In 1891 Naismith developed the game of basketball in Springfield, Massachusetts. Today his handwritten original rules are on display at KU's DeBruce Center. Exhibits at the Booth Family Hall of Athletics credit him for starting the basketball program at KU. A bronze plaque on a concrete base at 8th and Kentucky marks the spot where the first official KU basketball game was played in 1899. Sports fans may want to touch the granite cenotaph erected in Naismith's honor at Memorial Park Cemetery, 1517 E. 15th, where he is buried. In the plaza in front of his cenotaph is a history of KU basketball coaches.

His simple gravestone is in the Acacia section, Lot 126, grave 1-12. You'll see coins on his gravestone. This is a nod to the penny campaign of 1936 that Phog Allen started to help fund James Naismith's trip to Berlin so the man who invented basketball could be part of the basketball debut in the Olympics. Naismith is an 8 Wonder of Kansas People.