I Grew Up With Basketball

by Basloe, Frank J.; Rohman, D. Gordon (COL); Antonucci, Michael A.

• ISBN13: 9780803240230
• ISBN10: 0803240236
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-03-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

Frank J. Basloe grew up in Herkimer, New York, where YMCA director Lambert Will developed the game of basketball. Basloe's classic memoir, I Grew Up with Basketball, offers an eyewitness account of the humble roots of the imposing enterprise that is professional basketball today. At age sixteen, Basloe began his career as a promoter and managed several teams that regularly toured New York, New England, and the Midwest, including the Oswego Indians and Basloe's Globe Trotters. Until the 1920s and the advent of the New York Original Celtics, New York Renaissance, and Harlem Globetrotters, Basloe's clubs reigned supreme among barnstormers. I Grew Up with Basketballis a fascinating and entertaining memoir of basketball's infancy and, for some, fuels the debate about the game's true origins by providing a counternarrative to the sanctioned history offered by the Hall of Fame. Though James Naismith's original concept is acknowledged, Basloe credits YMCA director Will for altering the game to be more exciting and fun to play as well as establishing early rules of play. This rare firsthand glimpse of the early days of basketball is complimented by Michael A. Antonucci's introduction, which tracks the gamefrom Basloe's Globe Trotters to LeBron Jamesand its trappings as a business vehicle.

Author Biography

Frank J. Basloe (1887-1966) was born in Hungary, and his family immigrated to the United States in the late nineteenth century. Michael A. Antonucci is a professor of English and American studies at Keene State College.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. v
Preface	p. xxv
They Started with Cabbages	p. 3
The World's First Basketball Game	p. 9
Mr. Will's Game	p. 16
… Into High-Toned Americans	p. 36
I Become the First "Globe-Trotter" at Sixteen	p. 46
An Unruly Bear Cub	p. 72
We Become "World Champions"	p. 84
Go West, Young Men	p. 101
The Cornstarch Quintet	p. 128
"How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm …"	p. 160
"… After They've Seen Paree"	p. 173
The Old Game and the New	p. 203
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