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BASKETBALL GOLDEN JUBILEE ‘Qing

THOMAS J. DEEGAN

Press Relations FOR RELEASE;
271 MADISON AVENUE TUBSDAY AFTERNOON OCTOBER 14, 1941
NEW YORK, N. Y. WEDNESDAY MORNING OCTOBER 15, 1941

LExington 2-5048

The Golden Jubilee of Basketball, marking the fiftieth
anniversary of the sport since it was originated in 1891 at Springfield,
Massachusetts, by the late Dr. James Naismith, will be observed during
the next six months throughout the nation in one of the most far-reaching
and comprehensive sports celebrations ever conducted in the United States,

This announcement was made at a press luncheon in the Waldorf-
Astoria Hotel yesterday (today) by Roger L. Putnam, Mayor of Springfield,
and Chairman of the Naismith Memorial Committee, which has been organized
to coordinate the event. Three members of the 1891 team attended--William
Re Chase, Lyman W. Archibald and T. Duncan Patton.

The celebration will be inaugurated in Madison Square Garden
with a Golden Jubilee Tournament. This will open on Wednesday, November
19, 1941, and conclude on November 24, and will bring together four of
the outstanding amateur basketball teams in the country--20th Century
Fox of Hollywood, national AAU Champions; Phillips 66 of Bartlesville,
Oklahoma; Legionnaires of Roanoke, Southern and Middle Atlantic Champions;
and Ohrbach A. A., metropolitan champions,

Following this the Middle West, hotbed of the sport, will take
up the spirit of the occasion and will launch the celebration there with
the Chicago American All-Star game in the Chicago stadium on the night
of November 29. Thereafter, a network of thousands of college, high
school, prep school, AAU, Y.I1.C.A., church and institutional games across
the nation will be played as "Golden Ball" games, the net proceeds of
which will be turned over to the fund being raised for this Purposes

The nationwide observance will be geared to the ultimate purpose
of establishing a Basketball Hall of Fame in a Temple of Basketball to
be erected in Springfield, Mass., the birthplece of the sport. It also.

will include an historical museum and a model court,