Seventy-five years ago Monday, the 11th Olympiad of the modern era opened. They were referred to as the 'Nazi' games, and are largely remembered for the 11 records shattered by US track star Jesse Owens, he being a non-Aryan black man!!

But another game made it's Olympic debut that year, and its not quite 75-year-old inventor sat in the stands watching. The game had been invented in Massachusetts 45 years earlier.

What is the game? Maybe you don't need clues for this? Is it too easy? I'll be back!!

Nancy.

Annette

Annette - Tom Selleck? A pleasant thought, but I don't think so. The inventor, sitting in the stands, was a Canadian by birth (born just up the road from here, actually), educated at Montreal's McGill University, though he was already an American citizen at this point - no dual citizenship in those days. The gold medal game was a show down between Canada and the US!!

Does this help?? I think Lorna has it already!!

Nancy.

Hmmm...was it a North American game? American Indian?? I have a thought...both I and my son played it when we were young.

I will check back later-ooh, if I am right, there could be a clue in that statement. Let me know if I am going in the totally wrong direction.

Cynthia

Annette

Nancy.

Annette

Nancy.

DH has a guess because he knows what was invented in Massachusetts just before the turn of the century. Dang, he never ceases to amaze me...so much info bouncing around in there...TM quit reading now...why can he remember stuff like that and not something I mentioned two days earlier...me thinks he hears "blah, blah, blah." ;)

Annette

Nancy.

Annette

Nancy.

Our dinner guests stayed later than I expected, so glad you haven't ended this yet! Happy Monday (?) all.

Cynthia

A soccer ball was used to shoot baskets. The first balls made specifically for basketball were brown, and it was only in the late 1950s that Tony Hinkle, searching for a ball that would be more visible to players and spectators alike, introduced the orange ball that is now in common use. Dribbling was not part of the original game except for the "bounce pass" to teammates. Passing the ball was the primary means of ball movement. Dribbling was eventually introduced but limited by the asymmetric shape of early balls. Dribbling only became a major part of the game around the 1950s, as manufacturing improved the ball shape.

The peach baskets were used until 1906 when they were finally replaced by metal hoops with backboards. A further change was soon made, so the ball merely passed through. Whenever a person got the ball in the basket, his team would gain a point. Whichever team got the most points won the game. The baskets were originally nailed to the mezzanine balcony of the playing court, but this proved impractical when spectators on the balcony began to interfere with shots. The backboard was introduced to prevent this interference; it had the additional effect of allowing rebound shots. Naismith's handwritten diaries, discovered by his granddaughter in early 2006, indicate that he was nervous about the new game he had invented, which incorporated rules from a children's game called "Duck on a Rock", as many had failed before it. Naismith called the new game "Basket Ball". The first official game was played in a YMCA gymnasium on January 20, 1892 with nine players. The game ended at 1-0; the shot was made from 25 feet (7.6 m), on a court just half the size of a present-day Streetball or National Basketball Association (NBA) court. By 1897-1898 teams of five became standard.

This trivia question is a long way from where I started this week - not even close to the original question, but: There was an article in the Saturday Observer section of the Ottawa citizen newspaper. Now, I don't usually read 3 1/2 pages of newsprint, but this story was interesting. It was not so much about the game, or its debut, as the young men playing it! You see, most of the Canadian team that was fielded was from Windsor, Ontario, and several of the players were Jewish. As were many of the athletes from the other countries competing. The US almost boycotted the games, after the American Jewish Congress argued that attending and participating would give tacit support to the racist policies of the Nazis. To appease the US, a German half-Jewish female fencer was declared an 'honorary' Aryan for the length of the games. It worked - the US didn't boycott the games. This athlete won a silver medal, losing the gold to another half-Jewish fencer!!
Now, as to Jesse Owens: He and another black athlete, Ralph Metcalfe, were added to the 4x100 metre relay, over 2 Jewish American runners(Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller). These machinations were made by the head coach of the American track team, Lawson Robertson, at the urgings of US Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage, apparently a Nazi sympathizer. In 1998, the USOC all but admitted this fact and awarded Glickman it first Douglas MacArthur award for life-time achievement. As Stoller was already dead, he received no such vindication.

Sorry, I can go on and on, but stories like this get me all excited - I do love a good history story!!

for Lorna, Jim, TM and Cyn's DH!!

Thanks for playing: I will try to control myself in the future!!!!

Nancy. - oh, yeah - the US won, 19-8.

Nancy.

Annette

TM