written by Bernt Pölling-Vocke, Oldenburg, Germany
September 2003
E-Mail:
Bernty@gmx.com
(design
is sometimes not perfect (for example the use of pages for reference within
the article) as I copied the text (Word-file) and did not retype for the
webpage)
1.
Introduction
3
2. The history of basketball 4
3.
Senda Berenson: the women who brought the females on the court
7
4.
The original game as being played by males and females
9
5.
The differences of the female game
5.1
The physical restrictions of female players
10
5.2
Protecting the game
14
5.3
Teaching values by playing ball
15
6.
The history of female basketball in the US until today
18
7.
The history and outlook of professional female basketball in the
United States
21
8.
Sources
27
9.
Appendix
30
1.
Introduction
In
this paper, I want to analyse women basketball, its development, its role in
today’s American society and its significance in the world of professional
sports.
At
first, I will begin with a short summary of the history of basketball in
general, from its original rules to its importance today, both on a
recreational and a professional level, where basketball, especially the
men’s National Basketball Association (NBA), has become a global sport.
In
the following chapter, I will show how women basketball came along and
developed over the course of time. In the chapter concerning the women’s
game it will be possible to show that the way women approached the game in its
early days mirrored the way women were seen as a part of society in general,
thus requiring a different game than the game played by their male
counterparts. I will show in detail why the game played by women had to differ
in its early days and what the educational importance of a team game such as
basketball was in “correcting the female character”.
The
last chapter of this homework will deal with professional female basketball.
No other female professional sport has ever been a bigger success than
today’s Women National Basketball Association (WNBA). I want to show that
not only did women’s basketball struggle for a long time to finally come up
with a competitive league, but that this league is still struggling hard for
its survival in a male-sports dominated American society.
2.
The history of basketball
The
game of basketball as it is known and played around the world today has little
in common with the game Dr. James Naismith developed when basketball was first
created by him in 1891. Naismith, born in 1861 in Ramsay township, near
Almonte, Ontario, Canada, went to attend McGill University in Montreal, Quebec
and served as McGill´s Athletic Director before moving on to the YMCA
Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, in 1891[1].
There he served as the Athletic Director once again. Under orders from Dr.
Luther Gulick, the head of Physical Education at his school, Naismith was
given 14 days to create an indoor game that would provide an athletic
distraction for a rowdy class during the wintertime[2],
as no sport was able to fill the gap between football in the fall and soccer
and track in the spring[3].
His first intentions were to bring outdoor games, such as soccer and lacrosse,
indoors, but then remembered a simple child’s game he had played as a child,
and which was known as duck-on-a-rock. The game involved attempting to knock a
"duck" off the top of a large rock by tossing another rock at it. As
he wanted to create a game basked on skill instead of pure strength, he
developed thirteen rules around the game he remembered from his childhood, as
he was a strong believer in recreational sport, but shied away from the glory
of competitive athletics. When
the first basketball game was played, a soccer ball and two peach baskets were
used as equipment. In 1892, he published the first formal rules of the new
game[4].
At that time a variable number of players dribbled a soccer ball up and down a
court of unspecified dimensions. Whenever the ball landed in the peach baskets,
points were awarded. Iron hoops were used a year later, but it took a full
decade until open-ended nets put an end to the practice of manually retrieving
the ball from the basket each time a team scored[5].
Even though basketball became more and more popular, Naismith never became
famous or rich through his invention. The only real recognition he received
during his lifetime occurred in 1936, when the National Association of
Basketball Coaches invited him to witness basketball become an Olympic sport
at the 1936 Games held in Berlin. Today, the only basketball Hall of Fame,
located in Springfield, Massachusetts, bears his name and is called the
“Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame”[6]
Over
the course of time, the rules of basketball developed into those we know as
basketball today. Few of the changes to the game have come without protests
from those who believed the game to be just good as it is. An example of this
is the history of the three pointer, which was only introduced into college
basketball in 1980. It was used in the National Basketball Association’s
professional league on a trial basis a year earlier and had been part of the
American Basketball Association’s professional league before, which also
shows that the way basketball was played historically differed by the
institutions under whose control it was being played. Back then some of the
college coaches were reluctant to add the three pointer into their game, a
mindset that can be shown by a quote from Bob Zuffelato, coach of the
“Marhsall´s” in 1981:
“I'm
basically a conservative. I think college basketball is unique, the most
exciting brand of basketball there is. And I don't think it needs gimmicks
like the three-point goal, the 30-second clock or the 11-foot basket. The shot
is a low percentage one, which is just the opposite of what we teach and
preach.”[7]
All
in all, it is safe to say that since its first appearance as a winter-sport
under the control of James Naismith, basketball has become one of the
world’s most played sports. A study by the SGMA, the sport product
industry’s association, shows that more than 45 million Americans played
basketball in 1997, up from 35.7 million in 1987. This makes basketball the
most played team sport in the United States, ahead of volleyball which is
ranked 2nd with 29.1 million players. Only non-team sports, such as
bowling (53.3 million) and fishing (50.2 million), rank ahead of basketball.
Basketball is also a sport enjoyed by both sexes at an equal growth rate with
an 25% increase in female participation from 1987 to 1997 (11 to 13 million)
and an 27% increase in male players (24.7 to 31.4 million), with 7.9 million
men and 2.6 million women playing 52 times or more per year. It is also very
likely that female basketball, the main topic of this homework, will be able
to close the gap to male basketball even more in the near future, as 4 million
girls between the age of 6 and 11 play basketball, compared to 7 million boys,
indicating that the ratio between male and female players will decrease in the
long term[8].
Professional
basketball has also developed quiet impressive and professional leagues can be
found all over the globe. The first sign of basketball turning into a sport
with paid players was during the 1896-1897 season, when players of the Trenton
Basketball Team received money to play even though the amount of money
involved was rather low. The correct amount each player received after the
completition of each game is unknown but it is known that Fred Cooper,
Trenton’s premier player and team captain, received an extra dollar and was
the game’s highest paid player. It is also quiet noteworthy that it took
basketball only five years from its early beginnings to turn into a sport with
paying audiences and paid players.[9]
Today
basketball is, as mentioned above, a game being enjoyed actively by hundreds
of millions of players around the world. Basketball has also become one of the
most successful professional sports on earth, and basketball’s flagship, the
north American National Basketball Association, features 29 male teams and
generates an annual turnover that allows these teams to spend between 26 and
85 million dollar (with the 15th ranked team spending 52 million
dollar) per year on player salaries alone. Games of the league were
broadcasted in 175 countries by 1996[10].
The television rights of the NBA net 785 million dollar per year in the United
States alone[11],
an amount that rivals the television contracts of other main sport rights in
their countries, as, for example, the
Premier League (football) in Great Britain nets a total of 483 million euro
per year for its TV-rights[12].
