Basketball. James Naismith, an instructor at the YMCA Training School at Springfield College in Massachusetts, invented basketball in 1891 as an indoor winter game. The object was to throw a soccer ball into an elevated peach basket (the “goal”). Players could not run with the ball (which led to dribbling) and received a “foul” for rule violations. Play resumed after each goal with a “jump ball.” By 1895, field goals were two points and foul shots one, and backboards were added to prevent fans from interfering with shots. Two years later the number of players on a team was fixed at five. They wore knee pads because play was rough, with frequent fights over balls that went out of bounds. Cages were built around the court to keep the ball in play and prevent fan interference.
Basketball quickly gained popularity across the nation. At YMCAs,
settlement houses, and school yards social workers believed that it improved morals, promoted teamwork, reduced juvenile delinquency, and Americanized recent immigrants. By the 1920s, it had become a cornerstone of interscholastic sports in the small towns of Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana, where high school basketball symbolized hometown pride.
Basketball was well liked by women college students. In 1892, the Smith College gymnasium director, Senda Berenson, modified the rules to make it more appropriate for young ladies. She curtailed physical play by forbidding grabbing of the ball and promoted teamwork by permitting no one to hold it more than three seconds or dribble more than three times. Berenson redesigned the court, placing three women in the offensive zone, three in the defensive, and two in midcourt to reduce fatigue (reflecting contemporary views of women's limited physical capacity) and encourage team play. In 1895, Stanford University defeated the University of California–Berkeley, 2–1, in the first women's intercollegiate contest. However, the game was soon deemphasized by women's physical educators who opposed female competitive sports. In the 1930s and 1940s industrial league teams dominated women's play. Not until the era of Title IX in the 1970s did the game regain its popularity on campus. Renewed interest led to the rise of two women's pro leagues in 1996: the Women's National Basketball League and the defunct American Basketball League.
In the first male college game, also in 1895, Minnesota State topped Hamline University 9–3. However, basketball did not become a major sport until the 1930s. In 1938, New York sports writers organized the National Invitational Tournament at New York's Madison Square Garden. The
National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament followed in 1939. A major college‐basketball scandal, involving gambling, point shaving, and thrown games, occurred in 1951, causing Madison Square Garden to drop big‐time basketball, ruining New York City's college programs, and harming New York's status as the game's mecca. College basketball regained its luster in the 1960s, abetted by UCLA's ten championships between 1964 and 1975. By the end of the century, NCAA tournament had become a premier American sporting event.
Professional men's basketball began in 1898 with metropolitan Philadelphia's short‐lived National Basketball League. In the 1920s, the touring New York Original Celtics and the black New York Rens were the dominant clubs. Top white teams also played in regional semipro leagues like the American Basketball League (1933–1946) and the National Basketball League (1937–1948). In 1946, owners of major urban sports arenas formed the Basketball Association of America (BAA) to augment use of their facilities. In 1949 it merged with the NBL to form the National Basketball Association (NBA), which became racially integrated in 1950. Several franchises failed, and smaller cities' teams relocated to larger metropolises. The Boston Celtics dominated the NBA for several years, with eleven championships between 1957 and 1969. Rule innovations, talented performers, flashy play, and
television helped build attendance from under two million in 1960 to ten million in 1980. Such NBA superstars as Michael
Jordan of the Chicago Bulls became multimillionaires through their salaries and product endorsements and enjoyed widespread celebrity.
See also
Sports;
YMCA and YWCA.
Bibliography
Neil D. Isaacs , All the Moves: A History of College Basketball, 1975.
Robert Peterson , Cages to Jumpshots: Pro Basketball's Early Years, 1990.
Steven A. Riess
