A Kansas professor found audio of Dr. James Naismith describing the first basketball game. (USATSI)

A University of Kansas professor has found what is believed to be the only known audio recording of James Naismith, inventor of the game of basketball, explaining the creation of the sport during a 1939 radio interview in New York City. 

Michael Zogry, associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies, found references to a radio interview with Naismith while researching the man for an upcoming book, "Religion and Basketball: Naismith's Game." He then obtained the audio from WOR-AM archives and received permission to distribute copies to Naismith's family and the KU Archives. 

According to the interview, Naismith was in town to watch a pair of basketball games at Madison Square Garden and during his interview with Gabriel Heatter, host of "We the People," recounted the invention of basketball in the winter of 1891 at Springfield College in Massachusetts, where Naismith was a physical education teacher. 

Desperate for ways to entertain a school that could not go outside in a fierce Northeastern winter storm, Naismith started with indoor football in the gym before the game evolved into a more violent version of what we know today as basketball. 

"One day I had an idea. I called the boys to the gym and divided them up into teams of nine and gave them an old soccer ball. I showed them two peach baskets I'd nailed up at either end of the gym, and I told them the idea was to throw the ball into the opposing team's peach basket. I blew a whistle and the first game of basketball began." 

Naismith was then asked what rules were in place for that first game, to which Naismith replied that he "didn't have enough, and that's where I made my big mistake." 

"The boys began tackling, kicking and punching in the clenches. 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." 

The most important rule, according to Naismith, was not allowing the players to run with the ball. "That stopped tackling and slugging," Naismith said.  

You can listen to the full radio interview here, via University of Kansas.