Podchaser Logo
Home
Inventing Basketball

Inventing Basketball

Released Tuesday, 30th August 2022
Good episode? Give it some love!
Inventing Basketball

Inventing Basketball

Inventing Basketball

Inventing Basketball

Tuesday, 30th August 2022
Good episode? Give it some love!
Rate Episode

Episode Transcript

Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.

Use Ctrl + F to search

0:11

Lessons from the world's top professors

0:13

anytime, anyplace, world

0:16

history examined and science explained.

0:18

This is one day university.

0:21

Welcome, and

0:27

we're back on the untold history of

0:29

sports in America. I'm your host,

0:31

Mike Coscarelli. Last time, we

0:33

talked about America's first black heavyweight

0:36

champion, Jack Johnson and the struggles

0:38

he endured as the first black man in the country

0:41

to achieve the accolade. Today,

0:43

it's all about the kids. We'll be talking about

0:45

how the U. S School system used sports

0:47

to turn immigrant children in the inner cities

0:50

into one percent Americans.

0:53

To explain more, here's Matt. I

1:00

have an assignment for you, and don't

1:02

worry. There will be no essay writing or group

1:05

work in this course. But but do be a favor

1:07

do this. Think

1:09

back to when you were in elementary school

1:12

and middle school and high school, and

1:14

in particular, think back to Pe.

1:17

You know, when you played basketball or dodgeball

1:20

or whatever the game of choice was that week.

1:23

What would you say was the most important lesson

1:25

that you learned in Pe? I mean, what do

1:28

you think the point of Pe was

1:30

in the first place. I'm gonna

1:32

come back to that idea in just a moment, but

1:34

in the meantime, do me a favor. Think

1:36

it over all

1:38

right, Today we explore the idea

1:41

of sport and Americanism.

1:43

We're going to focus on the turn of the twentieth

1:45

century era, sort of two decades

1:47

on either side. Let's say eighteen

1:50

eighty to nineteen twenty. Now,

1:53

Americans became sports crazy

1:56

in the nineteen twenties. We'll talk about that

1:58

very soon, Babe Ruth and Jack

2:00

Dempsey and other American sport

2:02

gods. But today I

2:04

want focus on ordinary Americans

2:07

playing sports. American sport

2:09

history is not just about the amazing

2:12

deeds of world class athletes. It's

2:14

about the games and sports that we ordinary

2:17

Americans play as well. And

2:19

this eighteen eighty to nineteen

2:21

twenty period that I want to explore today,

2:24

this is when sports became

2:26

a presence in everyday American

2:28

life. And more to my point

2:31

today, this is the era when sports

2:33

became an important part of American

2:35

identity. Now, this is when Americans

2:38

began to say we Americans

2:40

play certain sports, and when

2:42

they said, if you want to be a real

2:45

American, you need to play this

2:47

sport. This is when Americans

2:50

began to say we Americans

2:52

are better than everybody else, and the proof

2:54

can be found on the field of competition, you

2:56

know, in our athletic victories. That

3:00

last idea, that's the story of the United

3:02

States of the Olympic Games, which we'll talk about

3:04

next time. But my overall point right

3:06

now is that this is the era again, eighteen

3:09

eighty to nine. This is

3:11

one Americans began defining

3:13

themselves through sports. So

3:16

let's get to that. I've

3:19

been talking in the course about how

3:21

American sports, such as baseball

3:24

and football are to a large extent,

3:27

continuations of English

3:29

sporting practices. But

3:31

whether it was those New York Knickerbockers

3:33

shortening and shrinking the game of baseball,

3:36

or Walter Camp up in Yale

3:38

coming up with the line of scrimmage, these

3:41

English games, Americans took

3:43

them and tinkered with them, you know, they were

3:45

altered. One might say these games

3:47

were made American, but

3:50

there were many sports being played in the United

3:52

States that held onto their original

3:55

European character, and this

3:57

was very much on purpose. As

3:59

European immigrants came to the United States

4:02

in the nineteenth century, many

4:04

immigrant men they clung to

4:06

their homeland sports as an

4:08

expression of their their homeland

4:10

or ethnic identity. You know, just

4:13

as people held on to their homeland language

4:15

or religion, and and and other customs.

4:19

For example, many English

4:21

immigrants, they rejected baseball

4:23

and they clung to cricket as an

4:26

expression of their englishness. English

4:29

immigrants gathered and played cricket

4:31

to meet fellow English immigrants

4:33

and to maintain a link with their homeland.

