Feb. 15, 1941
The Athletic Journal

Twenty Years of Gains and Changes in Basketball

What a galaxy of events in the history of basketball is this
year, 1941 Ae D! The Golden Anniversary of Basketball! The Silver
Anniversary of the Joint Basketball Rules Committee! Two decades of
phenominal progress. in basketball.

What has inspired the phenomenal growth and progress of this great
game? How heave the offense and the defense changed? Why the great
popularity of this sport? These are a few questions for which we find the
ansWer S's

From the inventor's peach basket to the present iron rim; from

- @ soccer football to a full-sized regulation basketball; from the large

_ rectangular 6' x 4* backboards, that were first made of chicken wire, then

glass, then wood, to the present streamlined fan-shaped pressed-steel back=-
boards, the game of basketball has steadily forged ahead to become one of the
most popular amateur sports. The original purpose of the large backboards
was to keep spectators and partisans of the game from kicking or batting the ball
awey from the basket. Later the players learned to bank the ball from these
large boards. The Research Committee of the Rules Body, by cutting away the
dead wood, retained only the fertile area of the board. The radical reduction
in size of the backboard has aided spectator visibility, back of the basket,
more than fifty percent.

From the smell low-ceilinged gymnasiums to the usabtve Mitt honees
of todey; form the audiences of a few hundreds to crowds of from 12,000 to
20,000; from nine, then seven to five players on a side unfolds the unprecendented
growth of the fifty-year-old indoor game of basketballe

Everyone knows thet the distinguished Dr. James Naismith, former Pra-

fessor of Physical Education at the University of Kansas, while a student at