BASKETBALL

Basketball can be clearly identified with a date and place of origin—December 1891, in Springfield, Massachusetts. James Naismith, a physical education instructor at the International YMCA Training School was asked to help solve a problem that had arisen: finding an indoor activity—other than calisthenics or marching—that the young men could do during cold New England winters. Naismith, after trying to modify outdoor games unsuccessfully, developed a new game that utilized a large ball being thrown into elevated boxes. He worked out a series of rules, and then proposed trying the new game out with one of his classes. Unfortunately the custodian charged with finding and mounting the boxes could only come up with peach baskets and he mounted these from the base of the running track that surrounded the gymnasium. Rather than "box ball" came "basketball". The basket height, of approximately ten feet, was coincidental with the height of the overhead track, but that height seemed appropriate and has been maintained in the more than 100 years since the game was invented.

Naismith proposed a set of thirteen rules, which were written and published in the school paper in January 1892. Because the students were training to be instructors at YMCAs throughout the country and Canada, the game of basketball spread rapidly as these students traveled about the country. The first rules designated things that have continued to endure in the playing of the game. These included a prohibition from carrying the ball, but rather batting or throwing it (a rule that later was interpreted to include dribbling); use of the hands only for controlling the ball; a foul call for pushing, tripping, or striking an opponent; a goal being scored for throwing the ball in the basket; the ball being awarded to the opposite team from the one touching it before it went out of bounds; the use of two officials (since changed to three plus scorers and timekeepers).

In 1892, Naismith took his players on an exhibition tour of upstate New York and Rhode Island, which helped spread knowledge of the new game. In that same year a game was played between two teams of girls, and the game spread slowly among that gender, fostered mostly by the efforts of Senda Berenson, who befriended Naismith shortly after reading about the game in 1892. Berenson divided the court into three sections that girls could not leave, believing that girls did not have the stamina to run up and down the entire court for a full game. This division later evolved into the six-person game with the three defenders not allowed to cross half court and play offense and the three offensive players facing a similar restriction at their end of the court. This stayed in effect until the women's game was totally "converted" to the more popular "male" rules of basketball in the 1970s.

Basketball's invention and development coincided with the great influx of immigrants to the United State in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was quickly adopted by the youth of many of these groups because of the wide exposure the game received in urban settlement houses throughout the northeastern United States. Teams comprised of particular ethnic groups or representing particular crafts formed at this time, and spectators of the same groups, often were the main spectators. Thus teams such as the Celtics (Irish), South Philadelphia Hebrew Association/SPHAs (Jewish), Pulaskis (Polish), Original Italian Club, Chinese Athletic Club, Reading (PA) Transit and Light Shop, and the Bell Telephone Equipment team were typical of the squads that were popular in this era. During the early 1900s, Irish and Jews were viewed as ethnic groups with "natural" talents for the game.

The game itself, during its development, was much different than its more modern form. The floor was not a standard size and could range from sixty to ninety feet in length. Games were played on stages, dance floors, and in armories. Sometimes pillars impeded the flow of the game. There was no rule on length of time that the ball could be held before a shot was taken, so early basketball was more a ball-control game with fewer shots taken, almost soccerlike in style and movement. The baskets protruded farther from the backboard than today, and, in some instances, the basket hung from a metal pole suspended from the ceiling, with no backboard at all. After each basket, a jump ball was held so teams eventually sought good "tappers," even if they could not run or shoot. The game was played on the floor; players did not leave their feet to shoot or rebound. A much rougher game than today was the norm, with players often being knocked unconscious in the course of a contest.

The collegiate game in the 1920s was seen as cleaner and had a set foul limit that led to elimination, while the professional game saw players disqualified only if the referee deemed their play too rough. During this time, three professional teams arose and dominated the sport in the 1920s and 1930s. First was the Original Celtics of New York City, comprised of players who were Irish Catholic, German Catholic, Jewish, and Czech. The South Philadelphia Hebrew Association squad lasted in some form until the 1950s; they were most outstanding in the 1930s and 1940s, winning a number of Eastern and American League titles. The New York Renaissance team, begun and managed by Bob Douglas, was the first and greatest African American squad, playing almost exclusively on the road and winning unofficial and "official" world championship tournaments. Basketball, particularly professional basketball, was often played in a cage until the late 1920s when the cage was abandoned. The cage was metal wire and kept the ball in play almost continuously. Players could play the ball off the cage or use the cage to push off of it for greater elevation. ""

College leagues formed during this same period of time and professional leagues were located throughout areas of the East. In 1925, the first truly national professional league, the American Basketball League, was formed, with teams stretching from Boston to Chicago. This league dropped the use of the cage, standardized to some degree the court specifications, employed regular referees, and led to a more popular game. Meanwhile, in the Midwest, the game became popular as early as the early 1900s; the small team size allowed rural communities to field squads and compete with much larger communities. The game was played both indoors and outdoors and became extremely popular in rural Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois, where baskets were often hung on trees and various objects were substituted for basketballs.

