The Cultural Significance and Early History of Basketball

1. The Cultural Significance and Early History of Basketball Origins and Unique Features of America’s “Post-Industrial” Game

2. I. The “Post-Industrial” Game • Parallels to post-industrial production --The “knowledge worker” • Far removed from climate and topography • The role of systematic innovation --First Game: December, 1891 --Founder: James Naismith

3. Myth of Knowledge Worker • Knowledge has two purposes. The first and foremost purpose of knowledge is its application, to make things better for people, products, government and services. • The second purpose is that knowledge is a foundation for the growth of knowledge. The latter is subservient to the former. Knowledge, without application, is little more than the very highest class parlor game. • The term Knowledge Worker is meant to describe an occupation in a Post-Industrial economy in which knowledge is of the higher value than any mere product or commodity. The Knowledge Worker is the most highly paid of all workers because he knows stuff. • TYPICAL KNOWLEDGE WORKER= YOUR TEACHER!!!!! 

4. INVENTION OF BASKETBALL • Dr. James Naismith is known world-wide as the inventor of basketball. He was born in 1861 in Ramsay township Ontario, Canada. • The concept of basketball was born from Naismith's school days in the area where he played a simple child's game known as duck-on-a-rock outside his one-room schoolhouse. The game involved attempting to knock a "duck" off the top of a large rock by tossing another rock at it.

5. Dr. NAISMITH was a physical education professor and instructor at the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School. • He was trying to keep his gym class active on a rainy day. He sought a vigorous indoor game to keep his students occupied and at proper levels of fitness during the long New England winters

6. YMCA(Young Men's Christian Association) • In 1844, George Williams launched the YMCA movement in London as a volunteer, and his example persists in the expansion of the Y across the globe. In the United States, early YMCA programs were run almost entirely by volunteers. • In 1853, the first YMCA for blacks was founded by Anthony Bowen, a freed slave, in Washington, D.C.

7. Welcoming and engaging newcomers and immigrants has always been part of YMCA work. In 1856, the nation’s first-known English as a Second Language (ESL) class was held for German immigrants at the Cincinnati YMCA. • YMCA housing began in the 1860s to give young men moving to cities from rural areas safe and affordable lodging. Facilities included gyms, auditoriums and hotel-like rooms. • The first YMCA buildings constructed with gymnasiums opened in 1869. In 1881, Boston YMCA staffer Robert J. Roberts coined the term “body building” and developed exercise classes that anticipated today’s fitness workouts.

8. Designed to promote Christian character through fostering speech, sportsmanship and scholastic achievement. • Early YMCAs created a number of programs to make vocational and higher education available to more people, especially working-class Americans. In 1893, large-scale evening classes began at the Boston YMCA, offering liberal arts and vocational courses

9. Back to BASKETBALL: the rules of the game • Dr. Naismith wrote the basic rules and nailed a peach basket onto a 10-foot (3.05 m) elevated track. In contrast with modern basketball nets, this peach basket retained its bottom, and balls had to be retrieved manually after each "basket" or point scored; this proved inefficient, however, so the bottom of the basket was removed, allowing the balls to be poked out with a long dowel each time. • Basketball was originally played with a soccer ball. The first balls made specifically for basketball were brown, and it was only in the late 1950s that Tony Hinkle, searching for a ball that would be more visible to players and spectators alike, introduced the orange ball that is now in common use.

11. Dribbling was not part of the original game except for the "bounce pass" to teammates. Passing the ball was the primary means of ball movement. • Dribbling was eventually introduced but limited by the asymmetric shape of early balls. Dribbling only became a major part of the game around the 1950s, as manufacturing improved the ball shape.

12. The peach baskets were used until 1906 when they were finally replaced by metal hoops with backboards. A further change was soon made, so the ball merely passed through. Whenever a person got the ball in the basket, his team would gain a point. Whichever team got the most points won the game

13. The baskets were originally nailed to the mezzanine balcony of the playing court, but this proved impractical when spectators on the balcony began to interfere with shots. • The backboard was introduced to prevent this interference; it had the additional effect of allowing rebound shots. • The first official game was played in the YMCA gymnasium in Albany, New York on January 20, 1892 with nine players. The game ended at 1–0; the shot was made from 7.6 m, on a court just half the size of a present-day National Basketball Association (NBA) court. • By 1897–1898 teams of five became standard.

14. Basketball's early adherents were dispatched to YMCAs throughout the United States, and it quickly spread through the USA and Canada. • While the YMCA was responsible for initially developing and spreading the game, within a decade it discouraged the new sport, as rough play and rowdy crowds began to detract from the YMCA's primary mission. • However, other amateur sports clubs, colleges, and professional clubs quickly filled the void. In the years before World War I, the Amateur Athletic Union and the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (forerunner of the NCAA) vied for control over the rules for the game. • The first pro league, the National Basketball League, was formed in 1898 to protect players from exploitation and to promote a less rough game. This league only lasted five years