most, including the Associated Press, describe two typed pages with Naismith's handwritten notes; a 2016 local newspaper report called the rules handwritten. Coach Bill Self, seeing the installed pages for the first time, compared them to the Mona Lisa: "For those two pieces of paper to have such an impact in our sport is what makes it so special."

The numbers

Original rules

13

Players per side in the first game

9

Basket height

About 10 feet, set by the gym's gallery railing

Game length under the rules

Two 15-minute halves, five minutes of rest between

First public game

March 12, 1892: students 5, faculty 1

Naismith's Kansas coaching record

55-60 over nine seasons

Timeline

1. Nov 6, 1861

   James Naismith is born in Almonte, in present-day Ontario.

2. 1888

   Naismith earns his physical education degree at McGill University in Montreal.

3. 1890

   Naismith leaves Montreal for the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts.

4. Dec 21, 1891

   Naismith writes the 13 rules on the eve of his deadline, according to the Associated Press; his secretary types them on two pages, which he pins to the gym bulletin board.

5. Dec 1891

   The first game is played, nine against nine, with a soccer ball and two peach baskets.

6. Jan 15, 1892

   The rules are published in The Triangle, the school newspaper, as "A New Game."

7. Mar 12, 1892

   The first public game: students beat faculty 5-1, with Amos Alonzo Stagg scoring the faculty's only basket.

8. 1898

   Naismith joins the University of Kansas, where the basketball program begins.

9. 1936

   Basketball is an official Olympic event for the first time, in Berlin; Naismith hands out the medals.

10. Nov 28, 1939

    Naismith dies in Lawrence, Kansas.

11. 1959

    Naismith is inducted in the first class of the basketball hall of fame that bears his name.

12. Dec 10, 2010

    The rules sell at auction in New York for $4,338,500 to David and Suzanne Booth, who give them to the University of Kansas.

13. 2012

    ESPN's 30 for 30 documentary "There's No Place Like Home" tells the story of the campaign to bring the rules to Kansas.

14. Apr 25, 2016

    The DeBruce Center, built to house the rules, opens to the public next to Allen Fieldhouse.

15. May 13, 2016

    The rules are installed in the DeBruce Center's Rules Gallery.

The world in 1891

• Jan 29, 1891

  Liliuokalani is proclaimed Queen of Hawaii.

• Mar 3, 1891

  Congress passes the International Copyright Act of 1891.

• May 5, 1891

  The Music Hall in New York, later Carnegie Hall, opens with Tchaikovsky as guest conductor.

• May 20, 1891

  Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope is first shown at his laboratory.

• Jun 25, 1891

  Sherlock Holmes appears in The Strand Magazine for the first time.

• Aug 5, 1891

  The first American Express traveler's cheque is cashed.

• Nov 28, 1891

  The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is organized in St. Louis.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, James Naismith's Founding Rules of Basketball is number 21 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (18 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Naismith asked for two boxes to use as goals. The janitor brought peach baskets.
• The original 13 rules do not mention dribbling. Players moved the ball only by passing.
• Naismith is the only coach in Kansas basketball history with a losing record, 55-60.
• People wanted to call the game Naismith Ball. He said no.
• The case holding the rules plays the only known recording of Naismith's voice, from a 1939 radio interview.
• On the same day the rules sold, a Lincoln-signed Emancipation Proclamation once owned by Robert F. Kennedy brought $3,778,500 at auction in New York.