4:36

You know, you can still see this happening through the sport

4:38

of cricket today. Is Indian

4:41

and Pakistani and Sri Lankan

4:43

and West Indian immigrants in New

4:45

York City. They have a vibrant cricket

4:48

league, just as it was almost two

4:50

hundred years ago. Cricket is a way

4:52

for immigrant men to maintain

4:54

homeland connections based on that common

4:57

sporting interest. Right

5:00

in the nineteenth century, Irish

5:02

and Scottish immigrants, well, they wouldn't

5:05

be caught dead playing cricket, you know, that was

5:07

an English sport. The English were the hated

5:09

conquerors of Ireland and Scotland.

5:12

Irish immigrants they formed clubs

5:14

and they played the Irish sport of hurling,

5:17

which is a stick and ball game

5:19

that's sort of a mix between field hockey,

5:21

lacrosse and rugby. I suppose

5:24

I don't know if you've ever seen hurling. Hurling is an awesome

5:26

sport. Scottish

5:28

immigrants they formed Caledonian

5:31

clubs. Members would come

5:33

and where their kilts and play their bagpipes,

5:36

and they would compete in traditional Scottish

5:38

games which are sometimes called Highlander

5:41

games. Wrestling,

5:44

foot races, stone

5:46

throws, oh the totally awesome

5:48

caber toss, in which competitors

5:51

see who can hurl a twenty ft long tapered

5:53

pine pole the furthest

5:56

These were some of the games that came from the Highlands

5:58

of Scotland. One

6:01

more example German immigrants.

6:03

They brought their sporting traditions with the as well,

6:05

especially something called the turn Verian.

6:09

And there were many turn Verian clubs

6:11

in the United States, and the turn

6:14

variant is a unique case. The

6:17

turn Veran was a German

6:19

club and here in the United States a German

6:22

American club, and it was many things.

6:24

It was a social, political,

6:27

and an athletic club. German

6:30

men and women who went to the turn Veran

6:33

they were known as Turners, and they

6:35

would go to the turn Verrian, maybe to purchase

6:38

German language reading material, maybe

6:40

to hear a lecture on politics, or

6:42

they came to engage in athletics.

6:46

So one of the ideas behind the turn

6:48

Verian is that it's a place to build

6:50

up German bodies, you know. So this

6:53

was about exercise and developing

6:55

physical strength. But

6:59

what made the Turners unique

7:01

and so in the context of the United States,

7:04

is that it turn Vine they engaged

7:07

in noncompetitive athletic

7:09

endeavors. The

7:11

Turners they specialized in team

7:14

acrobatics or or what today

7:16

I suppose we would call synchronized gymnastics.

7:20

Imagine dozen, sometimes

7:22

even hundreds of German Americans

7:25

engaged in these massive, synchronized

7:28

displays of of stretching

7:30

and human pyramid building. You

7:33

know. This was the turn Vine

7:36

and these athletic displays. They were something that

7:38

men and women they could do in concert

7:40

with each other. They were moments

7:42

of athleticism that linked

7:45

participants through the pursuit of

7:47

a common goal, you know, rather

7:49

than through competition against

7:51

one another. The turn Virine

7:53

is is so interesting and so unique,

7:57

especially in compared to the hyper

7:59

competitiveness that one found

8:01

in most American sports. All

8:04

right, but in all of these cases, right, English

8:07

cricketers, Irish hurlers,

8:10

Scottish Highlanders, German turners.

8:12

In all of these cases, sports

8:15

are being used as an expression

8:17

of a specific homeland or

8:19

ethnic identity. But

8:22

beginning around the eighteen eighties, more

8:25

and more Americans were becoming uneasy

8:27

with all the ethnic diversity in the

8:29

United States, and especially in

8:31

the American cities like New York

8:33

City, you know, places that were receiving hundreds

8:36

of thousands of European immigrants

8:38

every year. And

8:40

to deal with this surge in immigration,

8:43

we begin to get a large number of Americans

8:46

arguing very passionately for

8:48

the need to Americanize

8:51

these immigrants, right, these people, they

8:53

need to assimilate. It

8:55

was one of the presidents in this era, Teddy Roosevelt.

8:58

He said there is no room in

9:00

America for hyphenated

9:03

Americans, you know. He said, we don't

9:05

want Irish Americans and

9:07

German American, Scottish Americans

9:09

and so on. What we want is one

9:12

hundred percent Americans.

