If you’ve ever stepped inside a Latter-day Saint meetinghouse, you likely noticed almost every LDS Church has basketball court. But have you ever wondered why basketball became the unofficial sport of the church?
Dr. Matthew Bowman, the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University discussed his new book, Game Changers: AJ Dybantsa, BYU, and the Struggle for the Soul of Basketball, which he co-authored with BYU alum Wayne LeCheminant. Their fascinating conversation peeled back the historical layers of basketball, revealing that the sport was intentionally designed to promote religious virtue/
0:00 Why Basketball is a Christian Sport
9:10 BYU Banned Football?
12:35 Why LDS Church Adopts Basketball
Don’t miss our other discussions with Matthew. https://gospeltangents.com/people/matthew-bowman
Copyright © 2026
Gospel Tangents
All Rights Reserved
Invention of a “Christian” Sport
While many fans know that James Naismith invented basketball using peach baskets in Springfield, Massachusetts, few realize that Naismith explicitly designed basketball to produce “Christian gentlemen”.
Naismith was a frustrated minister working at a YMCA training school during the dead of winter. His students were bored with indoor calisthenics, but it was too cold for outdoor sports. To keep them active, Naismith created basketball, drawing heavily on the popular 19th-century concept of “muscular Christianity,” which taught that developing a healthy body was just as important as developing a healthy soul.
Unlike other popular sports of the era, Naismith structured basketball around self-sacrifice and fellowship. He believed baseball was too individualistic, focused largely on the isolated duel between pitcher and batter. By contrast, basketball was designed as a game of unending cooperation. The earliest rules only allowed passing or shooting—no dribbling—forcing players to subordinate their individual egos for the good of the team.
Civilized Alternative to Football
In the 1890s and early 1900s, football was wildly popular but incredibly violent. Without modern helmets or pads, the sport was literally killing dozens of players each season. In 1905 alone, 18 football players died, leading multiple states to consider banning the sport entirely.
Because of this brutality, the board of trustees at Brigham Young Academy (now BYU) voted to ban football in 1901. Basketball was championed as the perfect, civilized alternative. It allowed for vigorous physical activity without the deadly consequences, aligning perfectly with the moral framework desired by religious leaders.
LDS Church Has Basketball Court
As the LDS Church looked to expand out of Utah and into urban centers across the country, basketball offered a logistical advantage. While baseball required large outdoor fields, a basketball court could easily be placed inside a church building right in the middle of a city.
During the presidency of Joseph F. Smith, the Church built the massive Deseret Gym in Salt Lake City (where the Conference Center stands today), featuring multiple basketball courts. By the 1920s, the Church formally recommended that wards build “recreation halls” or “amusement halls” under the same roof as their worship spaces.
The primary goal of these courts was to attract the youth. Church leaders believed that by offering basketball, they could bring young men off the streets and into the Church building. Because young men were priesthood holders necessary for the formation of new wards, keeping them engaged in wholesome, cooperative activities was seen as crucial to the church’s growth.
To hear the full interview and learn more about how modern money is reshaping BYU’s basketball legacy, check out the full episode on Gospel Tangents!
What’s Next?
Basketball’s role in the Church evolved deeply throughout the 20th century, leading to massive All-Church tournaments and a prominent NCAA footprint at BYU. However, the landscape of college basketball is shifting. Today, athletes like BYU’s AJ Dybantsa are navigating an era of millions of dollars in NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) money and “one-and-done” draft prospects—developments that past leaders like Ernest Wilkinson would likely have hated.
Don’t miss our other discussions with Matthew. https://gospeltangents.com/people/matthew-bowman
Copyright © 2026
Gospel Tangents
All Rights Reserved
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:03 — 19.4MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Email | | More