By comparison, the US-based WNBA (Women National Basketball Association),
which will be portrayed in detail in the chapter dealing with professional
women basketball in the United States, hands out its TV contracts for free to
ESPN, an American cable sports-only channel. The WNBA takes place in the
NBA-off season (where other main sports, as the National Football League or
the National Hockey Association, are off as well, thus allowing enough free
airtime on the nations sports channels), then sells the commercials for its
televised games, shares those revenues with the TV stations, who get the
programming for free in the first place, and survives merely due to its close
ties to the men’s NBA[13].
But, as I will point out later, the WNBA clearly is the first major
professional women league of any kind that can be considered a success in the
United States.
Another
really good example, especially for German readers of this paper, of the
financial power of the NBA is that the German first division soccer club
Hamburger SV operates on a budget of approximately 25 million euro per season,
an amount that would be just enough to pay Shaquille O’Neal’s salary with
the Los Angeles Lakers in 2003/2004, which stands at 25.517.858 dollar. Even
though Mr. O’Neal gets paid more than the average NBA player, the average
salary still stands at 4.9 million dollar and is higher than that of top
earners in the German Bundesliga such as Oliver Kahn (4 million per season,
Bayern München, goalkeeper and honoured as “best in the world” in 2002)
or Amoroso (4.5 million, Borussia Dortmund, forward).[14]
The global appeal of the trademark “NBA” also becomes obvious by
recent plans to host a couple of regular-season games per year in China, where
the NBA has made great strides in popularity after former stars of Chinese
basketball were allowed to cross the Pacific Ocean in order to play in the NBA[15].
The most famous Chinese player, Yao Ming of the Houston Rockets, has also
recently signed an endorsement deal with Reebok that is reported to be worth
at least as much as a 7-year, 90 million dollar contract Nike signed with
LeBron James, the first overall draft pick in this years draft (where teams,
basically in reserve order of last years standings, can pick young players who
declared themselves available for the draft).[16]
3.
Senda Berenson: the women who brought the females on the court
The
history of women basketball began only a short while after Dr. James Naismith
created the original game and his original rules in 1891. The roots of women
basketball lead us back to Senda Berenson, born on March 19th in
Vilna, Lithuania. In 1892, she worked as Director of the Gymnasium and
Instructor of Physical Culture at Smith College. Trained at the Boston Normal
School of Gymnastics, Berenson was hired at Smith in January 1892, one month
after the game of basketball had been invented by James Naismith at the
International YMCA Training School in nearby Springfield, Mass. At Smith,
Berenson instituted an effective program of Swedish gymnastics for her female
students. In addition, she organized athletic contests in sports, such as
volleyball, fencing, field hockey and basketball, all intended to build
character in her female students. Her philosophy was to offer
“the most for the most”, which meant that she wanted to include women of
all skill levels in her program and did not believe in devoting an
extraordinary amount of time to a smaller group of higher skilled students. It
is easy to understand this belief by reading the following quote “If the
average college student needs it – how much more do the students below
average strength and health need it. If my interest has been keen for every
individual. Heart was with the weaker girls – perhaps because I had been one
myself. As soon as I had achieved a few assistants, we had special classes for
subnormal girls…”[17]
This philosophy resulted in a policy at Smith College to favour a strong
intracollege sports program over the rather normal interscholastic athletic
competition. Berenson extended her missionary-like work in popularising
Swedish gymnastics beyond Smith: first with students and faculty at
Northampton High School, and later with female patients at the Northampton
Lunatic Hospital.
Shortly
after she was hired at Smith, Berenson read about the still new sport of
basketball and went to visit Naismith to learn more about it. Fascinated by
the new sport and the values it could teach, she organized the first women’s
collegiate basketball game on March 21, 1893, when her Smith freshmen and
sophomores played against one another. She was heavily influenced by the
thinking of her time about women’s natural physical limitations and soon
adapted the rules Naismith had created to avoid the unwanted roughness of the
men’s game. Her rules were first published in 1899 and two years later
Berenson became the editor of A.G. Spalding’s first Women's Basketball
Guide, which further spread her version of basketball for women.
Spalding,
the company still producing the official basketballs used in the NBA, as well
as official sporting goods for many other US professional sports, was
approached by Dr. Naismith after he had invented basketball. Dr. Naismith
wanted a better suited ball for his game, where a soccerball had been used
before. Spalding and basketball became closely associated and even the
official rules of basketball at that time read “The ball made by A.G.
Spalding & Bros. shall be the official ball”[18].
As a result of this close tie, it was also A.G. Spalding who published Senda
Berenson’s rules and helped to establish women basketball as she had thought
of it. As an honour to her achievements, she was elected as one of the first
two women to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1985, long after her own death.[19]
4.
The original game as being played by males and females
As
I mentioned at the beginning of my paper, the original versions of basketball
have little in common with basketball today. Dr. James Naismith created 13
original rules[20]
as a guide to how his new game ought to be played. Without going too deep into
each individual rule, I will point out the main differences compared to the
game we know today and then highlight the changes Senda Berenson made to the
game in order to suit it for her female students.
Just
as today, the aim of the game was for each team to score as many goals (or
“baskets” today) as possible by delivering a ball into the opposing
team’s basket. A huge difference was that the player controlling the ball
was not allowed to run with it. He had to throw it from the spot where he
caught the ball (but was allowed to throw the ball to other running players,
who were required to make a visible effort to stay on the spot when they
received the pass). The defending players were allowed to snatch or bat the
ball from the ball-carrier’s hands, as long as they didn’t make a fist to
do so. Physical play, as it is known today, was prohibited and anything but
the ball was not to be touched or pushed in an aggressive manner. Errant
passes or balls going out of bounds in general were not handed over to the
opposing team as today. Instead, the first player to retrieve the ball was
allowed to put it back in play, a rather chaotic rule that consequently lead
to wild races whenever the ball went out of bounds.
Senda
Berenson studied these rules and made some major changes that changed the
whole character of the game[21].
She saw the chaotic running after loose balls and the unnecessary roughness
when players tried to bat the ball away from other players (as it is a noble
idea to only hit or snatch the ball in a heated match all the time, but also
only an illusion). First Senda Berenson did away with the unnecessary and
theoretically harmful running by dividing the playing field into three
divisions. Each player was tied to his own division and consequently moving on
much less space than in the men’s game. The reason for the reduction of the
physical stress was a belief that women were not suited for a physically
demanding game, an argument I will portray in the following topic “the
physical restrictions of female players”. Snatching or batting the ball as a
defending player was also disallowed, which reduced the defensive options in
the game. Instead ball-controlling players were not allowed to hold on to the
ball for more than three seconds and were allowed to dribble the ball three
times while moving at the same time (the stationary element of the
ball-carrier was thus thrown out of the game). The ball had to be dribbled in
a way that made it bounce up at least to the knee, allowing defending players
to steal it in mid-air. Senda Berenson wanted to avoid personal contact and
thought of it as insulting. By eliminating physical contact as much as
possible, she wanted to make the game more acceptable in a society where
female sports were still something new and many people had females doing
gymnastics on their mind when they thought about them exercising. I will go in
detail on this in the chapter “Protecting the game”. The main rule changes
thought of by Senda Berenson were also thought of as a way to teach important
values to the females participating in the sport. The emphasis on combination
play and team work by making it impossible for a single player to move all
over the court in a “star”-fashion was aimed at typical female weaknesses
Senda Berenson thought to exist. This will be portrayed in detail in the
chapter “Teaching values by playing ball”.
