LeRoy Pennysaver & News

LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - FEBRUARY 17, 2019 by Lynne Belluscio The Historical Society’s annual Dinner Auction will be held Saturday evening, March 23rd. There is a basketball theme, so you can wear your favorite team’s jersey. Since “March Madness” is copyright- ed by the NCAA, (as well as “Final Four” and “Elite Eight”) we cannot have a “March Mad- ness” party unless we want to apply for the license for a cou- ple of thousand dollars. In fact, trademark infringement litiga- tion brings in millions of dol- lars for the NCAA. The first Final Four was held in 1939. The champion- ship game was played between the Oregon Ducks and the Ohio Buckeyes. Oregon won 46 to 33. (Oregon would not make a Final Four again until 2017). In 1982, a CBS sportscaster used “March Madness” in reference to a collegiate tournament and because NCAA had sponsored the CBS tournament, they de- cided that they owned the rights to the term. But in reality, the NCAA wasn’t the first to use “March Madness” in reference to a basketball tournament. That honor goes to the Illinois High School Association in the 1940s. So “March Mad- ness” origins are traced to high school basketball. The history of basketball is well known. In 1891, James Naismith, a Canadian physi- cal education instructor, who was working at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, in- troduced a new game that could be played in a gymnasium in the winter. It was designed to keep athletes in condition. Na- ismith had peach baskets nailed to the walls at either end of the gym and the players tried to make a basket with a soccer ball. Naismith’s class had 18 students and he divided it into two 9-man teams. There were 13 rules. Number 5 read: “No shouldering, holding, striking, pushing, or tripping in any way of an opponent. The first in- fringement of this rule by any person shall count as a foul; the second shall disqualify him un- til the next basket is made or, if there was evident intent to injure the person, for the whole of the game. No substitution shall be allowed.” There was also no dribbling, dunking, three-pointers or shot clock. Goal tending was illegal. After a short time, the janitor, who had to get a ladder to remove the ball each time a basket was made, decided that it would be better to cut a hole in the bot- tom of the basket. It would be several years before the peach basket was replaced with an iron hoop and Spaulding made the first basketball. LeRoy High School started playing basketball fairly early – both boys and girls basketball. It would take a little research to find out exactly when teams were formed in LeRoy. At that time girls played half-court basketball with member teams. It was like watching two three- on-three games at each end of the court. The move to full court 5-member teams began in 1958. I know in Rochester, we were still paying half-court bas- ketball into the 1960s. In 1995, Oklahoma was the last state to allow women to play half court games with 6 member teams. The Historical Society has a small collection of school bas- ketball photographs. Some of the players are identified. If anyone is interested in doing a history of basketball in LeRoy, we have several files and a full run of early year books. Some of the stories are indexed in the LeRoy Gazette. Just give us a call and you can come in and put together a history. If anyone is interested in tickets for the dinner auction, they are $50 each. The dinner is catered by the D & R Depot Restaurant. The Kent fami- ly will be keeping the auction lively and moving along. One of the featured items to go up for auction is a ride in a hot air balloon by Liberty Balloon Company out of Groveland. The Madness on March 23