KANSAS UNIVERSITY TAKES TIME OUT against Fordham in Madison Square Garden.

 

BECAUSE HIS LEGS ARE no longer young, the referee takes a terrific drubbing under the
new rules. To save himself he tries to run less, which impairs his impartiality and efficiency.
Referees would probably favor some changes in the rules.

NO ONE KNOWS BETTER than the team trainer how exhausted the boys are. Bu

 
   

t it’s his

job to do everything he possibly can to keep them going, priming them on such refresh-

ments as oranges and water. What they really need is a little breathing space.

MOST SPORTS HAVE their let-ups as part of the game itself so that the athlete can catch
his breath. Football, boxing, tennis, swimming, permit players to relax. This is not possible
in basketball under the stress of the present regulations.

  
 

The exhausted players slump to the
floor to regain their strength. Few players have the stamina called for under the present rules which keep the game in
motion continuously. The constant starting, stopping, sprinting, jumping and dodging that the game requires is having a
bad effect on many teams. Most coaches now develop ten- and fifteen-man teams in order to have fresh strength on tap.

  

 

ne

BECAUSE | GET EXCITED, as | am above, I am worn out
before the game ends. Most fans feel the same way. A
slower game would be better for everyone. The pace
of basketball now is too much to take.

By HOWARD “JAKE” CANN

N.Y.U. Basketball Coach

AS TOLD TO LEWIS B. FUNKE

Sc 1937, when streamlined rules were adopted to speed up the

game, basketball has become the whirling dervish of winter sports.
To stay in the game today, the players must continuously exert every ounce
of strength they have. They come off the floor wilted, completely exhausted,
their hearts pounding like trip hammers in high.

How many, I should like to ask, will pay for their exertions in later life?
How many should not even be in a game as fast as basketball? How many
have had an evening of real fun? Or have they submitted themselves to
what many persons are calling a “man-killing” game simply for the amuse-
ment of the crowds, as did the gladiators of Rome?

I have been in sports for more than two decades as a coach and
player. I have played basketball and football and was a member of the
1920 Olympic track team as a shot-putter, having won the intercollegiate
championship in that event that year. Asa player I led the N.Y.U. basket-
ball team to the national championship at Atlanta, Ga.

But these years, if they have taught me anything, have impressed me
with this—the last person considered in sports today is the player.

It certainly was the player who was forgotten when basketball’s new
rules were set up. To satisfy the general sports public’s demand for speed
and action, he was sacrificed. It was for the public and the public’s money
that they speeded up basketball. But this increased tempo is dangerous.

Under the old regulations, the game started off with a tap-off at center
and the ball was brought back to the center for a tap-off after every field
goal or successful free throw from the floor. Now the tap-off is used to
start the game and at the beginning of the second half. The rule on a
tap-off for the ball after two players have gotten hold of the ball and
refused to relinquish it, is the same as before.

Before, you could expect to have the ball brought back to center as
many as forty times. Each trip required ten or fifteen seconds. During
these shifts, players managed to relax. Now, however, it requires no more
than three or four seconds to get the ball back in play after points are
made, since once the ball is through the hoop the team scored against
automatically gets the ball. The game speeds on with hardly a halt .
and without mercy.

Playing a game of continuously shifting fortunes, basketball players are
called upon to be constantly on the alert, sprinting up and down the floor,
shooting off in diagonal stabs, backstepping, cutting, stretching forward,
back and sidewards, leaping high into the air to snag passes, pivoting,
lunging upward to reach the goals. Worst of all, it is a game of constant
stopping and starting. And any mechanic can tell you that it’s the
stopping and starting that saps the life of an engine.

Since the speed-up was launched I have noticed some of my boys come
off the court so exhausted they could not think after having played only
ten minutes. That rarely happened under the old rules. My players
complain of fatigue repeatedly. Nervous players seem to be the worse hit.

The fact is that I am now unable to keep my squads scrimmaging
regularly. In my day, and with teams I have coached, we could play
almost without end and get fat on it. Today’s intense speed forces me
to limit the number of practice scrimmages. And by a strange coincidence,