5.
The differences of the female game
5.1
The physical restrictions of female players
Basketball
and sports in general were seen as increasingly important educational measures
to turn students into healthy and socially functionable citizens. Leaders in
the field of physical education for women, such as Senda Berenson, wanted to
increase the popularity of female sports and were pleased to see that female
sports were meeting less and less opposition as time went on. In her article
“Senda
Berenson Asserts the Value of Adapted Women's Basketball, 1901”,
she comes to the conclusion that the younger generation of women is already
showing the good results that can be obtained from better physiques, greater
strength and more endurance. These results are also required in a world were
previously male-dominated fields of labour were opening their doors to women,
creating a more equal society.
But
when Senda Berenson talks about men and women becoming more and more equal,
she still believes that the games being played by men ought not to be taken
over by the women as they are. Due to this, she changed the rules of female
basketball as mentioned before and one of the reasons for those changes was
the belief that sports, as being done by men, were harmful to women, who, as
believed in those times, were physically weaker and not capable of playing
games as men did without risking their health.
An
effect of the division of the playing field into three divisions was that the
tax on each individual player was reduced by comparison to a game where all
players could move to all spots on the field (as in the men’s game). Senda
Berenson describes this in her article “Senda Berenson Asserts the Value of
Adapted Women's Basketball” as “the lines prevent the players from running
all over the gymnasium, thus doing away with unnecessary running, and also
giving the heart moments of rest”[22].
This quote shows that one of her motives for taking a big part of the running
out of the game was a concern about the heart of the players. Early in the
article she can also be quoted with the statement that “it
has been found that a number of girls who play without division lines have
developed hypertrophy of the heart”.
The
article “The Physiological Effects of Basket Ball” by Theodore Hough, a
doctor, published by Senda Berenson in her work “Basket Ball for Women as
adopted by the Conference of Physical Training, held in June 1899 in
Springfield, Mass”[23],
informs its readers about the risks associated with sports. Theodore Hough
bases his article on a (at that time) recent study which showed that sports
such as cycling are more asking to the body than activities as walking, even
though both activities might seem to result in an comparable amount of fatigue.
He states that “the amount of carbon-dioxide given off and of oxygen
consumed by the body is vastly greater during bicycle riding that it is during
walking, and that is its also much greater than we should suspect from our
feelings of fatigue”. The reason for this is that cycling involves a larger
number of muscles and creates less wear on the joints. As fatigue cannot be
seen as a reliable source of the amount of muscular work being done, it is
thus possible for an individual to overwork its heart and blood vessels, which
have to work harder in an exercise as cycling than one would suspect. Based on
this observation from cycling and walking, he concludes that basketball
involves the use of a large number of muscles again, and, as more work is done
than the player is conscious of, that there is a point where it becomes
physiologically unsafe to play basketball. As female sports were something new
and some observations led to the belief that women are weaker and less capable
of strenuous work than men, it is quiet logical that Theodore Hough has to
advise that “playing under proper restrictions is a good thing”. At this
point, he proposes changes to decrease the demand on the heart of a player,
such as a shorter duration of play and increased times of rest. He also points
out that the rule changes already implemented by Senda Berenson seem to lead
in the right direction and proves this by writing that he knows of two
colleges where basketball has been played by females for a number of years.
One of the colleges played by the Y.M.C.A. rules (based on the thirteen
original rules of Dr. James Naismith), another used the modified rules as
created by Senda Berenson. Consequent to his former statements, he shows that
a suspicious number of girls have developed heart problems at the school using
the Y.M.C.A. rules and, due to this “it seems to me that the division of the
field into three parts with the consequent limitation of the possible amount
of exertion gives an amply sufficient explanation of these results”.
Even
though it might sound as if he is mounting a lot of arguments against
basketball, he writes that a sport as basketball is also an important element
of a well-balanced physical education as previously dominant activities such
as gymnastics can not provide “a certain amount of what is called endurance”.
Basketball, restricted by the rules for the female game, is instead considered
“vigorous work” by him and a good mean to train the heart and the
respiratory apparatus to a degree of strength and endurance required by the
demands of the changing lifestyle of women at the turn of the century.
Additionally,
he points out that the increased breathing, which occurs when one plays
basketball (one has to keep in mind that he advises the rather stationary
female basketball once a week in a game based on two 10-minutes-halves), is
beneficial to the whole body, for example by aiding the flow of the nutrient
fluids (lymph) around the cells, which betters the nutrition of the whole body.
He states that “the man or woman who does nothing to indace vigorous
breathing is running a far greater hygienic risk when one drinks a glass of
water from the notoriously bad water supply of some of our American cities”.
All
in all, one can conclude that his article has to be considered
forward-thinking for his time. Even though the amount of physical work he
advises for female basketball players might seem almost non-existent from our
point of view today, one has to remember that females in the U.S. just started
sports at all at this time. Accidental observations might have led doctors and
physical trainers to a “better safe than sorry” approach when it came to
female sports. The right for equally hard exercise, as it exists today, did
not come along easily though.
Even
in 1976 the book “Sports in America” by James. A. Michener[24],
the author deals with this issue in the chapter “Women in Sports”[25],
where he opens up a chapter with the question “Are sports especially
dangerous to girls?”. Here he refers to a recent book titled “The Female
Athlete”[26]
and points out that young boys and girls mature about evenly to the age of
nine, when girls make a quantum jump, “becoming taller, heavier, better
coordinated and generally more competent”. But then the girl’s growth
terminates at the age of fifteen or sixteen, while the boy continues to
develop until the age of twenty to twenty-one. He quotes a summary from the
work of Drs. Carl Klafs and M. Joan Lyon which might tell about the general
attitude towards women or girls and the risks associated to sports.
“The
anatomical differences between the sexes favour the male. Although maturation
of the female is accelerated, the longer, slower growing period experienced by
the male results in a heavier, larger and more rugged structure that possesses
mechanical and structural advantages, particularly where the upper body is
concerned. The longer and heavier bones add to body weight and the longer
levers provide a much greater excursion of the moving ends (e.g., hands and
feet), resulting in a greater speed and force, a decided advantage in throwing,
striking and explosive types of events.”
Further
on, Drs. Carl Klafs and M. Joan Lyon turn towards the question whether
physiological differences between girls and boys bar the girls from athletic
competition.
“Contrary
to common opinion, the female is not as handicapped in physiological respects
as most people assume. Social and subcultural mores have a great deal more to
do with the regulation of the female to certain prescribed roles than any
particular physiological limitations; this has been particularly true in
Western societies.”
