CONTENTS

The Invention of Basketball
Sketch of Dr. James Naismith
Sketch of Dr. Forrest C. Allen

 

 

 

The Most Famous Colleye Yell In America....0.....2.2..02......20-+-- 10

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scores of Games with Big Six Opponents ...............2.2-.2-2.------e000+ 12
Scores of Games with Non-Conference Opponents .................- 15
Summary of Scoring—1899-1936 18
Scores, 1899 to 1936, by Years 19
Standings of Teams 1916-1936 25
Missouri Valley and Big Six Championships ...............-.----.-- 27
Captains and Coaches at K.U. 27
Individual Scorers 28
Notes of Interest About Kansas Basketball... 29
Scores of Conference Games of Other Members of

Big Six—1928-36 30-31
Some Big Six “Firsts” 32

 

 

This booklet was compiled by the K.U. News Bureau,
W. A. Dill, director, and published by the K.U. Physi-
cal Education Corporation, Dr. F. C. Allen, director.

 

 

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era,

ately to furnish a vigorous, interesting, indoor game

for the winter months. It was devised by James A.
Naismith, an instructor in the Y.M.C.A. College at Spring-
field, Mass., and was first played in December, 1891. Ordinary
gymnastics palled on the 18 candidates for Y.M.C.A. secre-
tarial training, so Dr. Luther Gulick, head of the school, di-
rected Naismith to provide a suitable game for the active
youths,

Young Naismith analyzed games, and found that carrying
or throwing a ball was among the fundamentals. He recalled
his boyhood game of duck-on-the-rock, and that the tossed
rock was more accurate, even though it did not drive the
“duck” as did the hurled rock. He decided to toss the ball,
in his new game. Since a goal on the floor would be too easy
to defend, he decided on the elevated goal; because the janitor
had a couple peach baskets but no boxes, the baskets were
used; because the gallery railing of the gym was 10 feet from
the floor, that became the established height. A larger ball
could be more easily handled than a small one, so the soccer
ball was adopted.

Running with the ball involved too much danger to the
player trying to stop the ball carrier, so he determined to
let the other players run, and require the man with the ball
to dispose of it.

There were 18 in the class, so the first teams were of nine
men each, later cut to seven, and still later to the present five.

The game “caught on” immediately. It was described in
the Y.M.C.A. College papers, and was soon tried by Y.M.C.A.’s
elsewhere. New York City had games early in 1892.

The young secretaries, going to far parts of the country and
to foreign lands, carried the game with them. Duncan Patton,
“Y” graduate, took the game to India in 1894; Emil Thies, to
France in 1895; Ishakawa, to Japan in 1900. American soldiers
played it during the Boxer rebellion, and the Philippine in-
surrection. C. Harek, another “Y” man, introduced it int
Persia in 1901.

yr HE GAME OF BASKETBALL was invented deliber-