9:16

And look, that idea means different

9:18

things to different people, But to Teddy Roosevelt

9:20

and others, this idea of one hundred

9:23

percent Americanism, this is

9:25

the idea that real Americans

9:27

speak English, real Americans

9:29

pledge allegiance to the flag. You know, real

9:31

Americans act a certain way in

9:34

public. And

9:36

there is an idea that emerges at this time

9:39

that you can turn people into real

9:41

Americans through education,

9:44

specifically the children of the immigrants.

9:47

Right, we will turn the children of these

9:49

immigrants into real Americans

9:51

by sending them to American schools

9:54

and instructing them in American

9:56

ways. Let's have them take

9:58

American civic lessons. Let's

10:01

have them pledge allegiance to the flag

10:03

into the republic for which it's has.

10:06

But another way you can do this is through

10:09

play. You can turn immigrant

10:11

children into American children by

10:14

using sports. And

10:16

this takes us to an idea from

10:18

this era, something called the

10:20

Gospel of play. The

10:25

Gospel of Play is a philosophy

10:28

of sport that comes out

10:30

of the increasingly crowded,

10:33

polluted, immigrant filled

10:36

American cities, and

10:38

the gospel's intellectual leader

10:41

it's foundation it was a

10:43

child psychologist named Stanley

10:46

Hall. And Stanley

10:48

Hall argued that the key to a healthy

10:50

America is healthy children,

10:53

and the key to healthy children, he said,

10:55

is healthy play. It's

10:58

actually because of Stanley Hall and others that we

11:00

get the playground movement at

11:02

this time in American history. This

11:05

was the era when cities started building playgrounds

11:08

and recreation centers for for children,

11:11

so children could be active and

11:13

healthy. The playground

11:15

movement is a reaction to the

11:17

crowded, dirty streets in the American

11:20

cities at this time. It's a reaction

11:22

to children playing in raw sewage that

11:24

flowed through the streets. Or I've seen

11:26

photographs of children playing on dead horses,

11:29

you know, horses that were rotting and littering

11:31

city streets. And Stanley

11:34

Hall said, something has to be done to

11:36

give these children spaces in

11:38

which they can exercise and be healthy.

11:42

The head of the New York City school System, he

11:44

was a big believer in the Gospel of play

11:47

and a believer in the playground movement. And

11:49

I always like how he put it. He said this, the

11:53

country boy roams the hills and

11:55

has access to God's first

11:57

temples. What can

12:00

we offer to the city boy in exchange

12:02

for paradise lost? His

12:04

only ode to paradise regain

12:07

is through the gymnasium, the athletic

12:09

field, and the playground. After

12:15

the break, basketball is invented at

12:17

the y m c A to keep young Americans

12:20

occupied in the winter alright.

12:41

So on the one hand, the Gospel of play

12:44

is about physical exercise, right,

12:46

physical exercises as an antidote

12:49

to the city. But it's more

12:51

than that. It's more than just exercise and

12:53

physical fitness. Stanley

12:55

Hall and others believed that in these playgrounds,

12:59

specific games and specific

13:01

sports should be used to turn immigrant

13:03

children, those high infinated Americans

13:06

into one hundred percent Americans.

13:10

And for this task, they emphasized

13:12

the need for team sports.

13:16

Stanley Hall and others believe that

13:18

team sports provided important

13:21

modern lessons. They taught

13:23

well obviously teamwork, They

13:25

taught self sacrifice and

13:27

loyalty, and very

13:30

importantly, they taught obedience.

13:33

They taught children to follow the

13:35

rules. So this

13:37

was more than just about physical health.

13:40

This was about using sports

13:42

and games to educate

13:45

children about what it meant to be a good

13:47

American citizen. One

13:50

example, baseball. Baseball

13:52

was considered an especially good sport

13:54

to educate young Americans. And it's

13:57

because of the structure of the game. You

13:59

know, in baseball, everyone is an individual

14:02

when they come to the to the plate. So that cherished

14:04

idea of American individualism.

14:07

It's it's still at play here. But

14:09

all of the individuals are also

14:11

part of a larger team, just like

14:13

being a citizen in the American nation, and

14:16

sometimes the individual is asked to make

14:18

a sacrifice for the good of the collective.