Without
moving further along with quotes, James A. Michener concludes that “the
women’s cardiovascular system does not limit her, nor her respiratory
capacity, nor her metabolism, nor childbirth”. These beliefs vary greatly to
those published more than 70 years earlier, but still reflect a common belief
that women have to be more protected. A typical proof for this can be seen
when one considers that women did not move to full court basketball and away
from the game with set divisions until 1971[27].
The
subject of women and heart trouble is still a topic today, but while women
were advised to “take it easy” (exercise-wise) at the turn of the century,
today’s approach is the same as to men and similar troubles. “Moderately
active women, who set aside at least 30 minutes three days a week for exercise,
could reduce the risk of heart disease by up to 40%” is just a typical
recommendation, as published in the Time Magazines cover story of August 11th,
2003[28],
a recommendation as they can equally be found for men and women today.
5.2
Protecting the game
Senda
Berenson was well aware that team sports, such as basketball, were something
new for females to enjoy and, as a new element in a previously male-dominated
sports-world, easy to falter under criticism. She states that “unless
we guard our athletics carefully in the beginning, many objectionable elements
will quickly come in”
and by this refers to the “gravest
objection”
to the game of basketball, which is the roughness it contains. She sees this
roughness as a “strong
influence for evil”
and, being well aware of many males questioning women doing sports in the
first place, wants to eliminate the roughness in order to save the game. Senda
Berenson believes that otherwise “the
great desire to win and the excitement of the game will make our women do
sadly unwomanly things”.
By
its less rougher character in general and Senda Berenson’s
softening influence in addition, basketball might have saved itself from
troubles other sports faced over the course of their evolution. A good example
for this is the sport of hockey, which is much rougher by nature. In its early
days hockey also did not have its Senda Berenson and was consequently played
rather equal by men and women. The book “Too
many men on the ice”[29]
deals with the history of female hockey and describes how hockey faced the
problems basketball avoided from its early beginnings. In the 1920s, women
hockey featured brave and manlike elements (at least from a male point of view)
as body checking, hooking, slashing, scrapes and lots of cuts and stitches. At
that time, many male spectators even encouraged this for the joy of watching
it. An increasingly large number of men disapproved of the roughness and
forbade their wives and girlfriends to play at all, and the rise of hockey was
put to a halt before the sport resurfaced about 30 years later. Another
problem hockey opened itself to, was the combination of male referees and them
not taking the game serious at all, thus leaving their whistles in their
pocket no matter whether a game turned into more of a brawl than a hockey game.
Alexander Gibb, a reporter of the Toronto Star, noted that the way women
hockey was being played would kill the game quicker than anything else.
History turned out that he was right and, by taking the growth of a better
governed sport such as basketball into account, basketball went right were
hockey went wrong. Even though one might disagree with the idea of a softer
women game from today’s
point of view the experience of hockey shows that one can not value Senda
Berenson’s
influence highly enough as she adapted basketball to the male-dominated
mindset of her time and saved it from the heavy criticism it would have faced
otherwise.
5.3
Teaching values by playing ball
In
addition to the positive physical effects a “demanding” game such as
basketball had on the female players, sports were also being done for
educational and corrective purposes. While “gymnastic work excels all other
work in corrective value, and is needed in the conditions of our modern school”[30],
“Basket ball is the game above all others that has proved of the greatest
value to them (women)”[31].
Other important team sports such as football and baseball were less likely to
succeed as Senda Berenson thought basketball would, plain simply because
football “will never be played by women” and “baseball is seldom entered
into with spirit” (which, at least as I think, is a sign for superior
intelligence of females in at least some aspects of life).
Senda
Berenson believes that two strong forces can control the make-up of a
competitive game. The first force lets the individual abandon itself to
instinct and impulse in the heat of a looser regulated game and with the
intense desire for victory on its mind. The result is rough and vicious play.
The second strong force could be the development of expert playing, quickness
of judgement and action, as well as physical and moral self-control, when the
elimination of brute and unfair play is insisted on.
She
states that much of the rough play, as it existed in men sports, stems from
the excitement and the desire to win at any cost. Brutal players are not
inborn vicious characters, but are ashamed of their conduct on the field in
their calmer moments. There is a danger that the rough and unfair play on the
field becomes a strong force in changing the better character of the athlete
though. As a result, the sport would have its own set of morals quiet contrary
to the standard of morals for normal conduct in life. She quotes that “All
is fair in love and war” and writes, probably with typical men sports such
as football on her mind, that “certain games mimic war; hence every action
is justifiable in games”. As a result of this, the greatest element of evil
in the spirit of athletics in her country is the idea “that one must win at
any cost – that defeat is an unspeakable disgrace”.
Senda
Berensen wants to base her athletic program for her female athletes on other
motives than the “win at any cost” mentality she heavily criticises and
which is dominant in male sports. She states that she is in no way against
hard and earnest playing, but believes that those elements which “encourage
the taking advantage of laws, cruelty, brutality and unfairness” have to be
left out of a game by strict regulation. Instead, she wants to see the love of
honor, courage and fair play on the field or in the gym. Failure, a result not
widely accepted in male sports, is “as necessary in life as success, if
those who fail profit by the experience”. For her, winning is something one
can congratulate oneself to if one wins “because of expert and clean work”.
Failure instead is something one can comfort oneself with, if one tried its
best and was beaten fairly. A good example to show the difference between her
approach to victory and defeat and the approach many men are taught, can be
seen when she writes about a good old minister she listened to while he was
preaching to a community of college men: “When we play a game of football,
what is our object? It is to win; nothing else counts; we go in to win!”
As
I pointed out earlier in the chapter “protecting the game”, she also
strongly believes that the new female sports had to save themselves from
objectionable features that exist in men sports and which men are trying to
eliminate from theirs in a society that, by now, thinks that “a certain
amount of roughness is deemed necessary to bring out manliness in our young
men”.
Senda
Berenson claims that basketball for women can be better than basketball for
men if it is governed in a controlled way, regarding any element of roughness
from its beginning. She also recognizes that women are becoming more and more
equal in society and “now that she is proving that her work in certain
fields of labor is equal to man’s work….she not only needs a strong
physique, but physical and moral courage as well”.
Teaching
moral courage and a character capable of its new role in society is what she
had on her mind when she brought basketball over to her educational program
(in addition to the physical benefits which I dealt with earlier in this paper).
She
also wants to correct the female character, as “certain elements of false
education for centuries have made woman self-conscious”. Even though Senda
Berenson writes that this is becoming “less so”, she still sees women
posing in individual sports such as tennis or golf. The advantage of a quick
and vigorous game like basketball is that it is impossible to pose with the
too continuous action.
