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The Game Has Changed …

Here are some facts that you may not have known, about the game of basketball and how it was in the early days.

• Basketball was spelled as “basket ball,” that is, using two words, until well into the 1920s!

• Basketball uniform tops were made using wool!

• The wool textile was manufactured on looms set up to make a certain kind of knit known as “jersey” knit, a fabric that could breath and stretch; that’s why basketball tops are called “jerseys” today!

• Basketball jerseys were made with a button crotch (imagine a baby’s “onesie”) to keep them from becoming untucked as well as to hold a player’s athletic protector in place!

• Early laced basketballs had to be unlaced, bounce tested, and re-laced again and again until the air pressure inside the ball was considered just right!

• Early basketball baskets weren’t open at the bottom!

• Referees had to use a broomstick to poke the ball out after each made basket, or use a pull-string designed to tip over the basket so the ball could roll out!

• This meant there was no such thing as a “dunk” for fear that the ball might hit the bottom of the basket and carom out!

• The basketball hoop is 10 feet off of the floor because when Dr. James Naismith nailed his peach basket up at the Springfield YMCA in 1891, he nailed it to the running track that circles the gym, and the standard architectural height of YMCA running tracks was 10 feet off the gym floor!

• A jump ball at center court was required after each made basket!

• This meant there was no such thing as a “fast-break” or transition defense!

• It was legal for a player dribble, pick up his dribble, and then keep dribbling, as often as necessary, actions which today would be considered a double-dribble violation and result in a turnover!

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