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THE NEW YORK TIMES, ‘WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1941.

Sports of the Cimvs

Reg. U. &. Pat. Off.

By JOHN KIERAN

Manufactured in the U. S. A.

HERE has come to hand the press booklet is-
sued in connection with the celebration of the
Golden Jubilee of Basketball, and a nicé bit of
work the booklet is, with a fine picture of the
inventor:of basketball, the late Dr. James Nai-
smith, on the front cover. He was a fine man and
a fine-looking man and he certainly started some-
thing when he put a couple of peach baskets on

brackets fifty years ago and enticed some stu-

dents to try tossing a soccer ball into those
baskets.

Golf came to us from overseas. So did tennis,
polo, billiards, soccer and most of our other popu-
lar sports. Football traces back to the public
schools of England and it is even asserted that
our baseball is merely an outgrowth of the old
English game of rounders. Without going into
that debate, a fellow can move over to the basket-
ball court and take a firm stand. There’s no
doubt about basketball. It’s a native game, sprung
from the soil—or, anyway, a hard floor—in
Springfield, Mass. The official stamp can be put
upon basketball: “Manufactured in the U. S. A.”

The chairman of the executive committee for the
celebration of the Golden Jubilee of Basketball is
Mayor Roger L, Putnam of Springfield, Mass., a
Harvard alumnus, and it is to be hoped that he
has appointed some sergeants-at-arms to repress
the rooters for lacrosse who will be rushing
around to prove that lacrosse is a better game
than basketball and rooted deeper and longer in
native soil, having been manufactured by the
North American Indians before Columbus sailed
westward ho! for the New World.

In Round Numbers

But this is,no time to give the lacrosse rooters
the floor. Let them dig back in history or legend
and come up with their own jubilee year when
they please. But not now. Basketball has the
floor. There’s no doubt about the evidence in the
case. The date, place and very spot of its origin
can be pointed out. Its growth in fifty years has
been astonishing. It has not only covered this
country but has spread far in foreign fields. The
phrase “foreign fields” is used advisedly. They
play basketball outdoors in many foreign coun-
tries.

Often there are warm debates over what game
has the greatest number of players in this coun-
try. Since the government hasn’t taken any offi-
cial census in that direction and all other counts
are largely guesswork, the issue has not been set-
tled. Some say bowling has the greatest number
of active addicts. Others howl for handball. Some
claim it’s baseball. The hunting and fishing fel-
lows step in with statistics on the issuance of
hunting and fishing licenses to lodge something
of an official claim for their forces in the field,

This baffled bystander doesn’t know where
basketball rates on the list, but does know that
it is played all over the country by teams of all
sizes and shapes under a wide variety of con-
ditions.

Going Through the Hoop

What was started as a fill-in, something to
keep the boys warm through a cold New England
Winter, is now played from Portland, Me., to

Portland, Ore., and from Miami, Fla., to San
Diego, Calif., with considerable fury. Boys and

i f , vit

girls play basketball in grammar school gyms and
on neighborhood playgrounds. It’s a high school
game, a college game and an A. A. U. game.
Athletic clubs and industrial organizations have
teams in amateur competition. There are also
some professional teams about, though, to date,
the cash returns from that field haye not been
enough to cause a general rush of athletes in that
direction.

But that’s the situation at the end of the first
fifty years of basketball and the followers of the
sport think, with reason, that it’s something worth

celebrating. The celebrants are following the plan ~

laid down by Naismith Memorial Executive Com-
mittee at the Great General Headquarters, Spring-
field, Mass.

All the high schools and colleges that have
teams—and what high school or college hasn’t 7—
have been asked to make one of their scheduled
contests of this season a benefit game for the
Naismith Memorial fund that will go to erect a
Temple of Basketball at Springfield, Mass., on a
site donated by Springfield College, the institution
at which Dr. Naismith, as one of the instructors;
invented a new game with two old peach baskets
and a ball borrowed from another sport.

The College Spirit

The colleges are swinging in behind the pro-
gram in large numbers. The Army-Navy basket-
ball game of this indoor season will be for the
benefit of the Naismith Memorial fund and the
Golden Jubilee celebration. Columbia, Penn,
Fordham, C. C. N. Y. and Long Island University
have announced games for the fund. High schools
and athletic clubs are in on it.

The A. A. U. teams are contributing, too. For
all this observer knows, they may be the very
first to produce cash for the fund. This very eve-
ning four A. A. U. teams will swing into action at
Madison Square Garden for the benefit of the
Naismith Memorial project and one outfit is the
Twentieth Century-Fox team that won the Na-

tional A. A. U. championship at Denver last.

March. The Hollywood squad will play the
Roanoke American Legion team that won the
Southern A. A. U. championship last year. The
other teams that will take part in this program
are the Ohrbachs, who won the Metropolitan
A. A. U. championship last year, and the Phillips
66 outfit from Bartlesville, Okla., better known as
“the Oilers.” It’s a short series in which these
A. A. U. teams will indulge, a two-night tourna-
ment. The winners of this evening will meet next
Monday night on the same floor, and so will the
losers, however discouraged they may be.

The Shining Star

The shining star of the Phillips 66 team from
the oil fields of Oklahoma is Hank Luisetti, who
used to play for Stanford. This observer saw
Hank in his college days and was duly impressed.
Those who know more about the bouncing game
of basketball say that he’s the greatest player the
game has produced to date. They have the sta-
tistics to prove it. All that this observer can say
is that, when last seen in action, he looked the
part.

Anyway, it’s fine to find Hank Luisetti lending
a hand ih the celebration of the Golden Jubilee of
basketball and here’s hoping the whole program
goes over in a big way.

  
   
     
  
   

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