Basket Ball a Winter Game for Athletes
QPictures from Photographs
JTaken by a Bee Staff Artist.
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OMAHA Y. M. U. A. SECOND TEAM.
OMAHA HIGH SCHOOL. BASKET BALL TEAM.
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OMAHA Y. M. C. A FIRST TEAM.
LINCOLN T. M. C. A. BASKET BALL TEAM.
N
O MOKE remarkable event Is re
corded la the hUtorjr of athletic
and aporu than the rlae of the
game of basket ball from obscure
Inclplencjr to place among the
leading aporu of the land. Only a
low years ago this game was making Its
first timid advance Into the range of vision
of amateur athletes. Now thousands of
these the couutry over are devoted to the
sport, and during Us own season It holds
a. 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 tenuis and golf share up
both seasons. But for midwinter there was
nothing till basket ball came. For those
chill months beginning with Thanksgiving
day and ending In April there was no sport
that contained sutllolenl of the oiements
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 ball furnished what they wished.
It Is not to be denied that It was such
men, those proficient 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 Drst and paved
Its way to a lasting success.
This game Is JubI as strenuous In its
way as the gridiron contest, and It Is In
finitely faster from lta nature and Its loca
tion. The biggest and strongest of them
can use every pouud they have In following
the flashlike sinuosities of the basket sport.
It Is do game for human wisps. To be
paradoxical, a frail wan caunot 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 lu either Is hard to attain with
out such a physical backing. But basket
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Edaa Cook, llaoagr.
Mu Cook. CpUla. Bailia Horrinstoa.
Maud McOluola. Bixli 8taUln(toa.
Julia Freeman.
WAKEFIELD HIGH SCHOOL 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
amuBing 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 fierce 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 bold 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
ball does demand some "body" for any high definite Influence in ha tuiu. A cntr out nf hia wl.1fl.rnt Plnlha will Buffer tnat actual hrtilv atrlfa oiih hi. nnnnn.n. v..
degree Of proficiency, not SO much aa foot welehlna- 175 nounda in his rvmnaalum thoae lndia-nltiea to a rrnator or leaa ox. tiaa thorn thopo alwava .nnfrnntin. fci a11 teani nor all players need be cham-
ball. perhaps, but more even than base clothes and looking good for every pound tent. For those things do creep Into the anyway, and knows they are as good as he fin'' nd there ,re rale nl classes of
nalL Yet the game la essentially one of of It will be looked at twice or maybe game, despite the rules againsi them. and that he cannot win the game on a m" Ba8ke baI1 distinctly a ball
skill more thsa strength. The elements of three times by an opponent before the lat- So It Is easy to understand how man bluff based on his strength. It Is also p88ln 8ne. Tou are not allowed to
bodily contact or man-to-man atrite are ter attempts any funny business or trip- who Is devoted to the gsme of foot ball easy to understand why in photographs of Crry the b11: you T not He to
not supposed to enter into it, nor do they ping, hacking or pushing with him. And during, the fall can find what his physical two score championship basket ball teams nold ,t; ,ou m"7 only throw lt- Now, any
to any appreciable extent. Despite that, a by the same reasoning a man who looks nature demands In basket ball during the that played throughout the country during 01,9 n ,earn t0 do that w,th 8,Ittr ndj
man's physical proportions exercise a vrry little more than a wraith when you get him winter. Even though he may not come Into the last season It is hard to find a single (Continued on Fifth