"THE INTERNATIONAL GROWTH OF BASKETBALL"

by

Dr. Forrest C. Allen
Head Basketball Coach
University of Kansas

At present, it is estimated by authorities that there are
eighteen million people playing this indoor game.

India, France, Italy, Japan, the Philippine Islands, China,
Persia, Czechoslovakia, Turkey, Greece, Mexico, Canada, Poland, Rus-
sia, and Germany, as well as the South American countries, have been
playing basketball for several years and today are turning out credi-
table teams.

Some of these countries had their introduction to the game
of basketball almost simultaneous with the inventor's first draft.
The first printed copy of the basketball rules appeared in "The Tri-
angle", the International Y.M.C.A. school paper, Springfield, Massa-
chusetts, in 1892. At this time, Dr. James Naismith and Dr. Luther
H. Gulick were co-editors of the Triangle, and, because of lack of
available funds for printing, they deemed it both wise and expedient
to get the rules in printed form in this way.

Because of this and because of its origin at. Springfield,
basketball has spread uniformly to all nations of the globe. The
Y.M.C.A. secretaries who were sent out from the Springfield school
carried the knowledge of the game along with their other work into
"all the world" and taught its principles to all peoples.

Duncan Patton, a "Y" graduate, implanted the game in India,
in 1894. Emil Thies, another graduate of the Springfield Y.M.C.A.
school returned to his native country, France, in 1895, and establish-
ed the game there. In 1898, Dr. F. N, Seerley, at present Dean of
the Springfield, Massachusetts Y.M.C.A. Training School, secured a
leave of absence to spend the year in France. During Dr. Seerley's
stay in the land of the fleur-de-lis, he did much to extend the inter-
ests of basketball--already well established by Thies. Italy has
played the game for a number of years--perhaps taking up the game
through contact with its neighbor, France.

At the Inter-allied Games in the Pershing Stadium, outside
of Paris, in June, 1919, the United States, in a series of games for
the championship, defeated both France and Italy.

Ishakawa, another "Y" student, took the game to Japan, his
native land, in 1900. Ernest Quigley, the National League umpire and
major sports official, several months ago wrote me from Japan that
basketball had taken an unusual hold upon the Orientals. He stated
that great throngs of spectators attend all games.

Our United States soldiers established basketball in the
Philippine Islands during the same year that Ishakawa took it. to his
land of Japan.