Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, February 1, 1903, Page 24

OMAHA Y. OMAHA Y. O MORE remarkuable event is re- N corded in the history of athletics and sports than the rise of the game of basket ball from obscure inciplency to a place among the leading sports of the land. Only a few years ago this game was making its first timid advance into the range of vision of amateur athletes, Now thousands of these the country over are devoted to the sport, and during its own season it holds a4 supremacy as unquestioned as that of foot ball or base ball in their own times. The one big secret of the immediate suc- cess and popularity of this game is that it solved the great problem, a competitive sport for the odd season. For the fall there is always foot ball, for the spring base ball, and tennis and golf share up both seasons. But for midwinter there was vothing till basket ball came. For those chill months beginning with Thanksgiving day and ending in April there was no sport that contained sufficient of the ciements of skill and speed and agility and of the spirit of competition to make it a general success. Basket ball proved to be just this game. It was not to be expected that ath- letes who spent all spring and summer and fall in strenuous pastimes would be willing to relax into a winter torpor and hibernate, as it were, in their own languor till the opening of the outdoor season again. They demanded a vigorous, fast indoor game, and basket Dball furnished what they wished It is not to be denied that it was such men, those preficient in other stirring games, who created the demand for basket ball, nor can it be doubted that they were the ones who took it up first and paved its way to a lasting success. This game is just as strenuous In its way as the gridiron contest, and it is in- finitely faster from its nature and its loca- tion. The biggest and strongest of them can use every pound they have in following the flashlike sinuosities of the basket sport It is no game for human wisps, To be paradoxical, a frall man cannot play it, nor can a man play it and remain frail Neither tennis nor golf require any special degree of bodily development, though su periority iu either is hard to attain with- out such a physical backing. But basket ball does demand some ‘‘body"” for any high degree of proficiency, not so much as foot ball, perhaps, but more even than base ball. Yet the game is essentially one of skill more than strength. The elements of bodily contact or man-to-man strite are pot supposed to enter into it, nor do they to any appreciable extent. Despite that, a man's physical proportions exercise a very e x E: P e 52 e s sex 2 > N R e ko O i Game for Athletes Fern Ripley Vena Green WAKEFIELD HIGH SCHOOL BASKET BALL definite influence in the guwne. A center weighing 175 pounds in his gymnasium clothes and looking good for every pound of it will be looked at twice or maybe three times by an opponent before the la ter attempts any funny business or trip- ping, hacking or pushing with him. And by the me reasoning a man who looks little more than a wraith when you get him Mae Cook, Captain Maud McGinnis. Sadle Herrington Bessle Shellington. out of his wide-cut clothes will suffer just those indignities to a greater or less ex- tent. For those things do creep into the game, despite the rules agalnst them So it is easy to understand how a man who is devoted to the game of foot ball during. the fall can find what his physical nature demands in basket ball during the winter. Even though he may not come into OMAHA HIGH SCHOOL LINCOLN Y. M, C. A. Edna_Cook, Manager Julla Freeman TEAM. actual bodily strife with his opponents, he has them there always confronting him, anyway, and knows they are as good as he, and that he cannot win the game on a bluff based on his strength. It is also easy to understand why in photographs of two score championship basket ball teams that played throughout the country during the last season it is hard to find a single Hfll’utur es from Photographs aken by a Bee S taff Artist BASKET BALL TEAM. BASKET BALL TEAM. man who would not be eligible, physically at least, for a position on any team o\ gridiron heavyweights. Basket ball is peculiarly a game of suffer- ance, of ignoring and of overlooking. Rules provided to govern the play are rigid indeed and if strictly lived up to would come near making a tea party of any game. It is different from other sports in that there is no exact dividing line and also in that violations of rules are often almost impossible of detection and are still oftener difficult to decide upon. There is a certain chivalry and generosity brought out in this game, both on the part of players and officials, that permits of many little infractions of the exact spirit of the rules going unheeded. Oftentimes amusing situations develop from this pecu- liar relationship existing between the play- ers and the regulations. For example, a rule says that one player shall not lay hands on another. On one occasion, during an intercollegiate game which took place in the armory gymnasium of the University of Nebraska, clever capital was made of this fact by a humorist disguised as an athlete. There was a very flerce scrim- mage about one of the goals and when it was finally dissolved one player, famed in Nebraska athletic traditions as ‘‘Spook" Spooner, was found to be practically devoid of his jersey shirt. It had parted in the side seams and fallen down in front and behind like an apron Though he was bare to the waist, “Spook” ran back to his position as right forward and waited calmly for the whistle. Of course the attention of both spectators and players was entirely drawn from the ball to him, but he ap- peared perfectly oblivious of it all and of his state of undress as well. Finally the referee gasped for breath and said: “Mr. Spooner, your shirt was torn off in that last scrimmage.” “Why, that cannot be,” said Spooner, “for the rules say they cannot touch me or take hold of my clothes.” That a game which can demand and make good use of so much virile strength and athletic ability may still be adaptable to women and girls and boys might seem strange, yet the nature of the sport makes this possible. As in other games, not all teams nor all players need be cham- pions, and there are grades and classes of them. Basket ball is distinctly a ball- passing game You are not allowed to carry the ball; you are not allowed to hold it; you may only throw it. Now, any one can learn to do that with agility and (Continued on Fifth Page.)