Could Be the Start of Something Big
by Jack McCallum
Dear Mother and Father,
I am writing from St. Louis, where I have discovered something
called basket ball, a relatively new sport that was played here
this week in the Olympic Games for the first time, as a
demonstration sport. It seems fitting that this basket ball was
introduced at the first Olympics ever held within our national
borders as the game was apparently invented a few years ago by an
imaginative chap in Massachusetts named Naismith. I'm quite sure
that Americans can become adept at this sport, as evidenced here by
the spirited play of Hiram College of Ohio, which won the gold
medal in the collegiate division by beating Wheaton College of
Illinois, and then Latter Day Saints University of Salt Lake City.
The game has not yet taken hold all over the country--much less
outside the United States, which explains why there were no foreign
teams competing here--but I can foresee a day when college teams
engage in regular interstate competitions, provided, of course,
that travel does not exact too much time from academic
pursuits.
The basket ball competition offered a splendid respite from the
negative aspects of the goings-on in St. Louis these past few
weeks, which in my opinion demonstrate that an Olympics should
never again be held in conjunction with a World's Fair. Superior
athletic endeavors were...
-from the November 29, 1999 issue of Sports Illustrated
