James Naismith: The Man Who Invented Basketball

6. KU Bound

C H A P T E R 6 • • • KU Bound A mos Alonzo Stagg had left the Training School in 1892 to become the physical education director and football coach at the University of Chicago. Stagg and Naismith remained in touch, even after Naismith moved to Denver, and Stagg knew of Naismith’s graduation from medical school and readiness for a new, challenging position. Stagg got a message one day in 1898 from his boss, William Harper, the president of the University of Chicago. Harper’s counterpart at the University of Kansas, Francis Snow, had contacted Harper to see if he could make a recommendation for a job Kansas was trying to fill. Kansas’s first paid football coach, the Reverend Hector Cowan, had resigned before the beginning of the 1898 season. Cowan, a graduate of Princeton Seminary, had also served as the university ’s chapel director. The university hired Fielding H. Yost to become the new football coach, but he balked when told the position also included serving as the chapel director, which required him to lead the student body in prayer every morning. KU Bound • 71 Not wanting to lose Yost’s services as the football coach, Snow made the decision to split up those jobs. The university, at the same time, was organizing a Department of Physical Education, and Snow added the chapel director’s job to the position of head of that department. That was the position he was seeking to fill when he contacted Harper for a recommendation. When hearing the details of the job Kansas was trying to fill, Stagg had no hesitation in making his recommendation. He fired off a telegram to Snow that read, “Recommend James Naismith, inventor of basketball, medical doctor, Presbyterian minister, teetotaler , all-around athlete, non-smoker, and owner of vocabulary without cuss words. Address Y.M.C.A., Denver, Colorado.” It was only a matter of time before Kansas officials contacted Naismith and offered him the position. He accepted. Nowhere in his job description did the term “basketball coach” appear, because the university did not have a basketball team. For years, Naismith claimed the only reason he was offered the job was that he knew how to pray, and he might not have been far off. His salary was set at $1,300 a year, which worked out to $25 a week. Before he, Maude, and the three girls left Denver by train in early September 1898, a woman who had cared for Margaret when Maude was ill came to say good-bye and see the family off. She also handed Naismith a package, saying it was for Margaret . She said she was worried that Margaret would not get proper food, so she was sending some with her. When the family opened the package after getting on the train, they found it contained a dozen eggs. Why, nobody ever knew. Naismith gave the eggs to the porter on the train. When the family arrived in Lawrence, they checked into the Eldridge Hotel, and all three of the girls broke out in a rash. Margaret recalled years later that “Dad went down to Dick’s Drug Store and asked Mr. Dick about a doctor. Mr. Dick directed him to a young doctor who had offices over the drug store. Dr. Jones went to the hotel to see the children. He took one good look and 72 • Chapter 6 burst out laughing. ‘If you’ll take those wool shirts and stockings off the children, bathe them in cool water, the prickly heat will soon disappear and they will be all right. That may be necessary in Colorado but this Kansas heat is something else.’” The University of Kansas had been founded in 1866, making it almost as old as the state itself, and was growing rapidly. As the one-man physical education department, Naismith was required to teach the mandatory freshman class in hygiene, the gymnastics classes, and any other classes that might be offered, to oversee the athletics department, and to lead the daily chapel service. The service lasted for one hour in the 660-seat auditorium, with a pipe organ, inside the “new” Fraser Hall, which had opened in 1872. The service consisted of Bible reading, prayers, singing, and a message, offered either by Naismith or by a guest speaker. Even though daily service was supposed to be attended by all students, participation began to wane. That resulted in the university’s changing the service to alternate days...