"The Invention of Basketball"

Millions of people love the sport of basketball in the United States and around the world, but few people stop to (1)          [thinks, think, thinking] about who invented it, why, where and when. James Naismith (2)           [invention, invent, invented] the game. He was born in 1861 in Ontario, Canada and he loved to (3)         [plays, playing, play]sports in school.

After he grew up, he (4)         [became, become, becomes] a sports education teacher before he moved to the state of Massachusetts in the U.S. He invented basketball for (5)     [two, to, too]reasons.

First, he wanted his students to have (6)           [a indoor, indoor, an indoor] activity they could play during the winter months when it was (7)     [too, two, to] cold to play outside. Second, he believed that basketball was (8)        [safest, safer, safely] than football. The very first game of basketball was played on December 21, 1891 when James asked his college class to play a new kind of game that he invented.

Some of his students (9)         [didn`t, weren`t, aren`t] very excited about this strange new sport, but they played anyway. After the game, someone suggested that the new game should be called the “Naismith Game”, but James Naismith decided to call it “Basket Ball” (which later became “basketball”). There were some differences between the first games and the games we (10)          [watch, watches, watching] today.

For example, (11)         [their, there, they`re]are now fewer players on a team (five instead of nine). Also, the first games were played with soccer balls – the first real “basketball” was only invented several years later. Basketball later became an international sport as it became popular (12)    [at, on, in] Europe after the First World War, and then in China, India, Japan and many other countries. And the person we have to thank for this amazing sport is James Naismith!