Naismith College Player of the Year
The Naismith College Player of the Year is an annual basketball award given by the Atlanta Tipoff Club to the top men's and women's collegiate basketball players. It is named in honor of Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor)
Bill Walton
David Robinson
Obi Toppin
James Naismith was a Canadian-American physical educator, physician, Christian chaplain, and sports coach, best known as the inventor of the game of basketball. After moving to the United States, he wrote the original basketball rule book and founded the University of Kansas basketball program in 1898. Naismith lived to see basketball adopted as an Olympic demonstration sport in 1904 and as an official event at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, as well as the birth of the National Invitation Tournament (1938) and the NCAA Tournament (1939).
Naismith holding a basketball and basket
Sculpture in Almonte, Ontario
The original 1891 "Basket Ball" court in Springfield College. It used a peach basket attached to the wall.
1899 University of Kansas basketball team, with James Naismith at the back, right