If
one broadens her statement away from the education only to the fact that women
and men have had historically different roles with quiet different physical
requirements, (which might have been educated to them by society again) I
think one could even state that evolution has partly turned women into worse
athletes. I also don’t think that women have actively tried to catch up
until recently (lets say the last 100 years) and I found it quiet interesting
to read that while women’s best marathon times are for example 10 minutes
behind men’s, the gap seems to be closing. I read that records for women
have only been kept since 1964, but that the best times for men have only
improved by a yearly increment of 66 seconds, whereas the best times of women
have improved by a yearly amount of 2 minutes and 47 seconds.[32]
She
also writes that “one of woman’s weaknesses is her inability to leave the
personal element out of thought or action”. In order to correct this a game
such as basketball is best. Success in basketball can only be the result of
good team-play, as a team with brilliant individuals will never be able to
defeat a team of conscientious players who play for each other. As a result of
this positive character traits, such as fair play, impersonal interest,
earnestness of purpose and the ability to give one’s best not for one’s
own glorification, but for the good of the team will be developed. To further
enhance this positive effect, the division of the playing field is important
again. With all players forced to stay in their set division of the playing
field, all players are of rather equal importance to the team. As a player is
not allowed to move freely all over the court, combination plays are also
encouraged as there is no better way to move the ball up the court than by a
well organized and team-based passing game.
Another
argument for her female version of basketball was that “it is a well known
fact that women abandon themselves more readily to an impulse than men”. She
was scared that “the great desire to win and the excitement of the game will
make our women do sadly unwomanly things” and writes about contests where
women played with the Y.M.C.A. rules and the games were so rough and the
spirits towards the visiting teams so hostile that it was obvious that women
basketball had to be strictly governed by rules in order to tame the impulsive
character of women. As I quoted earlier, “a certain amount of roughness is
deemed necessary to bring out manliness in our young men”. While she does
not directly criticise this approach to male sports, she makes clear that
“surely rough play can have no possible excuse in our young women” and
indicates that even though men and women are becoming more and more equal in
society, the character traits they have to be taught, by means such as sports,
do not have to be identical. One could conclude that it is her main aim to
improve the physical condition of female students at her time to prepare them
for a more and more demanding and equal work-life, while at the same time
teaching values to turn the females into team-oriented, honest, hard working
ladies.
6.
The history of female basketball in the US until today
Female
basketball, as originally created by Senda Berenson and other athletic
directors of her time, changed very little concerning the way it was being
played for the fist 40 years of its existence[33].
Another greatly important development took place shortly after the turn of the
century though, when women stopped stepping onto the court as if they were
going for a walk in the neat and tidy park around the corner. Women’s
outerwear and underwear of basketball’s infancy was concealing and
constricting. Proper women wore floor-length dresses everywhere, including the
basketball court. Not surprisingly this lead to chaotic scenes when players
tripped over their dresses. At that time, Dr. Edward Morton Schaeffer wrote a
ringing diatribe against the corset, calling it a “figure and
health-wrecking contrivance”. In his article he urged active modern women to
“burst all confining fetters and curtail necessary impediments of costume”
and to adopt a divided skirt to ease movement when exercising.
But,
for the modern women of these times, the idea of playing a man’s game like a
man would have been outrageous, and they willingly accepted to play by the
“safer” rules progressive athletic directors as Senda Berensen had created
for them.
In
1895, and just three years after its birth, basketball had spread across the
United States. Of course, the game had to face its critics when “previously
well-bred young ladies could be seen running and falling, shrieking in
excitement and, worst of all, calling each other by nicknames” on the court.
A physical education teacher named Agnes Childs complained about these
disturbing tendencies in 1905 in a Spalding guide to women’s basketball.
“There is an irresistible temptation when a ball is rolling along the floor
for the players in the vicinity to go sliding after it; nothing makes a game
more rowdyish in appearance and causes more adverse criticism than this most
natural temptation to go after the ball by the quickest means”. As a result
of such observations, physical educators like Agnes Wayman proposed still more
rule restrictions than Senda Berenson had already created to make the game
more compatible with popular views of femininity. Her ideas included “neatly
combed hair, no gum chewing or slang, never calling each other by last names
and never lying or sitting down on the floor”. Even though Senda Berenson
did not follow these ideas, she recognized that if the game did not improve
its reputation for womanliness (an article in the Los Angeles Times for
example carried the headline “Sweet Things Have Scrap” at that time), the
game could not be allowed to flourish. She tried to arrange her games as
social affairs, serving refreshments or even having dinner afterwards, an
strategy known as the “Cookies and Milk-strategy”.
Over
the course of its further development, the fact that sporting women gained
acceptance often collided with the popular definitions of beauty. The dilemma
was that team members often were required to wear makeup, look beautiful and
play well.
Progress
took a long time and it was not until 1924 that women self-governed their
basketball competitions. Restrictive rules such as the division lines existed
until 1938, when the division of the field was limited to two sections, and
1971, when the division lines were removed altogether. Men’s basketball
turned Olympic two years before women moved to two sections in 1936, and
women’s basketball had to wait until 1976 for its introduction to the
Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada. Just three years later all equality
barriers finally seem to have broken away, when Ann Meyers, a very talented
basketball player from UCLA university, signed a one-year, 50.000$ contract
with the NBA’s Indiana Pacers, but fails to make the team. Ever since then
she is the only woman ever to try to earn a spot in the male’s NBA.
The
first woman who ever made a professional men’s team was Nancy Lieberman, who
became the first female to play in a men’s professional league in 1986 and
1987, when she played for the Springfield Fame. She followed that achievement
with another milestone when she joined the 1987-88 Washington Generals on a
world tour with the Harlem Globetrotters[34].
Even
though there are no females playing professional basketball alongside men at
the current time, it is easy to see that basketball has become a fully equal
sport over the course of the last century. It has grown from a sport played by
lady-like girls in corsets for educational and health purposes to a sport
girls and women can play just as well as boys and men, without any
restrictions by society. Female Basketball, as it currently exists in the
United States, has, from my point of view, outgrown almost all other sports
all over the world in its attractiveness for female athletes. Basketball, at
least in the United States, is
professionally organized on all levels with interscholaristic and
intercollegiate competitions and the Women’s National Basketball Association
(WNBA) as a goal to aim for at its top. I think that the existence of a
working professional league is crucial to the growth of a sport, especially in
a sports-dominated culture as in the US. The dream of playing on the big stage
exists and has to exist in order to really motivate young athletes to put as
much effort as they can into their sports; something men can do in basically
all sports and take for granted. Young male baseball, football, hockey or
basketball players always had their idols on the television set in the evening
and could imagine themselves hitting a home run in the World Series, receiving
a pass from Brett Favre in the Super Bowl, being Wayne Gretzky or Michael
Jordan. Until the existence of the WNBA, professional female leagues, as I
will point out in the last chapter of my homework, existed as well, but never
grew out of their infancy, often folding shortly after they got started. It is
easy to understand that a female player does not want to hit a nice shot like
Michael Jordan but like Lisa Leslie, who, unlike Michael Jordan playing in the
male’s NBA, has made it to an achievable stage. In order to illustrate the
motivating importance of a globally marketed league such as the WNBA, I will
finish this chapter with a short paragraph from an article dealing with Linda
Fröhlich, the only German playing in the WNBA, in the Spiegel.[35]
“Während
die Norddeutsche es in ihrer Heimat gewohnt war, vor ein paar hundert Fans in
einer miefigen Turnhalle zu spielen, kamen zur Heimpremiere der New York
Liberty, Anfang Juni gegen Washington, mehr als 15.000 Zuschauer. „Wenn ich
die Menschenmassen sehe, bekomme ich eine Gänsehaut“, gesteht Fröhlich.“
„Bevor
Linda Fröhlich ihren großen Auftritt hat, flackern Blitzlichter wie Sterne
über die Ränge des Madison Square Garden. Auf dem Videowürfel unter der
Decke erscheint die Freiheitsstatue, aus den Boxen hämmert Rockmusik, und
Cheerleader versetzten das Publikum in Ekstase. Der Hallensprecher verkündet
mit schriller Stimme „Let’s play ball!“. Das Team von New York Liberty
empfängt an diesem Nachmittag die Los Angeles Sparks. Als die Spielerinnen
der Heimmannschaft einzeln vorgestellt werden, hält es keinen der 14.021
Zuschauer auf dem Sitz. „Number
31…as Forward…from Germany…Linda Frolic!”