The basketball was originally a leather ball stitched together, inside of which was a bladder that was pumped up through a prominent valve where a needle was inserted. The ball was hardly ever round, did not bounce well, and was bigger than today's, so it was harder to grip and very "lumpy." This, combined with lack of real practice facilities or standard playing facilities, made shooting success problematic. Nevertheless, the game became exceedingly popular in the middle of the twentieth century because of the small number of players needed to field a team, the relative simplicity of the game, and the flexibility of playing venues needed. A number of states—including Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and North Carolina—became "hotbeds" of high school basketball, with large community support and playing facilities often seating more than the population of the community itself. In the latter part of that century, Florida, Georgia, and California also had successful and popular high school programs, a reflection of increasing populations in those states.

A number of colleges took to basketball early in the century, most notably in the Northeast and Midwest. By the late 1930s, there was interest in having some sort of tournament to determine basketball superiority; in 1938, the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) was held in New York City, with six top teams competing for the title won by Temple University. The next year the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sponsored a postseason tournament, which included eight teams and was won by the University of Oregon. Until the mid or late 1950s, the NIT was seen as a "better" tournament than the NCAA, and, at that time, they were held during different weeks so a team could possibly compete and win both. This happened only in 1950, when the City College of New York, coached by Nat Holman, a former Original Celtic player, led his team to both titles. By the 1960s, the NCAA was viewed as the top tournament, though restricting its participants solely to league champions left a number of outstanding teams for the NIT. The NCAA expanded gradually from eight, to sixteen, then thirty-two teams. In the early 2000s, there were sixty-five teams invited to this tournament, and they participated in March, leading to the sobriquet "March Madness."

Through the 1940s, many of the major college conferences had few, if any, African American players, but the victories of Loyola University of Chicago in 1963 with four African American starters, and Texas Western (now the University of Texas at El Paso) in 1966 with an all–African American starting five changed the segregation policies of many schools. The Texas Western triumph was even more meaningful because it came against the University of Kentucky, with its fabled coach, Adolph Rupp.

The change in the composition of the college game was later reflected in that of the professional game, where more than 75 percent of the players of the National Basketball Association (NBA) are African American. The NBA had been formed in 1949 through a merger of two other professional basketball leagues, the National Basketball League (which operated since 1937, largely in the Midwest) and the Basketball Association of America (which had begun in 1946 and played mostly in large venues in the Northeast). The NBA struggled for many years financially, but the increased television coverage helped the league and the game to "take off" in the 1980s.

At one time basketball was seen as an activity exclusively for children and young adults, almost all male, but over the past forty years, leagues have continued to form and prosper for adult males and females. There are now many adult leagues only for women, mostly run by local Parks and Recreation Departments. Men's leagues have continued to expand even more, and many now are agebracketed, with some being for those over thirty-five or over forty. National and regional tournaments for men now are age grouped in five-year brackets up to the sixty to sixty-five group, and an over-sixty-five category.

Children's leagues are often no longer gender-based until adolescent years, and most of these leagues are also conducted by local parks programs. There are also leagues sponsored by churches or synagogues for both children and adults. Some of these leagues have existed for more than seventy years. Children's leagues now extend downward to as low as first graders; portable and adjustable baskets make the game accessible to these youngsters.

Over the past seventy-five years, a number of significant rule changes have been implemented that have altered and improved basketball. In the 1920s, the three-second rule was initiated. This prevented any offensive player from maintaining a position in the free-throw lane for more than three consecutive seconds without exiting that area. In the 1950s, that lane was widened. In the late 1930s, the alternate possession after a basket or free throw was inaugurated. This replaced a center tap after each score and sped up the game and increased scoring. In 1954, the NBA adopted a twenty-four second rule, whereby teams had twenty-four seconds to shoot after gaining possession of the ball. Later in the 1990s, a shot clock was begun in college basketball. The dunk was outlawed in high school and college from 1967 to 1976. The three-point shot was begun at various levels from the late 1970s. Before being adopted by high schools, colleges, and the NBA, it had been utilized in the American Basketball League as early as 1961 and the Olympics from the late 1960s.

Though basketball has become "big business" with the NBA and the NCAA tournament, it remains a simple game played at playgrounds and schoolyards by young and old alike.

See also: African American Leisure Lifestyles, "Muscular Christianity" and the YM(W)CA Movements, Urbanization of Leisure

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bjarkman, Peter. Hoopla: A Century of College Basketball. Indianapolis, Ind.: Masters Press, 1996.

Hollander, Zander, ed. The Modern Encyclopedia of Basketball. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, 1979.

Isaacs, Neil. All the Moves: A History of College Basketball. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1975.

Neft, David, and Richard Cohen. The Sports Encyclopedia: Pro Basketball. 2d edition. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989.

Nelson, Murry. The Originals: The New York Celtics Invent Modern Basketball. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1999.

Peterson, Robert. Cages to Jump Shots: Pro Basketball's Early Years. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Savage, Jim. The Encyclopedia of the NCAA Basketball Tournament: The Complete Independent Guide to College Basketball's Championship Event. New York: Dell Publishing, 1990.

Telander, Rick. Heaven Is a Playground. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1976.

Murry R. Nelson