The Woman's Book of Sports

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: VI BASKETBALL FOR YOUNG WOMEN The value of basketball as a training for young women was truly summed up by Miss Senda Berenson, the director of physical training at Smith CoEege, when she declared: Now that the woman's sphere of usefulness is constantly widening, and all fields of labor and all professions...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: VI BASKETBALL FOR YOUNG WOMEN The value of basketball as a training for young women was truly summed up by Miss Senda Berenson, the director of physical training at Smith CoEege, when she declared: Now that the woman's sphere of usefulness is constantly widening, and all fields of labor and all professions are opening their doors to her, she needs more than ever the physical strength to meet these ever-increasing demands; and not only does she need a strong physique, but physical and moral courage as well. Games are invaluable for women in that they bring out, as nothing else, just these elements that women find necessary to-day in their enlarged field of activities, and basketball is the game above all others that has proved of the greatest value to them. It developa physical and moral courage, self-reliance and self-control, and the ability to meet success and defeat with dignity. With the exceptions of such partial team- play as required for doubles in lawn-tennis and foursomes in golf, basketball is practically the only team game that is open to women. The spirit that pervades all sports of this description, that of sinking one's individuality in the larger unit of the team and of sacrificing individual interests to team success, fosters in women the very spirit of mutual assistance, of sticking together, as we commonly call it, the lack of which is sometimes most noticeable in the sweeter sex. Experienced teachers of basketball find this the most difficult point for young women to master. They learn the individual plays quickly, and soon become proficient in handling the ball; but the idea of not trying for a difficult goal oneself, when a near-by teammate would have a better chance of scoring if the ball were passed to her, seems absolutely new to most yo...