It seems like a simple question: When was the first-ever college basketball game?
Answering that is quite a bit more complicated. Both Geneva College and Vanderbilt University claim the first-ever basketball game by a college team, both in 1893, while Hamline and Minnesota A&M played in the first intercollegiate game together in 1895.
But let’s get into more detail. And what better place to start the search than at the source?
In his book “Basketball: Its Origin and Development,” Dr. James Naismith addresses the question:
“Geneva College, in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, and the University of Iowa both played basketball in the season of 1892. Which of these two colleges may claim the first game, I do not know. Mr. C.O. Beamis [sic], a Springfield boy, had gone to Geneva College as physical director. Beamis had seen the game played in the Training School gymnasium while he was home on a vacation. He realized that it might solve the need of a winter activity in his school. I told him of the success we had and explained to him the fundamentals of the game. On his return to Beaver Falls, he started the game in Geneva College; it is my belief therefore, that this college was the first to play basketball.”
In February of 1892, an article in the Geneva school newspaper refers to basketball by a unique moniker: “Football in the Gym is a popular mode of exercise at present. Some severe knocks are received, but in the excitement, they are of course not noticed.”
A year later, in 1893, another article was published: “New Brighton played a game of basket foot ball on the Geneva, Saturday night April 8th. The score was 3 goals to 0 in favor of Geneva.”
And for a while, that was that. Geneva still claims itself as the birthplace of college basketball.
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But in 2008, Bill Traughber, a historian at Vanderbilt offered a different origin story.
Traughber found a fascinating story from the Feb. 7, 1893 edition of Nashville’s newspaper, the Daily American:
BASKET BALL
Teams From Vanderbilt and the Y.M.C.A. to Meet Tonight
“The new game known as basket ball which has been recently introduced into gymnasiums throughout the United States has gained a large following. Its advent in Nashville was marked with an enthusiastic reception. The game is very…
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