Basketball has evolved from the days of two-handed layups, short shorts, Chuck Taylors to tomahawks, to so many signature kicks.
From simple putting the ball to the peach basket to intricate poetry, the game of the wooden floor and the leather ball has seen grace and innovation in the past decades.
But fr all its advancements, the game of basketball was originally a brawl for all and can put even the roughest of football games to shame.
In a recording of a radio interview of Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, in 1939 he said the very first game of basketball turned a game into a melee in a blow of a whistle.
Michael J. Zogry, a professor of religious studies in Kansas, unearthed the recording of the interview before Richard Sandomir of the New York Times secured the copy of the transcript of Naismith saying the game he invented eventually turned to “murder.”
“I showed them two peach baskets I’d nailed up at each end of the gym, and I told them the idea was to throw the ball into the opposing team’s peach basket,” Naismith said in the recording, as per New York Times. “I blew a whistle, and the first game of basketball began.”
“The boys began tackling, kicking and punching in the clinches,” Naismith said. “They ended up in a free-for-all in the middle of the gym floor.”
According to the report, the consequences of the first game was “several black eyes, one separated shoulder, and one player knocked unconscious.”
“It was certainly murder.”