Basketball at the 1904 Summer Olympics

Basketball was invented in 1891 by Canadian-American James Naismith as a method of winter recreation for his students at the YCMA International Training College (now Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he was a physical education teacher. He later became the basketball coach and then athletic director at the University of Kansas, starting there in 1898. In 1936, Naismith was famously present for the first Olympic basketball tournament in Berlin.

The Olympic basketball tournament of 1904 was listed in the Spalding’s Official Basketball Guide as “The First Olympic World’s Basket Ball Championship.” The events were held outdoors on 11-12 July in the infield of the Olympic Stadium on a court measuring 50 feet by 70 feet, although the adjacent Physical Culture Gymnasium on the campus of Washington University had an indoor basketball court. As mentioned at the end of the event description, like most Olympic historians, we consider this only a demonstration event and not a full-medal Olympic event.