James Naismith Phog Allen) collected money so that the 74-year-old Naismith could witness the introduction of basketball into the official Olympic sports program of the 1936 Summer Olympic Games. There, Naismith handed out the medals to three North American teams: United States, for the gold medal, Canada, for the silver medal, and Mexico, for their bronze medal win. During the Olympics, he was named the honorary president of the International Basketball Federation. When Naismith returned he commented that seeing the game played by many nations was the greatest compensation he could have received for his invention. In 1937, Naismith played a role
James Dyer Ball James Dyer Ball James Dyer Ball (波乃耶) (4 December 1847 in Canton, China – 22 February 1919 in London, England) was a Hong Kong scholar and author born in Canton. He is noted for works on Chinese culture and for contributing to the development of the system of Cantonese Romanisation. Ball was the son of the Reverend Dyer Ball of Massachusetts, United States, and his much younger second wife, Scottish missionary Isabella Robertson. Apart from preaching, his father ran a dispensary and opened a school in Canton, Guangzhou. At age 7, Ball's family began three years of travel in Britain