Basketball is a simple game. There are two hoops, some players, and a goal. Put the ball into the hoop.

What started as a simple way to engage in winter gymnasium exercise has changed into the third most popular sport in the entire world with over 2.2 billion fans.

The icons of basketball are easy to imagine.

We see their faces everywhere, permeating past the sport and into mainstream culture altogether.

If you speak with someone today who talks of basketball history,

they're more likely to be talking about Michael Jordan than Moses Malone, Walt Frazier, or Oscar Robertson.

The sport is so prolific, dynamic, and entertaining

that most of the true past of basketball hasn't even been bothered to be exhumed.

If we can't find footage on Wilts Chamberlain's 100-point game,

how will we understand James Nicemith

or Amos Alonzo Stagg?

If we cannot get people to give a fuck about George McCann,

who the fuck are we going to get to care about Fog Allen?

Do we even know why it matters?

What were the early days of basketball like? And is basketball just a game?

When James Nyismith created basketball, was there something else there? A seed of divinity, perhaps?

Welcome to Alex Branson's history of basketball. Today, we are venturing to 1891 and the International YMCA Training School as we focus on James Nyismith, the scholar, athlete, and esoteric man of God.

We join our hero James in 1891.

We all know what 1891 looks like. We can imagine in our heads.

There's black and white photos of men in full-breasted suits shooting around a basketball,

proud of the origins of the game. We can see more. Ladies and gigantic dresses following around men on

wagons that are pushed by steam, pictures and cameras that don't even work. And we have painted a

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