Brian Owens, age 11, of Marion, S.C., for his question:
HOW DID BASKETBALL START?
Basketball is both exciting to watch and to play. It has great participation appeal: it's a favorite game in neighborhood parks and recreation centers as well as in elementary and high schools. In addition, basketball attracts tremendous crowds as huge stadiums are packed to watch professional and college games.
Basketball was born in Springfield, Mass., in 1891 at the International YMCA Training School, which is now Springfield College. Luther H. Gulick, head of the school's physical education department, asked physical education instructor James A. Naismith to create a team sport that could be played indoors during winter. And Naismith came up with basketball.
Naismith wanted the school's janitor to nail two boxes to the balcony at each end of the gymnasium. The janitor couldn't find boxes but came up with two half bushel baskets. Naismith accepted the baskets.
There were 18 men in Naismith's physical education class, so he divided them into two teams of nine players each. A soccer ball was used, and even though there was much running and shooting, only one basket was scored in that first game.
It didn't take long for word to spread about Naismith's new game, and it caught on with groups across the nation and in Canada.
One of the first changes affected the baskets. It was a lot of work for someone to bring in a ladder and remove the ball each time a player scored. Metal baskets very quickly replaced the half bushel baskets. Holes in the bottom would let the ball come out easily. By 1893 a net bag was attached to a metal hoop and an official would pull a cord attached to the net which popped out the ball. In 1913 hoops with bottomless cord baskets came into general use.
A backboard was introduced to the game in 1894 to prevent spectators in the balconies from interfering with shots. At first the backboard was hung directly over the end lines but they were moved two feet into the court in 1918 and two more feet, to their present position, in 1939.
Larger balls replaced the soccer balls in 1894. Early models were made of leather and had rubber linings. A laceless ball became official in 1937, and the molded ball used today became official in 1950.
High school basketball games today attract more spectators than do college or professional games. More than 20,000 high schools in the United States have teams for boys, and more than 11,000 schools have girls' teams. Every state except California and New York holds statewide high school championship tournaments.
More than 34 million people each year attend basketball games at more than 1,200 colleges and universities.