Sports Track

Birth of basketball

Any form of sport is always full of thrills and excitement. Where indoor games are concerned, basketball might definitely be within the three most popular indoor games of our country and the world.

This probably might be among the first few games that you mastered as kids, obviously due to its popularity. However, there is an interesting story behind this thrilling game.

You might be surprised to learn that the birth of basketball runs back in to the early 1890s. Furthermore, it was born in an attempt to find a good physical fitness routine to keep students in shape during the winter.

The person responsible for this was Dr. James Naismith, who happened to be a physical education student and instructor at YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA (popularly known as Springfield College nowadays). He was looking for a method to keep his students in shape during the winter. He had tried out many options, but almost all of them had been too vigorous or unsuitable for gymnasiums.

So, he gave up on the existing solutions and had an empty peach basket nailed to a position of the wall, ten feet above floor level. This was in 1891. He then came up with his own set of rules and made the students pop in a football into the basket.

The team which could get the most number of balls in to the basket won. However, interestingly these baskets had their bottoms intact.

So, when a ball was shot into the basket, someone had to manually get it out. Thereafter, a small modification was done to the basket by having a small circle part cut off from the bottom of it so that whenever a ball goes into the basket, a long stick could be used to pop it out.

The peach basket method was used until 1906. Understandably, this was too cumbersome, and soon a modification was done where they replaced the peach basket with a metal hoop so that the ball would just fall through it.

Naismith gave this new game of his, the name ‘basketball’ and the first official game was played in the YMCA gymnasium in 1892. A team in this match had nine players and the game was played on a court just half the size of a present-day basketball court.

This is what James Naismith had said about his new game, “The invention of basketball was not an accident. It was developed to meet a need.

Those boys simply would not play ‘Drop the Handkerchief”.

Height - a key point

Physical attributes like strength and endurance are important in almost any sport. Height also is a key plus point in many sports and undoubtedly the best requirement for a basketball player. As statistics show, most professional male players are taller than 6 ft 3 in and female players are above 5 ft 7 in.

According to a survey given to all teams of the National Basketball Association of USA, the average height of all NBA players is just under 6 ft 7 in. The tallest players ever in the NBA were Manute Bol and Gheorghe Muresan , who were both 7 ft 7 in tall. The tallest current NBA player is Yao Ming, who stands at 7 ft 6 in. Interestingly, the shortest player ever to play is Muggsy Bogues at 5 ft 3 in (1.60 m).

- Aravinda Dassanayake
 

National sports associations of Sri Lanka

A brief history of some of the National Sports Associations of Sri Lanka will be featured in sports track as and when space is available.

Athletic Association of Sri Lanka

The Athletic Association of Sri Lanka previously known as the Ceylon Athletic Association (Ceylon AAA) and Amateur Athletic Association of Sri Lanka is one of the oldest sports associations of the country. It was established in 1897.

The Athletic Association of Sri Lanka was formally affiliated to the International Amateur Athletic Federation (now known as International Association of Athletic Federations - IAAF) on January 18, 1922. According to the IAAF membership, Sri Lanka founded her own association even before some of the affluent countries like Russia (1928), Mexico (1933), Jamaica (1942), India (1946), Pakistan (1947) and Thailand (1948).

The Ceylon AA was the brainchild of C. R. Savage and Wilton Bartleet. With their enthusiastic European community and the predominant English clubs, they banded themselves into an Athletic Association which was affiliated to the English AAA in 1897

When the First World War broke out, the Ceylon AAA became defunct in 1912. The first ever national championships in athletic was held on September 24, 1921 at the Race Course under the leadership of Col. W. H. Joseph (Chairman) and Mr. Foenander (Secretary). This meet incidentally led to the revival of the Ceylon AAA.

Archery Association of Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has deep roots in archery - not as a sports, but as an effective weapon against various intruders during the times of ancient kings.

Kings, especially King Dutugemunu had trained from battalions named ‘Sivu Ranga Sena’ comprising ‘Ath’ (elephants), ‘Us’ (horses) pronounced as in us, ‘Riya’ (chariots) and ‘Pabala’ (infantry). The common weapon these battalions used was the bow and arrow according to historical literature.

This confirms that Sri Lanka had archery in their heritage in addition to the cultural and social bonds shared with aboriginal tribes living predominantly in the Mahiyangana District.

Having researched the past, former Director of the Sugathadasa Stadium Complex, Commander H. U. Silva convened a meeting of interested parties to the Sports Ministry Auditorium on March 29, 1996 to inaugurate the Sri Lanka Archery Association. Commander Silva (present Secretary National Olympic Council) was elected chairperson uncontested while Jayantha Dassanayake was elected the Association’s first Hony. Secretary.

The Archery Association of Sri Lanka, thus became the second youngest (48th) national sports association to be affiliated to the Ministry of Sports.

The Association, though teething, was successful in producing a competitor to equal the Olympic qualifying mark of 1200 points at the Asian Archery Championship held in November 2003.

At this meet, young Nimantha Fernando scored 1210 points and earned a place to represent Sri Lanka at the Athens Olympic Games - 2004. But on the ‘Olympic first 64’ system Nimantha was not considered.

Sri Lanka Badminton

Association

History reveals that Sri Lankans who migrated to Malaysia in the early 1940s introduced the game to their motherland, of course not the present form of the game with the use of shuttlecocks, but with a ball made out of cotton wool. Men like Justice A. Vaithyalingam, Dr. A. D. John, Dr. K. Dharmaratnam and P. Sivalingam are respected as fathers of local badminton.

It had taken five years since the introduction of badminton to play a game with shuttlecock and the YMCA Colombo and the University of Colombo go on record as the first to play the modernised game.

The first ever championships was organised by the YMCA for the Collins Shield for the clubs in 1946. Cosmopolitan Sports Club at Wellawatta organised the first ever Open Championship in 1947 and once again the YMCA is regarded as the organisers of the first ever Indoor Championship.

The National Badminton Association was formed in September 1950 under the presidency of N. M. de Silva. Basil de Silva and Arthur Chandrasena were duly selected as Secretary and Treasurer respectively at the inaugural meeting.

The Association got off the mark arranging the first ever national championship at the Fort, YMCA Courts in 1952.G. Sivalingam (Men’s Singles), Nanda Nagasinghe (Women’s Singles) and N. Rasalingam (Junior Champion) were the winners of this inaugural championship.

In 1953 Sri Lanka was absorbed into the International Badminton Federation and the local team got its first international exposure at the Thomas Cup in 1956. Six years later Sri Lanka became a founder member of the Asian Badminton Confederation and took part in the Inaugural Championship organised by the Asian Badminton Confederation.

- Leslie Fernando (Senior sports writer)