IS STREAMLINED BASKETBALL
TOO FAST FOR ITS PLAYERS’ HEALTH?

illness has hit my squad, something that never happened before. Colds,
grippe, and general susceptibility to disease have afflicted my star players.

Notice the box-scores of various games and you will see that teams
are using a dozen or fifteen players. Before the new rules were set up,
you used the bench boys only against a weaker rival. Today you cannot
win unless you can go “all out” from the start to the finish. Coaches now
develop ten-man teams.

Note also the findings of Dr. Marcus Hobart, team physician at North-
western. His research, while not conclusive, shows that since the change
in rules the player's heart-beat after the game had increased to 108 from
a normal 60-to-90. In one instance it hit 144. “I’m not a heart specialist,”
said Dr. Hobart, “but even these sketchy experiments indicate that the
game is too fast for most boys. Basketball under present conditions is a
test of speed and stamina instead of a test of skill as it originally was meant
to be.”

Last year Dr. Forrest C. “Phog” Allen, Kansas University’s brilliant
coach, and chairman of the research committee of the National Basketball
Rules Committee, said at a conference of coaches that “since the elimination
of the center-jump, the game has become too fast for the younger, immature
players of junior-high-school and high-school age. Research by physicians
has revealed that the health of the youngsters has been impaired. They,
the boys, have found their growth stunted and their general physical organs
injured by the terrific speed now called for in basketball.” More recently
Dr. Allen asked for the restoration of the center-jump, or at least “a ten-
second respite before play is-resumed after baskets, out of deference to the

players’ hearts and kidneys.”

 

Let’s give basketball back to the players.

 

      

BASKETBALL IS GENERALLY not thought of as a contact sport like football. But try a few
minutes of it, and you will find yourself bumped and jarred all over. It’s a rough game.

 

3

BROKEN BONES AREN'T frequent in basketball, but they are not unusual. However, torn LUNGES SUCH AS THIS cost great effort and N.Y.U. AND MINNESOTA tied eight times.
ligaments and tendons are common. Note how this Minnesota guard’s leg is taped at the knee. may strain the player’s heart. Close games leave the players wilted.

   

     

BASKETBALL PLAYERS ARE just as familiar with the “ground” as football players. Spills and AFTER THEY’VE RUN themselves to a frazzle all year and perhaps ruined their health, we
pile-ups are common. By learning how to fall most players avoid striking their heads on floor. reward our basketball heroes magnanimously—we ask them to pose for a picture.