Naismith Week

One winter afternoon in 1891, a gymnasium instructor at Springfield Y. M. C. A. College, Springfield, Mass., named James A. Naismith divided his class of 18 into two sides, gave them an old soccer ball, had them toss it through two bottomless peach baskets hung on the wall. That was the beginning of what is now the most popular winter game in the U. S. Last year, Olympic officials discovered that basketball is played by 18,000,000 addicts almost the world around, therefore added it to the program at Berlin next summer.

Shrewd enough to invent the game, James A. Naismith was not shrewd enough to exploit it. After four more years at

Springfield, three years in Denver, Colo., he went to University of Kansas as athletic director. After going there, he in vented three more games: war-tug, hilo, vreille (popular only among Kansas co eds). In 1907 Dr. Naismith was replaced as Kansas basketball coach. Since then, his principal contact with the game has been sitting in the front row to watch Kan sas teams, which have won four Big Six Conference championships. Last autumn Dr. Forrest C. Allen, University of Kansas' basketball coach, who makes $4,000 to Dr. Naismith's $3,000, promoted the idea of sending grey-haired old Dr. Naismith to Berlin to see the Olympic games next sum mer. Last week colleges which approved the idea added i-c- to the price of every basketball ticket. For his Berlin trip Inven tor Naismith, it was estimated, got $1,000. In 1891, Dr. Naismith hoped he had dis covered a pastime which would supply Y. M. C. A. boys with healthy exercise without encouraging roughness or bad tem per. Main feature of its extraordinary growth has been the tendency of basket ball to grow more violent every year. The winter's noisiest basketball row broke last week. Undefeated in 20 games, New York University's team of one Swede, one Irishman and eight Jews lost to Georgetown, 36-10-34. Aftermath was a sizzling editorial in one of N. Y. U.'s four campus papers charging that the "health and safety of the players" was endangered by "Georgetown's insane . . . Jew-hating following," demanding that athletic relations be severed.

Later in the week, in its climactic game of the season, for which all seats in New York's Madison Square Garden were sold a week ahead of time with a $170 share for Dr. Naismith, N. Y. U. played Notre Dame. Score for Notre Dame: 38-10-27.

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