Presented are the 1919 immigration papers of James Naismith, the inventor of basketball. Naismith was a Canadian American who was teaching at the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891. His physical education class was composed of athletic young men who played football in the fall and baseball in the spring but were bored with gymnastics for the winter. Naismith's superiors at the YMCA Training School tasked him with coming up with an indoor game that the men in his class could enjoy, but a game that would not be too rough and cause injuries. As Naismith later described his invention: "I showed them (his class) two peach baskets that I'd nailed up to the end of the gym and told them that the idea was to throw the ball into the opposing team's basket. I blew the whistle, and the game of basketball began." Naismith served in World War I in France, and then he was also in France from 1917-19 working for the YMCA. The typed immigration document is written in both French and English. It shows that Naismith was in France to work at the YMCA from "Jan. 1914-Mar. 1919." The document shows that Naismith was about to depart his residence in Paris, France, for the United States. The document is framed to 8.75x17.5". The document has a vertical fold down the middle. The top shows some illegible writing at the top left and "1224" on the top right, both written in black ink by an unknown hand. The document is typed on faded, beige paper, and the overall condition is remarkable because it is over a century old. The James Naismith memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield was named in honor of basketball's inventor. Naismith also was a physician, a chaplain as a Captain in the U.S. Army, and the founder of the basketball team at Kansas University and the squad's long-term coach. Naismith coached Hall of Fame basketball coaches Adolf Rupp and Dean Smith at Kansas, starting a "coaching tree" that numerous branches today. What could be more emblematic of basketball than an immigration document that permits him to return to the country in which he invented basketball?