7.
The history and outlook of professional female basketball in the United States
In
1974, the national media in the US really recognized the increasing interest
in female basketball for the first time, when the women’s collegiate
basketball national championships gained television and radio coverage[36].
At
first the Women’s Professional Basketball Association was planned for 1975.
The league was disbanded prior to the first game though. Shortly thereafter a
professional league, the 8-team-Women’s Professional Basketball League (WBL),
came into existence, but folded after struggling financially three years later.
When the WBL began to experience financial problems, the rival Ladies
Professional Basketball Association was founded with five teams participating.
Sadly the league was poorly organized and played only five games, before
disbanding with three teams never playing a game.
Even
though the U.S. women’s basketball team captured its first Olympic gold
medal in Los Angeles in 1984, the momentum still was not great enough to
establish the first working professional league. The Women’s American
Basketball Association hoped to cash in on the Olympic success and was founded
by the former founder of the WBL. Once again most of the league’s teams fold
during the season. Chicago and Dallas survived and met for the league
championship, which was won by Dallas. A second season never started.
In
1991, the Liberty Basketball Association is launched, featuring gimmicks such
as shorter courts, lower rimes and skin-tight clothing of the players. Not
surprisingly, the league folds after one exhibition game between the Detroit
Dazzlers and the LBA All-Stars at the Palace of Auburn Hills near Detroit. On
a positive note, a crowd of 10.753 spectators showed up for the only game of
the LBA and the game was televised on ESPN.
In
1992, the Women’s World Basketball Association was launched in the Midwest
with six teams. It existed for three years. Even though there were plans to
launch the league with 6 additional teams in 1997 this never materialized.
Prior
to the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, the NBA Board of
Governors decided to give women basketball a chance. Just as the Women’s
American Basketball Association tried in 1984 the NBA wanted to cash in on the
interest created by the upcoming Olympic Games. Luckily the US national team
went on to win the gold medal and, as expected (and forced by extensive
coverage), interest in basketball got a boost. But not only the NBA tried to
cash in on the renewed interest with its WNBA. The American Basketball League,
the ABL, tried the same, but did not have the backing of the NBA, the
financially strongest basketball association in the world. There were
conceptual differences between the WNBA and the ABL though. The WNBA played
and still plays its season over the course of the summer and after the NBA
playoffs. It is easy to see that the NBA aims for increased year-round income
by filling the NBA off season with its new product. The ABL tried to go ahead
during the fall and the spring instead, just as the NBA, football and hockey.
Not surprisingly, the WNBA received more media coverage from day one and in
1998 the ABL looked back on a season with 4.333 fans per game on the average
while the WNBA sold 10.869 tickets per game[37].
In
a country where no female pro league survived for a prolonged period of time
before, it became clear that one of the two had to go, and in December 1998,
just two months into its third season, the ABL ran out of money. The league
had not been able to attract sponsorship or any kind of television deal. It
also did not help that the league’s headquarters believed until the end that
the ship could be turned around. While several teams tried to attract local
sponsors and media coverage, the headquarters disapproved of this, as they
wanted to base their fortunes on big time sponsorship rather than local
sponsorship in all markets. In the end, there were also rumours that the NBA
helped to ruin the ABL by influencing corporate sponsorship and national
television stations, but no lawsuit ever emerged[38].
But
the WNBA has not been an only successful story throughout its first seven
years. The WNBA has not been able to top its attendance record set in 1998,
when 10.869 tickets were sold per game. At the end of its fifth season in
2001, average attendance had dropped to 9.075 and things have not developed
positively since, with attendance standing at 8.826 in 2003.[39]
Especially
the established teams of the WNBA are struggling hard at the gate, while the
overall average is being kept up by teams in new markets. Over the course of
its existence, the WNBA has grown from 8 to 16 teams, but experienced a
setback prior to its 2003 season, when two franchises had to fold. All in all,
three of the remaining 14 teams were sold, and two of them even moved to other
cities, hardly signs of the league’s success[40].
Some
examples for the slightly disturbing attendance issue are the Los Angeles
Sparks, who have won the WNBA in 2001 and 2002. One should expect a rising
attendance as a consequence of the on-court results, but surprisingly
attendance fell 20% in 2003. The same can be seen in Houston, where the Comets
have won the first four WNBA championships and lost 19% of their fans compared
to 2002, despite finishing 2nd in the Western Conference behind the
Los Angeles Sparks. Another troubled market is Cleveland, where attendance
fell 21%, even though the team qualified for the playoffs. Huge drawing teams,
such as the Washington Mystics, could still report an average attendance of
14,042 in 2003, but had to admit that this number was 13% lower than the
season before. The Orlando Miracle, who called it quit in Orlando after 2002
with an average crowd of 7.115, tapped into a new market in Hartford for 2003.
And averaged 6.025 fans in a city not as eager for a new team as ownership had
counted on. One can summarize that only two out of fourteen teams saw their
attendance rise by double-digits (percentage wise), and a lot more lost in the
double-digits with few teams staying balanced. An example for a team with a
small change are the Phoenix Mercury, who, despite finishing dead-last in the
league, lost only 3% of their fans. On the other hand their number of
season-ticket holders had gone down from about 8.000 to 2.000 prior to 2003,
so there was not a lot to loose anymore. Aside from putting people in the
seats, the WNBA struggled to attract viewers on a national level as well.
Between 2000 and 2001, national TV ratings dropped from a 1.5 percent
market-share to 1.1 percent. Quiet contrary to this development, ratings on
local stations increased by 39% and regional stations had a 12% increase in
viewer ship[41].
A
very interesting fact about the WNBA concerns the make-up of a typical game
day crowd. WNBA fans are primarily women who, in general, tend to be new to
professional sports and have not supported traditional sports leagues such as
the NBA or NFL[42].
