‘DAILY JOURNAL-WORLD, LAWRENCE, KANSAS—TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 1941

~"ABIG BASKETBALL
JUBILEE PLANNED

Naismith Memorial Com-
- mittee in Springfield to.
Arrange Program

TO BE INTERNATIONAL

' Springfield, Mass., Apr. 1.—An
international celebration to com-
memorate the fiftieth anniversary
of the invention of basketball will
be held during the 1941-42 season
with the city of Springfield, where
the game was invented, as the focal
point of the celebration. A group
of prominent Springfield citizens
headed by Mayor Roger L. Putnam
will serve as a Naismith memorial

‘committee to plan the events of a
world celebration.

__In December, 1891, Dr. James A.
Naismith tacked the first peach
baskets to the gymnasium railing
and posted the first rules of bas-
ketball in the gymnasium of the
International Young: Men’s Chris-
tian Association Training school,
now Springfield college. The dates |
of basketball’s golden jubilee year |
have .been set accordingly by the
committee as December, 1941, to
December, 1942.

To Erect “Temple”

Plans already underway will
provide recognition of basketball
during the anniversary year in the
United States, Canada, Mexico, and
the South American countries,
where the game has become the
most popular of all sports. The
Naismith memorial committee will
conduct a campaign to erect a
memorial to the game’s inventor to
be known as a “Temple of: Basket-
ball.” The building will house a
basketball “Hall of Fame” that
will be a depository for past, pres-
ent and future basketball docu-
ments and records of the game.
Another feature of the “Hall of.
Fame” will be the enshrining of
names of annual official All-
American basketball teams, select-
ed by the sports writers of the
country.

The first gift for the memorial to
Dr. Naismith has been received by
the committee from Dr. Naismith’s
Springfield college class of 1892
which has pledged the first thou-
sand dollars for the memorial to
their celebrated classmate.

The Naismith memorial commit-
tee will announce soon the list of
nationally known figures who will
make up the nation-wide committee |
to conduct the year’s celebration of
events in every place where the
game of basketball is played.

FROSH ARE GOOD