14:22

The traits that made someone a good baseball

14:25

player, these physical educators said,

14:27

are the same traits that made someone

14:29

a good American as well. So

14:33

just as the school system use things

14:35

like the Civics class and the

14:37

Pledge of Allegiance to turn immigrant

14:39

children into law abiding, patriotic

14:42

Americans, sports

14:45

would be used for the same purpose. Playing

14:48

sports would teach these children common

14:50

values, who teach them how to work together

14:53

for common goals. And I'm

14:55

gonna say it again very importantly,

14:57

playing team sports would teach children

14:59

to follow the rules. They would

15:02

teach children the importance of following

15:04

the rules that society has laid

15:06

out before them.

15:10

This is why when we all played sports

15:12

and games at school, it was not

15:15

called sports time or playtime.

15:17

It was called physical education.

15:21

Physical education or PE

15:24

was the idea that through sports,

15:26

young people could be educated

15:28

as to what it meant to be a real American.

15:32

So think back to that question I asked you about

15:35

at the start. When you all had PE,

15:37

you were supposed to be learning what it meant

15:39

to be a good, law abiding,

15:42

team playing American citizen, something

15:44

that I think many of us missed,

15:47

or maybe we didn't. Maybe that's the point.

15:50

It's an implicit education.

15:52

We're supposed to learn those lessons without

15:55

even knowing that we're learning them.

15:59

What The organization that made it their goal

16:02

to spread this gospel of play

16:04

was the Young Men's Christian Association.

16:07

You know why m c A. We

16:10

need to talk about the y. The

16:14

y m c A was founded in England

16:16

in the eighteen fifties. It was part of that emphasis

16:19

on muscular Christianity we have talked

16:21

about, and it was quickly transplanted

16:23

and took root in the United States

16:26

right before the Civil War, and

16:28

the y m c A was created as

16:30

a response to urbanization.

16:33

That the purpose of the y m c A was

16:36

to offer spiritual guidance and

16:38

practical assistance to all

16:40

the the young men flooding the cities,

16:43

you know, a temporary room to

16:45

sleep, a shower, stuff like that.

16:48

The y m c A also offered classes

16:51

in physical culture, and in early

16:53

on these classes were about gymnastics,

16:56

sort of like the turn vine I was telling

16:58

you about. Will do stretching

17:01

and calisthenics and lit dumbbells.

17:05

But then a man named Luther Gulick,

17:07

Jr. He changed this. Luther

17:11

Gulik was the y m c a's most

17:13

influential leader and innovator,

17:16

and it was under Gulick's leadership that

17:18

the y m c A abandoned the repetitive

17:20

gymnastics drills that their members

17:23

were doing, and instead

17:25

the y m c A adopted the ideas

17:28

of Stanley Hall that they moved towards

17:30

emphasizing team sports, team

17:33

sports in the name of physical education,

17:35

team sports in the name of making good

17:38

young Americans. The

17:41

most important of all the y m c a's

17:44

was not the y in big cities like New

17:46

York or Chicago or San Francisco.

17:49

It was the y m c A in Springfield,

17:52

Massachusetts. The

17:54

y m c A had a training school in Springfield.

17:57

It was essentially a laboratory for

17:59

sports. They invented games

18:02

there. And this takes

18:04

us to the mention of a rather significant

18:07

sport, a sport that I think

18:09

needs to be understood as an expression

18:11

of the Gospel of play that we

18:14

were just talking about. In

18:18

the early winter of eight the

18:21

physical educators at the Springfield

18:23

y m c A. They were faced with a

18:25

with a problem. They're students

18:28

who were young men, late teenage,

18:30

early twenties. These young men, they

18:33

were getting bored. You know, during the

18:35

spring and the summer. In the fall, they played

18:37

outdoor sports, they played baseball and football,

18:39

and they ran track. But in the

18:41

winter, the cold winter, there was little

18:44

to do except go inside the gym

18:46

and do calisthenics, you know, stretching

18:48

exercises. And these

18:51

students, these young men, they got

18:53

restless, they got rambunctious,

18:56

and some of the teachers at the y m c A. They

18:58

were getting frustrated with them. They were complaining

19:01

about them, their their their rowdiness.

19:03

They called this group the incorrigibles.

19:07

And then one of the faculty members at a faculty

19:10

meeting, one of the faculty members at the Springfield

19:12

Why he spoke up. He said,

19:15

the trouble is not with the men, but

19:18

with the system we are using. Well,

19:21

the faculty member who spoke up was named

19:23

James nay Smith. And Luther

19:26

Goulak, who was the head of the Springfield, why

19:29

he leapt at that comment, and he

19:31

put James Naysmith in charge of the Incorrigibles.

