HARRY D. HENSHEL, Chairman U. S.
Pan-American Games’ Basketball
Committee.

BASKETBALL MEANS SPORTSMANSHIP

IKE thousands of others who have had some
little part in the growth of basketball, I look
upon the flourishing game of today with consid-
erable pride and satisfaction.
Basketball as played a generation ago, while

basically the same interesting and thrilling game >
it is today, was vastly different. And of all the

changes that have come about in the game, the two
most far-reaching ones, which exercised the most
good on the structure and substance of the sport,
are in officiating and in player and _ spectator
sportsmanship.

A little more than three decades ago, officiating
was often nothing more than a travesty. Too often
officials handling games in those days were victims
of the same biases and provincialisms that charac-
terized fans in all parts of the country.

A team traveling out of its own immediate baili-
wick was usually convinced before it even stepped
on the rival court that it had two strikes against it
—to express it in the vernacular of another sport
—and agreeably surprised when they received good
treatment; except, of course, in organized leagues
and in institutional and other intra-group competi-
tions where friendly and fair rivalry had always
been the rule. But in ordinary open games, visiting
teams had good reason to feel that not only would
the official in all probability give them the worst
of the bargain, but that the crowd, too, would deal
with them unfairly and even roughly. Some of my
friends who played in the even rougher professional
game sometimes had to contend, at tense moments,
with local fans shaking the basket post, hoping to
cause foul attempts to be missed.

Today, teams from the West Coast, the South,
the Northwest or the Middle West willingly play
at Madison Square Garden or any other place with-

out so much as questioning the choice of officials.
They know that honest and capable officials will
be provided. That is now standard practice. A dis-
honest official, as a matter of fact, is as scarce today
as the proverbial hen’s tooth.

What has brought about the change? Simply
this: In the old days few officials had any particu-
lar qualifications for the job. They were former
players, coaches or athletic directors without
formal professional training. They were subject to
the same prejudices and local stereotypes as over-
enthusiastic spectators who supported their teams
with epithets and cat-calls for the opponents.

The big change in officiating came about through
the work of a large group of men who, during the
last generation, have graduated from physical edu-
cation schools and colleges, and now devote their
lives to what was once nothing more than a part
time avocation—namely, the physical education of
youth. They have spread the doctrine of fair play,
clean sport and honest dealing in athletics where-:
ever they go.

And in teaching the players these. things, they
unconsciously raised the standards of appreciation
of the crowds attending the games. Where once rival
players were hooted and hissed, tripped and an-
noyed, today they are amicably welcomed and their
performances are greeted with applause and en-
thusiasm by the crowd; and however hard fought
the game, the players almost invariably shake hands
and put their arms around opponents’ shoulders at
the game’s finale.

Let my reader not think, however, that the mil-
lenium has been reached. Unfortunately, out of the
same environment. which has produced honest of-
ficials, competent coaches, fair competitors and
sportsmanlike crowds—there still are throwbacks

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