Changing sports history
By FRED SWIFT
The County Line
Americans are taught that James Naismith invented the game of basketball in 1891 at a Springfield, Mass. YMCA.
But, Floyd Ainsworth, a Hamilton County retired veterinarian, says he knows better.
His information could change the history of basketball’s founding.
With the recent conclusion of the Indiana high school tourney and as we head toward the climax of collegiate March Madness, Ainsworth says the time is right to reveal his evidence that basketball was first played in a barnyard in Hamilton County’s White River Township.
It was early spring of 1887 when six farm boys played a game they called hooping, using something akin to a medicine ball and a 16-inch iron ring or hoop borrowed from a farm implement.
Ainsworth’s evidence is the rusty iron hoop and an entry in his grandmother’s diary which reads in part, “Today the neighbor boys are playing their new game with a heavy leather ball being aimed at an iron ring nailed over the barn door.”
With the basketball world focused on Indiana this year, Ainsworth feels that release of his evidence is timely and proves his story. Forensic testing shows the iron hoop to date from the late 1800s. The diary is considered authentic by document professionals.
So it seems some as yet unidentified farm boys in Hamilton County may have proved Indiana to be the real home of the game so many Hoosiers love to call their own.
It makes a great story if only it was true, but this being April 1, it is simply our annual April Fool story. Did you get taken in this time?