Respecting the Game by Knowing the History
Basketball was invented by Dr. James Naismith for his students at the YMCA Training School
in Springfield, Massachusetts in the winter of 1891.
A few miles up the road in up the Connecticut River was the home of Smith College
for girls in Northamption, Massachusetts. In 1892, the physical education teacher, Senda Berenson used this new
game in her classes with the primary pupose of providing physical fitness for her ladies.
Ms. Berenson changed some of Naismith's original rules to strive for teamwork and cooperation
among the ladies, rather then competition as the game was originally designed for. Specifically, Ms. Berenson made the
following changes for the ladies:
- the court was seperated into 3 zones,
- 9 players would be on the floor for each team at the same time,
- each zone would have 3 players in it at all times,
- no player could leave her zone for any reason,
- there was no "snatching" (what we now call stealing" of the ball allowed,
- players could only hold the ball for 3 seconds and dribble the ball 3 times before passing.
These rules changes reduced the ability for single players to become start and required the
effort of ALL, thus, the concept of "teamwork" in women's basketball was born.
On March 21, 1893, the first womens collegiate game was played at Smith College. The
freshman class played the sophomore class. The doors of the gym were locked and no men were allowed in the gym to watch
as it was not yet considered socially acceptable for women to play the game of basketball.
There was initially great concern across the country with women playing basketball.
The general consensus among society was that women were more 'selfish' and not as team oriented as men.
In this first game each basket was worth only 1 point and the class of 1896 (Freshman) would
go on to beat the class of 1895 (Sophomores) by a score of 5 to 4, and this served as the first official womens
college basketball game.