According to facts listed in 2002 by The Christian Science Monitor[43],
65% of all fans at a WNBA-game are female. An article by CBS News from
September 2003 lists the female percentage at 78%[44].
Even though both numbers are probably not absolutely correct, it is possible
to assume with relative security that WNBA arenas, more than arenas of any
other big market sport in the United States, are filled primarily by female
fans. Of course it does not seem surprising that mostly females turn out to
watch females play basketball. The surprising thing is that females are
turning out to watch professional sports. Anyone who has ever been to
professional sporting events, no matter whether in the United States, Canada,
or Germany, has probably noticed that most fans are male and that many of the
females are often “coming along”. I can’t base this on any source, but
common sense should indicate that this statement is, in general, true. Things
are different in the WNBA now and I can see a good marketing opportunity for
sponsors, who can find a very exclusive audience at WNBA games. This, at least
from my point of view, is the strongest asset of the WNBA, which, backed by
marketing campaigns with the NBA, has turned into a global brand over the
course of very little time.
With
interest dripping on a national level, attendance struggles and financial
problems the WNBA does not seem to be in a perfect shape at the end of its 7th
season in the summer of 2003. But will the WNBA survive?
This
question cannot be answered. I personally think that the league will survive,
even though the problems on hand in some markets might lead to some more
franchises being sold, moved or folded. A negative precedent is currently set
by the WUSA, the Women’s United States Soccer Association, which folded this
summer due to a lack of corporate sponsorship. In a letter to all soccer
associations in the US, the WUSA points out its importance as a goal to aim
for by younger players. It is said that every athlete needs to have a role
model to look up to, and I think that without professional sports, of which
many people are critical due to the insane amounts of money involved, sports
in general cannot flourish or grow[45].
This sentiment can also be read into a statement made by Stacey Dales-Schuman,
a player of the Washington Mystiques:
"I
think we’re all history makers. I think that we’re all leaving a legacy in
something that we do. Especially us women, especially in a time in which
women’s sports are evolving to a new level, period. There’s a lot of folks
who have come before us, and we all have the chance now to play on T.V. and to
do this, to do that. It’s just really too bad we didn’t get a chance 30
years ago, 20 years ago, even 10 years ago, to see some of the great female
basketball players. Your Annie Meyers, your Nancy Liebermans, your Val
Ackermans, your Cheryl Millers, some of the great talents in women’s
basketball that we didn’t get to see on a consistent rate playing. But
fortunately we’re at a time where we have evolved and we do have that luxury
now. So I think we’re all in some way tied into the history of developing
women’s basketball.” [46]
Just
as the World Cup is held in the United States and female soccer games are once
again, just as in 1999, filling the venues around the country pretty well,
professional female soccer is going down the drain. The WUSA never had the
financial backing the WNBA has, and soccer does not have the same appeal to
the American audience as basketball, but I don’t think he WNBA is on the
safe side. I also don’t believe that any professional women’s league will
ever make it if the WNBA fails in the long run. The task at hand is to
motivate an ever growing number of girls to pick up basketball by showing them
where basketball could take them. This might have already happened though, as,
according to the 1995-1996 US National Federation of State High School
Associations Survey, 445.969 girls played basketball, the most playing any
girl’s sport. This number also represents 45% of the total number of high
school basketball players[47].
Also,
a traditional sports crowd does not consist of a lot of women, but WNBA crowds
do. The financial potential in this ought not to be overlooked, as I think
that in theory women are quiet as interested in sports as men are. But not in
men’s sports. Professional sports for women are something new and something
women have to get used to. Even though the WNBA shrank by two teams after
massive expansion, I think that the idea to be present in many markets as fast
as possible is an important one. The WNBA needs to show its supporters that it
is not going to fold in the foreseeable future, that it there to stay and that
it will be the first female pro sport with a national footprint.
If
the WNBA manages to convince its sponsors and fans that it is not going the
way all other professional women’s basketball leagues or the WUSA just at
this time have gone before, it might turn profitable before it is too late. I
personally watched some WNBA games when Premiere still carried them two
seasons ago. Even though I am not a huge fan of basketball, the games were
rather entertaining and the crowds a positive surprise. Maybe the current
problems of the WNBA are not as bad as they are being portrayed in the media,
which, out of boredom, always seems to come up with negative news first.
Officially, the league is trying to find its fit in the American sports
landscape. Teams are moving, teams are being sold, franchises are folding.
Some cities fill their arenas, others, despite good teams on the floor, do
not. Overall, all the fuss immediately reminds me of professional hockey. I
can see that the NBA is probably not overwhelmingly pleased with the state of
the WNBA, its mediocre national TV-ratings and the slowly but ever-decreasing
attendance figures, but a lot of articles I read during the past days are
painting the picture darker than it seems to be. There always seem to be
numbers that indicate that it is all worthless in the first place. National TV
ratings going down 40%, attendance problems in that market and financial
hardship in this one seem to doom a whole league. The league needs to be
allowed to place itself in a truly competitive position first. With regional
and local TV-ratings increasing, this means that the product is attractive to
viewers in an area where it can be directly consumed as well. It’s just
unattractive if teams without ties to the viewers watch it. This consequently
points to more expansion, to expansion into big markets such as Chicago or
Dallas, where no teams are present but basketball has a lot of popularity. Of
course there is a danger that national carriers will stop showing the games
when the ratings become too low and that large sponsors will leave right after,
but with the NBA and its negotiating power behind it, the WNBA should have
both time and money. What the league needs is a positive atmosphere
surrounding it, an atmosphere that makes it attractive for sponsors. You
don’t want to advertise with something people associate with “going down
the drain” at first impulse. One of the few downright positive articles I
found outside the official website of the WNBA or the NBA was about this
year’s finals, where Detroit won it’s first WNBA title in a thrilling
series. I will finish this paper with a quotation from the article.
“And
that came to mind with the juxtaposition of the WNBA ending its season at the
same time the WUSA was ending operations. The women's professional soccer
league said Monday it did not have enough sponsorship support to go on to a
fourth season. The announcement was nightmarish in the timing, as the Women's
World Cup begins this weekend.
Then Tuesday, the WNBA had its biggest-ever crowd of 22,000-plus to watch
Detroit beat Los Angeles in the decisive Game 3 of the finals. The game was
exciting, well-played and went down to the wire. A new champion was crowned.
It was a perfect night for the young league.
