Sports in Indiana Sports in Indiana The state of Indiana is home to a number of professional and college sports teams, as well as prominent auto racing. Indiana has a rich basketball heritage that reaches back to the formative years of the sport itself. Although James Naismith developed basketball in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1891, Indiana is where high school basketball was born. In 1925, Naismith visited an Indiana basketball state finals game along with 15,000 screaming fans and later wrote "Basketball really had its origin in Indiana, which remains the center of the sport." The 1986 film "Hoosiers" is inspired by the story
James Naismith (chemist) for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). His nomination for the Academy of Medical Sciences reads: Naismith is married to Rachel Middleton with whom he has one son and one daughter. James Naismith (chemist) James Henderson Naismith (born 26 July 1968) is Professor of Structural Biology at the University of Oxford, Director of the Research Complex at Harwell and co-interim academic lead of the Rosalind Franklin Institute. He was formerly Bishop Wardlaw Professor of Chemical Biology at the University of St Andrews until May 2017. Naismith was educated at Hamilton Grammar School. He went on to study at the University of