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Kansas professor finds recording of old Dr. James Naismith interview

Michigan Basketball

The Naismith Player of the Year trophy, awarded to Michigan’s Trey Burke, is displayed during the NCAA college basketball team’s annual post-season Michigan Basketball Awards Celebration on Tuesday, April 16, 2013, in Ann Arbor, Mich. (AP Photo/Detroit News, John T. Greilick)

AP

The new rules emphasis on Freedom of Movement seems to have some coaches in a tizzy as they try to find a way to get their teams to be able to play defense without fouling.

That lack of contact isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The NBA made some changes to their rules after the Detroit Pistons started playing rugby to win titles, and that has allowed Stephen Curry a chance to thrive.

But compared to the first ever basketball game, we already had Freedom of Movement.

Kansas managed to dig up an audio recording of a radio interview that Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, did back in January of 1939 -- it’s awesome, by the way, give it a listen right here -- and here is how he described the first ever game of basketball back in 1891:

Well, I didn’t have enough [rules]. And that’s where I made my big mistake. The boys tackling, kicking and punching in the clinches. They ended up in a free-for-all in the middle of the gym floor. Before I could pull them apart, one boy was knocked out, several of them had black eyes, and one had a dislocated shoulder. It certainly was murder.

Murder, eh?

That doesn’t sound like fun.

I wonder if those first coaches pushed back on the new rule changes. “How can we play defense if we’re not allowed to knock people unconscious???”