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C H A P T E R 10 • • • Happy Homecoming N aismith was happy to be reunited with his family and to be away from the horrors of the war. He gradually built his weight back to his accustomed 185 pounds, and he resumed his work teaching the various physical education classes at the university. He also returned to his teaching at the Presbyterian church on Sunday. During the war, he had relaxed his feelings about how people should act on the Sabbath, and now he decided one Sunday to combine a baseball scoreboard with a game of Bible stories . When a question was missed, it was considered a strike. As in baseball, three strikes meant you were out. The church elders got so upset with Naismith for what they considered an act of hedonism that they removed him from his position teaching the class. When word spread to nearby churches, the popular Naismith found himself in great demand as a speaker, and this created another opportunity for him, which lasted almost the rest of his life. He became a visiting minister, traveling to churches not only in Lawrence but as far as 60 miles away to fill in when the church’s regular minister was away. For smaller churches that could not afford a full-time preacher, Naismith became a regular 130 • Chapter 10 guest, receiving either $5 or $10 to preach on Sunday morning and to cover his expenses. Naismith went to Vinland, Kansas, on alternate Sundays, and later preached at churches in Rossville and Delia. Since his salary from the university was only $200 a month, the extra income was a great boost for the family. In May 1923 he wrote himself a note to remember to save the money from the Rossville and Delia churches to pay the family’s living expenses in August and September. Naismith traveled to the neighboring towns by train or by his surrey if the weather cooperated. It was not until the early 1920s that the Naismith family finally got its first car, a used Studebaker , and Naismith was reluctant to learn how to drive. His son Jack became his regular chauffeur, until Naismith finally realized he was going to have to learn how to drive himself. By this time the family car was a Model T Ford, and Naismith was not a good driver. He drove as if he were still working with a team of horses, and he forgot that he had to put his foot on the brake to stop the car. He thought it should stop when he stood up, pulled up on the steering wheel, and yelled “whoa, whoa.” That was what worked with the horses. His sons Jack and Jim got so tired of repairing holes in the garage wall that they built an iron rail in the back of the garage to prevent their father from driving through the wall. Naismith regularly drove his car into a ditch, however, and one time, in Kansas City, he ran a stop sign and was pulled over by a police officer. “Didn’t you see that boulevard stop?” the officer asked. Naismith reportedly responded, “What’s a boulevard stop?” The police officer gave up and let him go. On a trip to his native Canada, to visit his sister Annie and Uncle Peter, the family was camping by the side of the road. Their tent was designed so that one side attached to the car and the other side could be pegged to the ground. When Maude was preparing supper and found she needed bread, Naismith quickly volunteered to get some. He hopped into the driver’s seat, and Happy Homecoming • 131 before anybody could stop him, he pulled away, bringing the tent flapping next to him. In the summer of 1922 Naismith found a secondary job other than preaching. Jack Naismith and two of his friends had decided to work as laborers on a road gang near Chapman, Kansas. As Naismith was telling his son and friends goodbye, he remarked, “I wish I could go with you.” One of Jack’s friends told him to come along, so he did. Naismith got a job driving a team of horses, and none of the other workers had any idea about his true identity. He, his son, and friends enjoyed a good laugh when the work ended and he resumed his “regular” job at the university. One of the reasons Naismith was such an effective preacher was the...

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