Long before guys like Kobe and Lebron were pulling off high-flying dunks, the game of basketball was invented by Dr. James Naismith, a physical education teacher at Springfield College in Massachusetts. Naismith invented the indoor game in 1891 as a way to help students at the school stay in shape during the cold winters. The first game was quite different from the modern game of basketball. The first game was played with a soccer ball and two peach baskets nailed 10-feet high used as goals, on a court just half the size of a present-day court. The baskets retained their bottoms so balls scored into the basket had to be poked out with a long dowel each time.Over the years, the game has changed in many different ways. Players can now dribble the ball, there is a free throw line for foul shots and there are five players on each team, instead of nine.