중학교 영어 2 (천재교과서 이상기) 연계 글

Have you ever tossed a ball into a basket? Basketball is one of the most popular sports in the world. However, it began in a single gym with a teacher who needed a new game to play indoors.

In the winter of 1891, James Naismith was teaching a physical education class at a school in Springfield, Massachusetts. The students had to exercise inside during the long winter, and they were bored with marching and other dull exercises. Naismith's boss asked him to create a new game.

Naismith wanted a game without pushing or tackling because players could easily get hurt in a small gym. His answer was a goal high above the players' heads. Players could not crowd around such a goal, so they had to toss the ball gently. Naismith asked a school worker for two boxes to use as goals, but the worker brought two peach baskets instead. Naismith nailed them to the gym's balcony, one at each end, ten feet above the floor. For the ball, he chose a soccer ball.

The students played the new game that winter with nine players on each team. Each time a team scored, someone had to take the ball out of the basket. Later, goals with open bottoms let the ball drop through.

Naismith wrote thirteen rules for his game. One of them said that a player could not run with the ball. In January 1892, the school's magazine printed the rules, and copies reached YMCAs around the country. Soon the game spread to other countries, and Canada was the first of them to play it.

Basketball has been part of the Olympic Games since 1936. That year, Naismith traveled to Berlin to see his game at the Olympics. Today, basketball groups from more than 200 countries and regions belong to FIBA, the sport's world organization. The game has changed in many ways since the days of peach baskets.