This is the first basketball team, posed on
the steps of the Springfield college gym-
nasium in 1892. In the center row, wear-
ing civilian clothes, is Dr. James Naismith,
the gent who started the whole thing.
Notice that this nine-man team carried
its own baskets. Also notice that seven of
the nine men wear lush adornments on
their stiff upper lips. What team today
could boast of such manliness?

which was similar to the goal as we
know it today—without the hole in
the bottom. Somehow it just didn’t
occur to anyone to make an open net,
permitting the ball to drop through.

In the very earliest days, no basket-
ball game was complete without an
adjunct to the team to perform ser-
vices similar to the water boy’s on the
football team and the bat boy’s on a
baseball team. He was the agile little
fellow who was stationed in the gal-
lery behind the backboard or on a
ladder beside the basket, all set to
retrieve the ball after it hit the mark
and fell into the goal.

When net baskets were introduced,

Here are Monsanto’s representatives in the Nitro Indus-
trial Basketball league; left to right, John McClain, Pilot
Plant supervisor; Wally Dinsmore, Research chemist;
Charley Marshall, Control lab; Joe Osborne, Engineer-
ing department; Jim Roark, Control lab; and Earl Coop-
er, Production department. Dave Frazier, A. L. Jordan,
Ralph Smith, and Homer Hudnall, all of the Production
department, were not able to be present when the pic-

ture was taken.

 

they, like their peachy predecessors,
had no outlet at the bottom. Instead,
a chain-gadget was attached which,
when pulled, released the ball from
the bulging trap. Not until 1905 did
goals with open nets come into popu-
lar use.

An attempt to find an invigorating
indoor game to relieve the monotony
of mid-winter school calisthenics re-
sulted in Naismith’s invention of bas-
ketball. He was interested in building
“the tall, agile, graceful and expert
athlete’’ and he believed that a sport
which combined the elements of speed
and coordination such as are required
in his new game would fulfill that aim.
He felt that he could produce a happy
medium between the ‘‘massive, mus-
cular man...and the cadaverous
greyhound.”’

Any number of men up to 50 could
play on each side in those early days,
the size of the team being limited only
by the size of the playing field. It was
not long, however, until it became
obvious that such an abundance of
players cluttered the court and pre-
vented any display of skill or of organ-
ized teamwork. The number was re-
duced to nine, then to five.

The first game was played with nine
men on a team, simply because there
were 18 in Naismith’s gym class at the
YMCA, and everybody wanted toplay.

Another oddity of the game in its
original form was its scheme for
setting the ball into motion. An ofh-
cial tossed the ball into the center of
the court from the sidelines and all
members of the two teams rushed for
it from their respective ends of the
field. This melee was quickly modi-
fied to the toss-up.

The first game, played in a gym
class, was a far cry from the accurate,
speedy contest as it was in the Olym-
pic games in Berlin in 1936, when Dr.
Naismith saw his game played for the
first time in international Olympic
competition. The National Associ-
ation of Basketball Coaches raised
funds to send the inventor to Europe
for that momentous occasion, and it
marked the first time that Naismith
made a penny out of basketball.

It is now an international sport,
played in more than 60 countries,
including Hawaii, where as many as
434 teams are organized on the Island
of Maui, population only 48,000. Al-
though it has not received the pro-

Monsanto has its basketball teams, too, and this John F. Queeny plant
team is made up of 12 good men and true. They are, first row, from left
to right, R. J. Gillon, Time office; Wally Stanton, Analytical lab; Ted
Fancher, Mechanical department; Will Allen, Operating department;
Don Sarter, chemist at Monsanto, Illinois; S. W. Hemmen, Operating
department; Bob Nellums, Analytical lab; and Ken Lindley, Operating
department; second row, Glen “Red” Robinson, Operating department;
Jack Vahle, Mechanical department; Will Reed, Analytical lab; Bruce

Merrifield, Analytical lab; and Will Werder, Accounting department.