19:33

He said, if you think you can do it, better, go

19:36

ahead. Luther Goula

19:38

gave James Naysmith two weeks two

19:41

weeks to come up with the new system to

19:43

keep the students interested, you know, to get those

19:45

incorrigibles in line. All

19:49

right. Who is James nay Smith. Nay

19:52

Smith was born in eighteen sixty

19:54

one near Ottawa, Ontario, and

19:56

then he attended McGill University

19:58

in Montreal, and he played sports

20:01

at McGill, a lot of them, lacrosse

20:03

and soccer and rugg be He

20:05

performed gymnastics.

20:08

Lacrosse was his favorite. Nay Smith

20:10

loved lacrosse. While

20:13

in college, nay Smith was twice voted

20:15

McGill's best athlete. And

20:18

while at McGill, he studied theology

20:20

and James nay Smith was interested in the

20:22

ministry. So nay

20:24

Smith is an athlete, he's

20:26

a theological student. He

20:29

is a classic example of

20:31

a muscular Christian. But

20:33

he decided to reject the ministry and

20:35

become a physical educator. And he decided

20:38

he would help develop Christian souls

20:41

through sports. So

20:43

after finishing at McGill, nay Smith

20:46

came to the y m c A in Springfield,

20:48

Massachusetts, where he studied under Luther Gulak.

20:51

He became a teacher there himself. And

20:53

now he has spoken up and he's been charged

20:55

with the task of getting the incorrigibles in

20:58

line. And so charged

21:00

with this job, Nate Smith began to

21:02

ponder a new game that could be played indoors,

21:05

you know, in the confines of the gymnasium, game

21:08

that could be played during the winner. And he needed

21:10

to give these incorrigibles

21:12

and outlet. And I

21:14

want to go into this moment in a little detail

21:16

because I think it's a fascinating

21:18

task, inventing a brand

21:21

new sport. I've tried to invent

21:23

a few sports over the years,

21:25

none of them successful. So

21:27

let's ask the question, how do you do it? Just

21:30

so you know, spoiler alert, the game Nay

21:32

Smith is going to invent is basketball.

21:35

But here's how it happened. James

21:38

Nay Smith when he was a student of sport,

21:41

so he looked at the other sports out there,

21:43

and he thought about what made them enjoyable,

21:46

and then he borrowed a little bit here and a

21:48

little bit there for his new sport. For

21:51

example, he decided his new sport

21:53

would have a ball. I mean, maybe

21:55

it seems obvious, but didn't have to have a ball. It

21:57

could have had bows and arrows and

22:00

shields, but all of the popular

22:02

team sports had a ball. So okay,

22:04

a ball, but what kind

22:06

of ball? A small ball,

22:09

a large ball. Well,

22:11

nay Smith noticed that sports with small

22:14

balls like tennis or golf,

22:16

or baseball or croquet,

22:19

these sports required other equipment

22:21

clubs, rackets, bats, mallets.

22:24

This was too complicated, n Smith said,

22:26

I want simplicity, so

22:28

the ball would be large, the primary

22:31

piece of equipment, the primary

22:33

object, and what he decided to

22:35

use was essentially a soccer ball,

22:37

a stitched leather ball with laces.

22:41

Because the game would be played indoors, nay

22:44

Smith wanted his game to be marked

22:46

by finesse and not brute strength.

22:49

You want people to get hurt on the hard floor,

22:51

So there was no goal on the ground that

22:53

you would smash through or or throw

22:56

the ball toward with great force like a

22:58

like a soccer goal. Instead,

23:00

he decided the goal would be up high, where

23:02

aim and skill and

23:05

and and touch would come into play. Nay

23:08

Smith was actually a big fan of a simple

23:11

children's game called Duck on a Rock.

23:13

I mean, what if you played that growing up where you

23:15

place an object on top of a base and

23:17

you try to knock it off that base by

23:19

lobbing rocks at it. You know it takes aim,

23:22

it takes acumen. The

23:25

lobbing of a rock at the duck

23:27

is the origin of the basketball shot.

23:31

And since the game would be played not just indoors,

23:33

but on those hard floors, tackling,

23:36

he said, tackling is out, even though nay

23:38

Smith loved rugby.

23:40

In fact, in order to avoid most contact

23:43

and collisions almost entirely, nay

23:45

Smith came up with the rule that you could not run

23:48

with the ball. The only way to move

23:50

the ball was the pass it. Dribbling

23:52

actually won't be invented in basketball for another

23:54

ten years, and this

23:56

rule very much suited Goolo's idea

23:59

about the purpose of this of the sport.

