Tag: sports

On a Winter Distraction

Jim understood all about being bored indoors during the winter. A native of Ontario, he’d received his education at McGill University in Montreal, where he graduated with a degree in physical fitness. He grew frustrated about being cooped up week after week during the long Canadian winters. After working at his alma mater for a bit, James migrated south to Springfield, Massachusetts, and began a career teaching young men about staying physically fit at Springfield College. But, like the weather in his home of Canada, winters in Springfield meant that young people had to stay for weeks indoors, and, frankly, the options for indoor games were pretty limited.

So after Jim complained to his boss at the school about his students’ increasing frustration about being house-bound in the harsh winter weather, the head of the school gave Jim a challenge: He had two weeks to create a game that would interest the young men and meet the needs to keep them active in the winter months. Also, Jim’s boss added, this new game that Jim had been tasked with creating must give the school’s track team a decent work out. Jim left the meeting wishing that he’d not said anything at all.

Two weeks. Jim worried that he needed more time, but he sat down at his desk every night for the first few days of those weeks and did a short inventory of the sports that were popular during that time. He made a list of all the balls used in games. He analyzed the contact that each sport had. He listed the equipment required by each sport. After a few long nights of making these lists and thinking about them, here’s what Jim came up with.

First, he didn’t want much contact indoors on a wooden gym floor. Next, he realized that the softest ball was a soccer ball, and so he chose that to be the main equipment. He didn’t want any other specialized uniform or protection, so he wanted something that the boys could play in their normal gym attire. He also realized that sports that required the guarding of some goal often led to contact and, sometimes, altercations and violence. Those were to be avoided, Jim thought.

So, how would be have a goal for the ball and for the players to achieve that didn’t need to be defended in the usual sense? It finally hit him: He needed to elevate the goal. He asked his boss for two poles that he could make the goals high up off the floor, but the school didn’t have any of those. Maybe he could put the goals on the railings that were above the gym floor on either end.

Then, he turned to a janitor named Stubbins, a man who had worked at the school for many years, and asked him to find him a couple of boxes. The janitor shrugged and told Jim he couldn’t promise he’d find anything, but he agreed to look around the facility. About an hour later, the janitor came back into the gym. “Hey, Doc,” he said (Stubbins had a habit of calling everyone “Doc”), ” Didn’t get you no boxes. Sorry. Will these do?”

Jim saw that while no suitable boxes could be found, the janitor had managed to scrounge up a couple of bushel baskets. Jim smiled. “Yes!” he said, excitedly. “They’re even better than boxes. Thanks, Mr Stubbins.”

Well, you know the rest of this story. James Naismith secured those baskets to the end railings in the gym that day in 1891. And he named his new game Basket Ball.

But, if not for Mr. Stubbins, we might be cheering for our favorite teams in the National Boxball Association today.

On a Gross Indecency

It is the corruption of our youth, they said. The end of modern civilization, they said. That a girl–young girls–would deign to do something that would show ankles! Egad! What was the world coming to, pastors and politicians wondered. Women who did that were one step above prostitutes, it was believed. You see, 200 years ago, it was considered grossly indecent for a “proper” girl to let her ankles show in the Western World. Now, of course, lower class girls did that, be we all know what type of women they turn in to, don’t we? That is a gross indecency, that is. No, to do something that allowed a girl’s ankles to be seen by others–especially boys and men–was taboo in polite circles.

It all began, apparently, when European explorers saw so-called primitive tribesmen doing this with vines. They brought the practice back with them to Europe, and young boys in London, Paris, and other cities in Europe began doing it as well. But, rather quickly it seemed, girls took over the practice from boys. Boys went on to do other things like rugby, cricket, and soccer/football. No, girls made the exercise pretty much their own bailiwick.

It was girls who added the chants. Girls decided the rules. Girls owned the equipment. So, the practice became their property. In the United States, as families began moving into towns, the paved streets and eventually, the sidewalks, became the place where girls practiced this exercise. The flat surfaces were perfect for it. The equipment was affordable and minimal, and almost anyone could do it.

And that’s perhaps why the ministers and politicians fretted. The exercise knew no social or class distinctions. Again, it was an amazingly democratic thing that anyone could do–well, anyone with legs, perhaps. And that led to the outcry by the watchdogs of the culture. Anything that crossed social barriers and those of class and even race was seen as being radical. Perhaps all the handwringing over the viewing of girls’ ankles was only a means to an end–the end of control over the mixing of social, racial, and cultural boundaries.

It is said, therefore, that a new garment for girls was invented because of this practice. The garment in question is the pantalette, also known by some as pantaloons or sometimes even bloomers. This undergarment went from the waist down to just below the ankle. That seemed to shut up the naysayers. They had no leg to stand on, so to speak, any more. If the girls could do this exercise and still not reveal any of their ankles, well, that was the end of the discussion.

Today, the practice is still ongoing, and it is pretty much the same as it was back in the day. You can still find kids in cities and elementary schools doing this, although with the advent of video games and other indoor activities, perhaps the popularity has taken a hit. There are local and national and even an international competition. You’ve probably done it, yourself.

The exercise in question, the one that caused such uproar and created a new undergarment for girls?

Jumping rope.