Known for Basketball, Naismith a WW I Vet

‘Tis April and the fancy of many has lightly turned to…basketball, a sport literally invented in 1891 by one man, James Naismith (1861–1939). He was a Canadian (until 1925) who at the time was a physical education instructor at the International YMCA Training School, which became Springfield College in 1954. Naismith left there shortly after his blockbuster invention to study medicine in Denver and upon graduation from that he took up employment at the University of Kansas (KU), where he would spend most of his working life serving as a physical education instructor, coach of several sports, athletic director, chaplain, and physician. Although he coached KU basketball only for the program's first nine seasons, with an overall record of 55–60, his "coaching tree" includes his successor, the legendary Forrest "Phog" Allen, the founders of two other dynastic NCAA programs, Kentucky's Adolph Rupp, and North Carolina's Dean Smith, and the NBA great Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain.