James Naismith Montreal before moving to the United States, where he designed the game in late 1891 while teaching at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts. Seven years after inventing basketball, Naismith received his medical degree in Denver in 1898. He then arrived at the University of Kansas, later becoming the Kansas Jayhawks' athletic director and coach. While a coach at Kansas, Naismith coached Phog Allen, who later became the coach at Kansas for 39 seasons, beginning a lengthy and prestigious coaching tree. Allen then went on to coach legends including Adolph Rupp and Dean Smith, among others, who themselves
The Massachusetts Game The Massachusetts Game The Massachusetts Game was a type of amateur club baseball popular in 19th century New England. It was an organized and codified version of local games called "base" or "round ball", and related to town ball and rounders. The Massachusetts Game is remembered as a rival of the New York Game of baseball, which was based on Knickerbocker Rules. In the end, however, it was the New York style of play which was adopted as the "National Game" and was the fore-runner of modern baseball. The form of the Massachusetts Game that is best known today comes