James Naismith and was also remembered as a Freemason. Maude Naismith died in 1937, and on June 11, 1939, he married his second wife Florence B. Kincaid. On November 19 of that year, Naismith suffered a major brain hemorrhage and died nine days later in his home located in Lawrence, Kansas. Naismith was 78 years old. Coincidentally, Naismith died eight months after the birth of the NCAA Basketball Championship, which today has evolved to one of the biggest sports events in North America. Naismith is buried with his first wife in Memorial Park Cemetery in Lawrence, Kansas. Florence Kincaid died in 1977
YMCA YMCA in Springfield, Mass. in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith, a clergyman, educator and physician. Naismith was asked to create an indoor "athletic distraction" to keep rowdy youth busy in the cold New England winter months. Luther Gulick, the head of the Springfield Y, gave Naismith two weeks to come up with a game to occupy a particularly incorrigible group. Naismith decided the game had to be physically active, simple to understand and would have minimal physical roughness. The original game was played with a soccer ball and two peach baskets nailed to the balcony of the Springfield Y. The