Newly found documents shed light on basketball's birth

[gridironmike]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2660882

CLAYTON, Mo. -- It's settled. Basketball really did evolve from a childhood game called "Duck on a Rock."

Such are the revelations contained in a newly unearthed trove of personal documents, photographs and mementos from basketball's founder, James Naismith.

The items, including handwritten diaries and typed notes, were discovered last spring, when Naismith's granddaughter, Hellen Carpenter, went down to her basement to find an old family photograph.

Instead, Carpenter found journals, keepsakes and typewritten rule sheets that open a new window on the birth of one of the world's most popular sports.

Carpenter is auctioning off the documents in December. She said they settle details about her grandfather's invention, such as the "Eureka" moment when he remembered rules from Duck on a Rock, a Canadian game he played as a child, and applied them to his new game.

The items include the first rules of basketball; photos of the first basketball team and basketball court, as well as Naismith's description of the very first game; a whistle Naismith used as the first basketball coach in University of Kansas history; and the passport he used to attend the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics, the first to feature basketball as a medal sport.

The five boxes of documents, photos and items were handed down to Carpenter from her mother, Hellen Naismith Dodd, Carpenter said. She kept them around for decades without looking through them.

"My mother told me for years that there was nothing of real value there," said Carpenter, 74.

Chris Ivy disagreed. As director of sports auctions for Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas, he was stunned when Carpenter called him and described the documents casually stored in her home in the St. Louis suburb of Chesterfield.

Documents autographed by Naismith only surface two or three times a year, he said. Carpenter's boxes were an especially rare find, he said.

"It almost crosses into history -- it's not just sports collectibles," he said.

MORE AT LINK

Although I understand the value these momentos hold, I think these things should be given to the Basketball Hall of Fame...maybe even the Smithsonian. I'd hate to think something similar to that pertaining to the NFL would end up auctioned off.

[Dan T.]

Cool article. It's fun to think about the humble beginnings of a sport that the entire world now plays.

[chomerics]

I agree about the donation, and I bet the Basketball HOF and the Smithsonian will be bidders on the items. I wish she would talk to them first, and at least let them make an offer on the items before sending them to auction.

[Mass_SkinsFan]

WOW. That's rather neat and interesting. I had never realized that basketball actually had RULES at one point in time. I really thought it had always been the game my father refered to as "wrestling in shorts" and refused to allow my brothers and myself to watch.

[mjah]

Doesn't almost all wrestling of any kind take place in shorts?

[tizzod]

Doesn't almost all wrestling of any kind take place in shorts?

It's the required uniform. And they are tights.

[artmonkforHOF]

I agree on the idea that these items should be in the Hall of Fame, and most likely, the winning bidder will loan the documents to the Hall, but as a Canadian there is no way these documents should end up in the Smithsonian. Naismith was a Canadian and if these documents show a connection between basketball and a local Canadian game he played while growing up, then those particular items belong in a Canadian exhibit on Canadian soil.

The doucments of the first game, first coach at Kansas etc, I have no problem with where they end up, as long as they are displayed to the public.