24:01

To score a basket, the ball would have

24:04

to be passed and shared. One

24:06

man cannot just take it and run with it

24:08

and do it all on his own. Team

24:10

play and getting along with others

24:12

would be one of the keys. So

24:17

I'm a big basketball fan. So here's the date.

24:20

December one, nay

24:23

Smith came to class with thirteen rules

24:26

for his brand new sport. He

24:28

tacked these thirteen rules to a bulletin

24:30

board, and he told the incorrigibles to gather

24:33

around, read them, and memorize them.

24:36

The incorrigibles learned they would be playing a sport

24:38

where they would pass around a ball and try to throw

24:40

the ball into the other team's raised goals.

24:44

And these goals were two large peach

24:46

baskets that just happened to be laying around

24:48

and that Nate Smith had a janitor mount

24:51

on both ends of the gym. It was

24:53

one of those old gyms that had a track on

24:55

the second floor. So the janitor

24:58

went up to the track and then bent

25:00

down and hung the baskets. And

25:02

they were hung at a height of ten ft.

25:05

Just by chance, Nay

25:07

Smith had not calculated that ten feet

25:09

was the ideal height. They were just put

25:11

a ten ft and this became

25:13

the standard height of a basket. I

25:17

think about this often. What if that track had been twelve

25:19

feet above the ground or fifteen

25:21

feet you know, this game we are discussing

25:24

right now would be very different. Or

25:26

what if that track was only eight and a half feet above

25:28

the ground, Well, then I

25:30

could dunk. That's what you

25:33

know. There are those who say that it's absurd that

25:35

we still use the ten foot basket.

25:38

The men who Nay Smith designed

25:40

the game for were likely all under

25:42

six ft tall, and in case you don't

25:44

know this, basketball players today

25:46

are much larger. Anyway,

25:49

there were eighteen Incorrigibles, so

25:52

Nay Smith divided them into two teams

25:54

of nine, nine against nine. This was

25:56

the early standard in basketball, but

25:59

a few years later that will be changed. It

26:01

will be five on five for men and

26:04

six on six for women. We'll

26:06

discuss women's six on six basketball

26:08

in the future lecture. In

26:10

this very first game, you got one

26:13

point every time you threw the ball into your opponent's

26:15

peach basket or basket, and

26:17

the final score of that first game was one

26:20

to nothing. I suppose today

26:22

we would call that a defensive struggle.

26:26

So maybe there was not a lot of scoring that first

26:28

game. But the Incorrigibles loved

26:30

it. They loved playing this game, and

26:32

they encouraged Nay Smith to call it nay

26:35

Smith Ball. Nate Smith

26:37

was much more modest than that. He said, no, it's

26:40

called basketball. The

26:43

name then is literal. I mean it

26:45

could have been nay Smith ball, or Nay

26:48

Smith could have used crates instead of baskets,

26:50

and it would have been crate ball. Or he could

26:52

have used the cardboard box and it would have been box

26:54

ball, but it was peach baskets,

26:57

and thus basket ball

27:01

the game of basketball. It caught on and

27:03

it spread to the other y m c a's quickly,

27:05

and by quickly, I mean within months

27:08

Nay Smith's original thirteen rules.

27:10

They were printed in the official y m

27:12

c A newsletter and sent to every

27:15

y m c A in the country. And

27:17

the reason this game became so

27:19

popular so fast is

27:21

that it fit the needs of the Gospel

27:24

of Play reformers in three

27:26

important ways. First

27:28

of all, basketball did not require

27:31

large fields like football or baseball,

27:33

so it was perfectly suited for the crowded

27:36

city. Second,

27:38

basketball was an indoor game, so it

27:40

could be played in the winter when many other activities

27:42

were out of the question. And

27:45

third, this is a big reason.

27:48

Basketball was a team sport that emphasized

27:51

sharing and camaraderie, so

27:53

it was the ideal game for

27:55

those reformers who were trying to simultaneously

27:58

exercise and educate

28:00

young Americans about teamwork, self

28:03

sacrifice, and shap Aaron. That's

28:08

all for now, next time on the Untold

28:11

History of Sports in America, presented

28:13

by One Day University. The first

28:15

modern Olympics M

Unlock more with Podchaser Pro

  • Audience Insights
  • Contact Information
  • Demographics
  • Charts
  • Sponsor History
  • and More!
Pro Features