The Basketball Critics

We understand that the members of the national bas-
ketball rules committee, composed largely of college and
university men, took a lambasting at their recent annual
meeting from a small group of 30 or 40 members of the
college basketball coaches’ association and were told
that they should rule out the molded basketball and the
new fan-shaped backboards. Furthermore, we understand
that a majority of the committee “took water” and tried
to crawl out from under the responsibility for making
the new-type basketball and backboards official. We are
told that these coaches tried to place the blame upon a
small group of midwestern high school men and made a
number of the committee members believe that they
could not afford to accept anything from the high schools,
that until such time as the college basketball coaches
should make formal recommendations they should not
vote any changes.

Since we were not in on the preliminaries to the change.
in the backboards we cannot speak with any authority.
We were informed, however, by the committee that the
research division of the rules making body supervised
tests and experiments authorized by the committee and:
that following the report of this committee, which was.
headed by Dr. F. C. Allen of the University of Kansas,
the change to the new boards was authorized and recom.
mended. At the annual meeting of the joint committee
in 1941 it voted not only to make the new boards official:
but put into the guide the statement that, “in all new
construction and in replacements the official board (the
new one) should be installed.” The vote on this change
in the rules was 14 to 1—and there are only four high
school representatives on the committee.

In this Missouri Valley area not only have the high
schools changed to the new-type board but also the col.
leges and universities. In fact, we do not know of a
single college in this section that does not have the new
boards installed. Were our Missouri Valley college and
university coaches influenced by a small group of high
school coaches, or did they make the change upon the
recommendation of the national committee, just as our
high schools did? Did they think they were to be misled.
by a group of uninformed rules makers who did not know
their own minds or those of their constituents?

The popularity of the new boards among those who.
have used them is attested by the overwhelming vote of
> to 1 by hundreds of college and high school. coaches
throughout the country. Our Kansas coaches are almost
unanimous for them, as they are for the molded basket-
ball and we doubt if there will be any going back. In fact,
we fear for the safety of anyone who would suggest such
a thing.

We are not so much concerned just now with the merits
of the molded ball or the new backboard, but we are con-
cerned with the advisability of our high school associations
being submitted to the domination of a rules making body
that does not know “where it has been, where it is now,
or where it is going.”