A Brief History of Basketball
Oddly, in that first official game of basketball, there were nine players on a side and the winning team won a close fought 1-0 battle with a 25-foot shot – on a court barely half the size of the modern day court! By 1897 teams of five had become standard. Around the same time, women's basketball was developed at nearby Smith College when Sandra Berenson, a physical education teacher at the college modified many of the rules for women to play. As it turned out,J.J. Watt Jersey Berenson was fascinated by the values of teamwork, fair play and vigorous exercise that basketball promoted and began organizing some of the first women's basketball games by 1893. By 1899 Berenson's rules for women's basketball were published and by the turn of the century, she was the editor of A.G. Spaulding's legendary Women's Basketball Guide which spread her version of basketball across the country to countless physical education instructors across the country. In fact, with the help of many YMCA instructors, basketball was promoted throughout the United States and Canada, paving the way for the game to be established as a varsity sport at many high schools. Sadly (and perhaps ironically), the YMCA began to discourage basketball by 1905, fearing that rowdy; belligerent crowds and rough play distracted from the organization's mission. But that didn't Cheap authentic nfl jerseys matter much as amateur clubs, colleges, high schools and even several short-lived professional basketball clubs and leagues not only filled in the void but also helped promote the game. Basketball was becoming so popular that the forebear to the NCAA, known as the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States and the Amateur Athletic Union fought for control of the game's rules and of its future.