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KANSAN.COM
RULES OF BASKETBALL
Author and professor Michael Zogry talks about finding only known recording of Dr. James Naismith
▶ SCOTT CHASEN
@SChasenKU
Michael Zogry is a man of many hats: Author, professor, doctor.
However, it was the discovery that he and graduate research assistant Katie Hobson — a master's student at the University — made that has garnered the most recognition.
While researching for his upcoming book, "Religion and Basketball: Naismith's Game," Zogry discovered references to what was believed to be a radio interview with Dr. James Naismith. Then, Zogry and Hobson tracked down the interview and got permission to put a copy of the recording in the University Archives and share a copy with Jimi Naismith, grandson of Dr. James Naismith.
Even though Zogry is still in the process of writing the book, he said he felt it was important to share the recording of Naismith, rather than holding on to what may be the only known audio recording of the inventor of basketball.
"When I found this, I wasn't ready to publish the book yet, but I really didn't want to wait to make this public," Zogry said. "The book is still in progress, but this wasn't going to wait."
From there, the recording has made rounds across the Internet and has been covered by CNN, the New York Times and Sports Illustrated, among other outlets.
On Tuesday, Zogry and Hobson sat down with the Kansan to talk about the recording, the path to finding it and conclusions that can be drawn about Naismith.
but it had been a long process to get the recording, so it was exciting, and there was a sense of accomplishment. I think over time it really started to set in what really had happened, especially when all the media attention hit. It really reinforced what I thought, which was that it was an important and interesting find.
So, it was really exciting when we found that this particular episode of 'We the people' was available at the Library of Congress because you can find small episodes online, or specific ones online, but this one was not available anywhere else.
Katie Hobson: Yeah, [the tapes] had been destroyed in a fire, so none of that was available. And then there was a radio station out of Kansas City that he had possibly done an interview for, but we just hit dead ends with that one.
MZ: Yeah it was one of those old-time radio websites. They have certain episodes of these but they don't have full runs. And so after we looked around a little bit, we talked about it and said, 'Let's try the Library of Congress.
MZ: Absolutely. And Katie can talk about that too. There were three possibilities. We knew he had been on, actually, the University radio station, but those tapes were gone."
You found the references to the interview. Did you ever doubt you'd find the interview itself?
Low and behold, they had
what appeared to be a full run of them. And Katie handled this, but then it was a situation working with the staff there to confirm and identify that it was in fact him on the tape because the Library of Congress perhaps has probably millions of items — 105 of millions of items — so not everything is cataloged or is indexed.
So [the file] just says the date of the episode; it doesn't say who the guests were. So then we had to make sure he was in fact on the recording and that sort of thing. And then we had to contact a lawyer and get the necessary permissions.
MZ: Why, yes, there was.
Not so much the dispute, but the New York Times editorial staff wanted to be as certain as possible that in fact it was him. Not that they didn't believe it, but they wanted to make sure. I had a discussion with the reporter about the recording, and what I said was it would've been very difficult to fake it.
Was there anyone who disputed the authenticity of the recording?
First of all, I would've had to be working with someone at the Library of Congress who had access to it, but the host himself says Naismith's name. So not only would you have had to fake Naismith, you would've had to somehow match the host's voice and add that part into it. But there were questions as to whether or not that was him, and those really were natural questions because it is in fact the only known recording of him.
In 2012, professor Michael Zogry was awarded a sabbatical to work on how religion impacted Dr. James Naismith when he invited basketball.
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For example, he says he went into the class, and he didn't have very many rules. Then he realized afterward, they were knocking each other around; he needed more rules, including "you can't run with the hall," which is rule number three.
me, is a condensation [...] in some ways a summary, where he's taken the action that led to the result and condensed them down into a format he can explain in two minutes.
So either he really didn't have very many rules at all, or what he's describing is some of the other testing that went on before he actually went in.
The key difference [in the audio is] he's saying, 'I went in with some rules, they played and then I wrote down the rules.' All the written versions say, [he] wrote the rules and [then] went in. But we know from many different accounts that he did try various versions of other games beforehand. They tried to play football inside; they tried to play soccer; they tried to play lacrosse. There were broken windows in the gym, broken bones; people got hurt.
KU Archives/Spencer Research Library Dr. James Naismith with a basketball and two peach baskets.
MZ: What continues to stand out to me is his humility. He was a very humble man. He was proud of what he did, but he was really humble, and he was purpose driven. He was someone who designed the game with the goal of inculcating charter into young men, and that's where the religion component comes in.
You've heard him speak, read his words and watched him on silent films. What do you think about Naismith the person?
He was a proponent of
something called Muscular Christianity, as was Luther Gulick, his boss. He was someone who adhered to his ideals throughout his life. I don't know that I get that just from watching the video or listening, but it's reaffirmed. Listening to him talk, he's laughing. He's joking; he sounds very approachable. He's someone who really enjoyed getting out and meeting people and talking to them.
So when I hear him describing that, to my mind, what he's doing that is presenting it in a format where it's true to the nature of the process.
Do you have a thought about that when you hear it?
MZ: [Laughs]
**MZ:** Yes, I think that — that's true. He is the only coach in Kansas history with a losing record. Some of the things that get lost in that story are that he was one of the major innovators during his time. It's hard to think about it now. Of course it's torn down, but at the time Robinson [Gymnasium] was a state of the art facility.
All that from the only coach in Kansas history with a losing record.
So he really was, during his time, very active in promoting basketball. They got the new gym built; he was very involved in the conference alignments and when the conference was being formed [...] so that's one angle.
Another angle is, coaching is not what it is now. Coaching was not a professional occupation at the time, and, in fact, the rules of coaching were much different at the time. You were not allowed to speak to your players during the game or you'd get a technical foul. Often times when they went on the road, he would be asked to be the official, so it was a little bit of a different situation than people think about [...] he always called it teaching instead of coaching anyway.
- Edited by Brendan
Dzwierzynski
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