@mayjay
I have to say I am skeptical of this Indiana historian's take AND of Naismith's opinion, and I apologize if that sounds presumptuous, or arrogant. I will try to explain.
As Solzhenitsyn said, we never understand our own experiences until long afterwards if ever. I suspect Naismith had a great deal of trouble making sense of what exactly he had done and why his game had gone off in so many directions that he could neither control, nor approve of, given his professional standing over time.
The game developed fastest on the east coast.
Professional basketball arguably outstripped amateur basketball in development and popularity during the first 30 years after 1891.
I suspect amateur highschool basketball probably reach an early ubiquity in Indiana, ahead of other places, but I have never read anything documenting that.
And it likely galled Naismith that professional basketball staged by vaudeville, prize fighting and gambling promoters outstripped the popularity of amateur basketball almost immediately. Naismith was an academician, a scholar, an osteopathic doctor, an amateur athletic administrator and a minister. It was likely that Naismith wanted to view Indiana as being the origin of the kind of basketball that his game ought to be. But that is quite different than how and where most of the sport originated.
The game flourished most and soonest in the big cities of the east. as a professional sport promoted to be gambled on. Some players were making livings at the game by the late 1890s. By the 19TEENs professional basketball was very popular in most of the big cities of the north east and Great Lakes regions.
Its second greatest early popularity centered in the YMCA and club teams of the East.The Buffalo Germans were the greatest amateur team of the early era and formed at the Buffalo, NY, YMCA in 1895. The won the Pan American Games in 1901 and the Olympics in 1904.
Indiana state high school basketball did not even have a state championship until 1911.It was early for high school basketball, but it was late coming in comparison to professional and club basketball.
Now I want to inject my speculation about Naismith's take on the game. It got away from him immediately. He favored amateur sports and could not shape either its club amateurism, or its professional development. A minister and an academician, it did not look respectable being the father of a professional sport run for gambling. He always distanced himself from the pro and club sides of the game and tried to help it flourish in college amateurism and apparently from this quote tried to call attention high school amateurism, too.
This Indiana historian did not even understand Naismith enough to know that Naismith was an athletic director for many years and lent his reputation and influence to promoting college amateur basketball on many occasions. Naismith definitely was NOT indifferent to the development of the game he invented. His problem was that after having lost control of it and having seen it become a fairly sleazy activity on many levels, he had to protect his professional standing be being very selective about how much and in what ways he promoted his affiliation with the game.
