What’s in a Name?

When we think of the name James Naismith, many of us are likely to think of the creator of basketball, and the award named after him.  What you may not know is that his grandson, Jim Naismith, was a professor here at SUNY Rockland.
 

According to Richard Connolly, Chair of the Communications Media Arts Department, Naismith was an English Professor and former Chair of the Performing Arts Department at RCC, beginning in the mid 1960s.

During a recent interview in his office at the Library Media Center, Professor Connolly shared several anecdotes about his friend Jim, his famous grandfather, and the history of basketball.

"I first met Jim Naismith when he was a teacher at Clarkstown North High School in 1961. Years later, [we] became colleagues in the English Department, when I began teaching here in 1967.

"Because I played basketball in high school when we first met, he and I often talked about the irony of the fact that the grandson of the man who created the game had no interest in basketball.
 

"I can still remember the look on Jim's face when he showed me his new office in the college's fieldhouse years later. That office on the third floor had a large window looking onto the basketball court. Every day that Jim worked in his office, he would look down at the court below with a sense of wonder."

The game of basketball was created by Professor Naismith's grandfather, Dr. James Naismith, in the winter of 1891. Dr. Naismith was the director of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in Springfield, Massachusetts, at the time, and he was looking to find a way of getting some of the rowdy Springfield workingmen off the streets and into the YMCA.

According to Professor Connolly, the history of basketball—from its beginnings in 1891 until now, March Madness 2010—is a microcosm of American cultural history.

"When basketball began in the 1890s, no one could have anticipated how a small game created in a local YMCA could become a global phenomenon," Professor Connolly said enthusiastically. "In every generation, the game has reflected the cultural changes that have taken place in America and throughout the world.

"During the last years of his life, Jim Naismith found himself in Springfield, Massachusetts, every year to present the annual Naismith Award to the best college basketball players in America," Connolly continued.

"Usually, sometime after the awards were given, I would meet with Jim near his home in West Nyack and talk about what it meant to be the grandson of Dr. James Naismith.

"Given the fact that Jim never liked  basketball, he still expressed his personal pride in having the legacy of this uniquely American game as part of his own personal life."