Sports in North America credited with creating the game of basketball in 1891. While working as a physical education professor and instructor at the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School (YMCA) (today, Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S., he primarily created the game as a way to could keep his gym class active indoors on a rainy day. The sport quickly spread throughout the U.S. and Canada, with Naismith becoming instrumental in establishing college basketball. Today, the National Basketball Association (NBA), with teams in the U.S. and one in Canada, is widely considered to be the highest level of professional basketball in the
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