Basketball is one of the world’s most popular and widely viewed sports. It’s a team sport with the objective being to shoot or toss a spherical ball through a ‘basket’ that’s horizontally positioned on the narrow end of the basketball court. This allows individual team players to score points while following a set of rules. Two teams of five players usually play on a marked rectangular court with a basket / goal at each narrow end.
In early December of 1891, Dr. James Naismith, a physical education professor and instructor at the International Young Men’s Christian Association Training School (today’s YMCA) in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, was trying to come up with a game to keep his gym class active on a cold rainy day.
He wanted an energetic indoor game to keep his students occupied and provide proper levels of fitness during the typically long New England winters. After rejecting several ideas as either too rough or poorly suited to walled-in gymnasiums, following a major brain storm, he wrote the basic rules for the new game that would become Basketball. His second step was to nail a peach basket onto a 10-foot (3.05 m) elevated track, and then, the entertainment began.
In contrast to modern basketball goals & nets, this peach basket retained its bottom, so balls had to be retrieved manually after each “basket” or point was made; this soon proved ineffective, so a portion of the basket’s bottom was soon removed, allowing the balls to be poked out with a long dowel or rod each time a player “scored” a basket.
Basketball was originally played with an ‘association football’ which is a fancy name for a standard soccer ball. The first balls that were made specifically for basketball were brown in color, and remained so until 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 most commonly used.
Initially, “dribbling” was not part of the game unless the bounce passes to a teammate is considered dribbling. Passing the ball was the primary method utilized for ball movement. Dribbling was eventually introduced but the procedure was some what limited by the often lop-sided shape of the early game balls. Dribbling didn’t become a major part of the game until the 1950s, when manufacturers improved the ball’s shape to that of a more perfect spherical shape.
The peach baskets were used until 1906 when they were finally replaced by metal hoops with backboards . . . Today’s (2018) regulation basketball hoop consists of a rim that’s 18 inches in diameter; 10 feet high, and mounted to a backboard. A team can score a “field goal” by shooting the ball through the basket during regular play. A field goal scores two points for the shooting team if a player is touching or closer to the basket than the ‘three-point line’ displayed upon the basketball court’s floor and three points if the player is behind the three-point line. The team with the most points at the end of the game, surprise surprise, wins! But additional time (overtime) may be issued when or if the game ends with a tie score.
The basketball rules currently allow the ball to be advanced on the court by bouncing or throwing it: This action is permitted while walking, running and or dribbling when throwing / passing the ball to a teammate. It is a violation to move ‘about’ (if you have the ball) without dribbling the ball. This action constitutes “traveling” / “walking”. Another common infraction is called “double dribbling” (to hold the ball with both hands then resume dribbling a second time during a single possession), when the ball is in an individual players control.
Various other violations include “fouls”(each player is limited to 5 per game). When disruptive physical contact (a personal foul) is made and penalized, a free throw or free shot is usually awarded to an offensive player if he is fouled while shooting the ball as well as on certain occasions if the fowled player is not shooting. A technical foul may also be issued when certain infractions occur, most commonly for unsportsmanlike conduct on the part of a player or the team coach. A technical foul gives the opposing team a free throw and possession of the ball.
Basketball has evolved over the years with the use of many styles of play, including but not limited to: shooting, passing, dribbling, and rebounding, as well as the development of specialized player positions (Guards Forwards, & Center) and offensive and defensive structures such as “Man, to Man” or “Zone” style defensive techniques.
While competitive basketball is carefully regulated, numerous variations of basketball have developed for casual play. Competitive basketball is chiefly
Basketball’s early support was initially limited to YMCA’s throughout the United States. While the YMCA was responsible for developing and spreading the game, surprisingly, within 10 years it elected to discourage the new sport, as rough play was said to attract rowdy crowds which began to detract from the YMCA’s primary mission vision.
During the early decades of the 20th century, basketball quickly became the ideal interscholastic sport due to its modest equipment and personnel requirement needs in comparison to other games. Prior to widespread TV coverage of professional and college sports, the popularity of high school basketball was unrivaled in many parts of America. Perhaps the most legendary of high school teams was Franklin, Indiana’s team, which took the nation by storm during the 1920s, dominating Indiana basketball and earning national recognition.
With basketball king in Indiana, the team from Franklin, IN was dubbed the “Wonder Five”. This small town (sporting only 4,909 residents in 1920) located about 20 miles south of Indianapolis produced a team that captured the Indiana State Basketball Championship three years in in a row, 1920, 1921, and 1922. The boys had started playing together as children and developed superior interaction focusing on team cooperation which is proof positive that basketball is truly a team sport!
Today practically every high school in the United States fields a basketball team that participates in varsity competition. The US states of Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky are particularly well known for their citizens’ devotion to high school and college basketball.
Dr. Naismith, who dreamed up the game in the first place, was instrumental in establishing college basketball programs. Naismith himself later coached at the University of Kansas for six years; one of Naismith’s disciples, Amos Alonzo Stagg, is credited with bringing basketball to the University of Chicago, while the legendary Adolph Rupp, a “student” of Naismith’s at Kansas U, enjoyed considerable success as Head Coach at the University of Kentucky.
In 1905, recurrent injuries on the football field prompted then President Theodore Roosevelt to suggest that colleges form a governing body, which resulted in the creation of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS). In 1910, that body changed its name to the National Collegiate Athletic Association, most commonly known as the NCAA.
By the 1950s, basketball had become a major college sport, thus paving the way for the growth in interest for professional basketball via the National Basketball Association which was founded in New York City on June 6, 1946, as the Basketball Association of America (BAA). Originally called an ‘Upstart’, the American Basketball Association (ABA), emerged in 1967 and briefly threatened the NBA’s dominance until the ABA-NBA merger in 1976. As a result of this action, today’s NBA is the top professional basketball league in the world in terms of popularity, salaries, talent, and the level of competition and the “dream” of getting there is undoubtedly the prevailing thought of amateur players of basketball everywhere, perhaps, with one exception, former US President Barack Obama. But, according to a select few, Obama is predicted to be a 3rd round draft choice next year:) :) :)
Saddled with all the aforementioned trivia associated with the game of Basketball, the question may remain for some: Is Basketball a real Hobby? The answer is a resounding YES; as long as your not being paid to play!
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