December, 1940 5

1940 Annual Meeting

A total of 147 delegates, representing 27 States, the District of Colun-
bia and Canada, were in attendance at the annual convention of the National Asso-
ciation of Basketball Coaches, in Kansas City, Mo., last March 29 and 30, Midwes-
tern States, headed by the group of 23 coaches from Illinois, were best represented,
The exception was New York, which presented 16 delegates,

The State representation was as follows: Tllinois 23, New York 16, Mis-
souri 16; Kansas 13; Ohio 11; Nebraska 10, Iowa 6; Pennsylvania 6; Texas 6: India-
na 5; Michigan 4; Wisconsin 4; Oklahoma 4; South Dakota 3; California 2: Colorado
2; Kentucky 2; Louisiana 2; Massachusetts 2; and Arizona, Connecticut, Minnesota,
New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, each one,

The 1941 convention will be held in New York City, it was voted,

The 1940 convention opened according to schedule, President Grover pre-
sented his report, as did Treasurer Hickox, followed by a report by the heads of
the various committees, The organization extended a vote of thanks to Frank and
Chuck Cramer for six articles in publications, this fine publicity work having
brought about an increase in membership, More than 1000 coaches were appealed to
in this unusually successful drive for members,

Nat Holman, newly elected president, gave an excellent talk upon the man-
to-man defense, The veteran coach explained 25 years ago, the only faith players
had was in the man-to-man defense, but, since then, a lot of new defenses have
arisen, The foundation of a good defensive technique, Holman said, is for a man,
in playing man-to-man, to switch sometimes single, and sometimes double, Nat top-
ped off his lecture with the exhibition of the final game played at the Madison
Square Garden, between Colorado and Duquesne.

George Edwards, in making a report on "research", stated that some coach-
es would like to see an increase in the number of personal fouls permitted, before
a player is forced to leave a game, The chairman pointed out that he knew of no
game where more than four personals were permitted, Other items brought up were
arcs of 14-16 foot radius, drawn on the floors, elimination of backboards, shoes,
floor materials and surfaces, lighting, court dimensions, etc, The fan-shaped
backboards also were discussed, as were 20-inch basketball rims, a smaller basket-
ball, and like suggestions,

A detailed report, showing the results of a study of 60 regional tourna-
ment games, was presented by H. V. Porter, These figures took into account one-hail
tries, personal fouls called; disqualifications, out-of-bound balls, jump balls,
fumbles, etc,

Dr, F, C. Allen lectured upon the zone defense, He said this should be
built up from the individual defense to the team defense, as a whole, He was of
the opinion that the zone defense is superior, when one is out-numbered, otherwise
the man-to-man is better, He followed with a most instructive explanation how he
employs his system,

Following the submission of the Nomination Committee's report, Everett
Morris, of the New York Herald-Tribune gave an interesting report on basketball, as
seen by a sports writer, The meeting held the delegates! interest to the very end,
as the entire body took up various topics that pertained to the betterment and the
future of the game,