DID YOU KNOW?

From the time the first game was played with peach baskets nailed to the walls at either end of a gymnasium to today's high-flying, rim-rattling dunks, basketball has evolved from an activity played at a lone YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts to a multi-billion dollar global sport played by some of the world's greatest athletes. To celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020, the United States Mint released its Basketball Hall of Fame Commemorative Coin Program that features a series of curved coins depicting a trio of players on one side and a detailed basketball going through a basket on the domed reverse side.

The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame opened in 1959 in Springfield, Massachusetts. Within its inaugural class was its namesake Dr. James Naismith, who invented the sport in 1891 to give some of his young men at the Springfield YMCA something to do during the cold New England winter. At that time the game was called "Basket Ball" and soon caught on across the country. Today, more than 175 people have been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame including legends like George Mikan, Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlin, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird, Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Michael Jordan.