Yes, it was just one night, but that's significant. There has been
enough raining on the WNBA's parade. Pessimism can shut up and sit down for at
least a little while after this great game.” [48]
8. Sources of this paper
3)
The Naismith Speech, Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame Homepage,
History Section,
05.01.1932, http://www.hoophall.com/history/naismith_origins_2.htm,
4)
Basketball: James Naismith (1861-1939), Mary Belis, Inventors (online page and
archive about famous
inventors)
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbasketball.htm,
5)
Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame, Homepage, copyright by Naismith
Memorial Basketball
Hall of Fame Inc.,
www.hoophall.com
6)
Long Live the Three, Steve Shut, Director of Public Affairs, College
Basketball Southern
Conference, 2000,
published in the history section of the Naismith Memorial Hall of
Fame’s homepage, http://www.hoophall.com/history/threepoint_shot_history.htm
7)
Basketball Growth Spurred by Family Play, Mike May, Press Release SGMA (the
association of the
sports product industry), 08.06.1998,
http://www.sgma.com/press/1998/press986663791-13545.html
8)
Paid to Play: The history of basketball's first professional contest in which
players were
paid to play,
Douglas Stark (former Librarian & Archivist at the Naismith Memorial
Basketball Hall of
Fame from 1997-2001) , Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
History Section, http://www.hoophall.com/history/trenton_feature.htm
9)
Who's in the NBA? Whitman Graduate Enjoying Life at Courtside, Dave Holden,
Whitman College
Sports Information Director, news release date: February 26, 1996,
http://www.whitman.edu/athletics/Flashback/1996-97/Spotlight/neil.html
10)
NBA finalizes TV deals: Goodbye NBC, Rudy Martzke, USA Today Money Section,
22.01.2002
http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2002-01-22-nba.htm
11)
BSkyB
obtains Premier League live rights 2004-2007, Premier League Press Release,
10.08.2003,
http://www.medialog.nl/archive/2003_08_10_medialog.html
12)
The Bloom is off the rose: League fails to climb out of
niche, Lisa Olson, New York
Daily
News Sports Section, 13.07.2003
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/story/100369p-90758c.html
13)
Tausche HSV gegen Shaquille O’Neal, Jürgen Blöhs, September 2003,
Sport1.de-
Basketballsektion,
http://www.sport1.de/coremedia/generator/www.sport1.de/Sportarten/Basketball/__Berichte/__
NBA/Hintergrund/bb_20nba_20geh_C3_A4lter_20fu_C3_9Fball_20bundesliga_20nba_20mel.html
14)
Yao popularity driving the proposal, Associated Press, published in the ESPN
Basketball
Section,
26.9.2003 http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=1623914
15)
Yao to join collection of Reebok forces, Darren Rovell, ESPN Basketball
Section,
25.09.2003
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=1623304
16)
Senda Berenson Papers: Series 6: Speeches, ca. 1892-1920, handwritten items
prepared
by
Betty Spears, published on the pages of the Five College Archives Digital
Access
Project,
http://clio.fivecolleges.edu/smith/berenson/6speeches/average/transc/01.htm
17)
History of Spalding: A.G. Spalding: Our Founder, published on the homepage of
the
Spalding
company, http://www.spalding.com/about/ag_Spalding.html
19)
Dr. James Naismith's 13 Original Rules of Basketball, created 1891 and
published 1892 in
the
Springfield College school newspaper, rules quoted from the homepage of the
National
Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA),
http://www.ncaa.org/champadmin/basketball/original_rules.html
20)
Senda Berenson Asserts the Value of Adapted Women's Basketball, 1901,
Significane of
Basketball
for Women (page 20-27), Senda
Berenson, New York, A.G Spalding,
published
on the homepage of the Barnard College, New York City,
http://www.barnard.columbia.edu/amstud/resources/women/berenson.htm
21)
The Physiological Effects of Basket Ball, Theodore Hough, Ph.D, published in
Senda
Berenson’s
“Basket Ball for Women as adopted by the Conference of Physical Training,
presented
online by the Five Colleges Archives Digital Access Project, page 21-31, June
1899,
http://clio.fivecolleges.edu/smith/berenson/5pubs/bball_women/index.shtml?page=21
22)
Women in Sports, chapter out of “Sports
in America”, James A. Michener, Ballatine
Books,
Canada, 1976
23)
History of Women’s basketball, Sally Jenkins, published on the homepage of
the WNBA
(Women’s
National Basketball Association),
http://www.wnba.com/about_us/jenkins_feature.html
24)
The No. 1 Killer of Women: Women & Heart Disease, Christine Gorman, Time
Magazine,
pages 45-51, quotation from page 50, 11.08.2003
25)
Too many men on the ice: Women’s Hockey in North America, Joanna Avery &
Julie
Stevens,
Polestar Book Publishers, January 2001
26)
The Significane of Basket Ball for Women, Senda Berenson, Basket Ball for
Women as
adopted
by the conference on physical training, held in June 1899, presented online by
the
Five
Colleges Archives Digital Access Project at Springfield, Mass,
http://clio.fivecolleges.edu/smith/berenson/5pubs/bball_women/index.shtml?page=1
27)
Women vs. men in Sports, Estronaut: A Forum for Women’s Health, GenneX
Healthcare
Technologies
Inc., 1999, http://www.womenshealth.org/a/women_men_sports.htm
28)
Hall of Famers: Nancy Lieberman, Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
(homepage,
archive of Hall of Famers), 2002,
http://www.hoophall.com/halloffamers/nancy_lieberman.htm
29)
Basketball: Gegengift für die Egomanen, Maik Grossekathöfer, Der Spiegel,
Sportsektion,
Seite
96, Ausgabe 30/2003
30)
History of Women’s Professional Basketball, Robert Bradley, APBR.org, The
Association
for Professional Basketball Research,
http://hometown.aol.com/bradleyrd/women.html
31)
Women’s league shoots to score during the NBA labor war, Douglas Robson, San
Francisco
Business Times, summer 1998,
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/1998/10/19/story5.html
32)
Former Team Official Recounts the A.B.L.'s Dizzying Descent, Lena Williams,
April 2nd
1999,
New York Times, provided online on a private page titled “Women’s
Basketball
World”,
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Gym/8414/special.html
33)
WNBA Attendance Data, provided and compiled yearly by
Womensbasketballonline.com,
http://www.womensbasketballonline.com/wnba/attendance/attendance03.PDF
34)
WNBA
prepares to begin after offseason of huge change, Mel Greenberg, Knight Ridder
newspaper,
Philadelphia, published on May 21, 2003 in the Seattle Times,
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/seattlestorm/134781135_wnba21.html
35)
WNBA regular season ends with attendance still an issue, W. Scott Bailey, San
Antonio
Business
Journal, 08.09.2003,
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/stories/2003/09/08/newscolumn1.html
36)
WNBA Is Facing Growing Pains, Kathy Orton, Washingtno Post, 04.09.2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36952-2001Sep3?language=printer
37)
Women's pro basketball wins fans all its own,
Justin
Brown, Special to The Christian
Science
Monitor, 19.07.2002,
http://www.csmonitor.com/atcsmonitor/specials/women/sports/sports071902.html
38)
Women's
Pro Sports: Not For Wimps, Tim Dahlberg, San Diego, CBS News Online,
18.06.2003,
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/18/national/main559287.shtml
39)
WUSA folding, letter to all Region I State Associations, Lynn Morgan (Women's
United
Soccer
Association (WUSA) president and chief executive officer), summer 2003,
www.soccermaine.c