Growing up in Indiana, I was practically raised on the sport of basketball. Some of my earliest memories and pictures include me toting a basketball around. The sport is the lifeblood of the state, and just about every kid grows up dreaming of playing for the Indiana Hoosiers.
I thought I knew a lot about basketball, including the history of it. I knew it was created by James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts. But it wasn’t until talking with Paul Putz on the “In No Hurry” Podcast earlier this week that I learned the sport was created with Christian ministry in mind.
Paul is now the assistant director of the Faith & Sports Institute at Baylor University, which is part of the Truett Seminary and provides theological education and research for Christian leaders in sports. While he was working on his dissertation, Paul was drawn to the Christian origins of the sport.
“James Naismith was a seminary-trained professor and started the sport at a Christian college for specifically Christian reasons,” Putz explains on the podcast. “Then it spread throughout the world through a Christian organization. So basketball literally does not exist without Christians. It is a Christian game in its origin. Not in an exclusive sense that this was only for Christians, but more of a Christian game that is a gift to the world that anyone can participate in, but it has this Christian purpose and vision.”
This was the basis for a chapel talk Paul gave earlier this year at Baylor called, “Jesus and James Naismith,” which you can watch below.
In our podcast conversation, Paul gives great detail about the origins of basketball and shares more insight on how it began as a Christian enterprise and has grown to a global phenomenon.
If you're a Christian who likes sports, you'll especially enjoy this conversation. But even if you don't like sports, stick around for Paul discussing how he followed his passions to end up where he is now professionally researching the intersection of faith and sports as well as how he goes about his research and writing.
Speaking of his writing, he's writing a book about the history of sports and Christianity in modern American culture, which should be published in late 2024 or early 2025.
You can check out the episode below.
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