Playing Career
Stagg was born in West Orange, New Jersey and attended Phillips Exeter Academy. Playing at Yale University, where he was a divinity student, and a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity and the secret Skull and Bones society, he was an end on the first All-America team, selected in 1889.
A pitcher on his college baseball team, he declined an opportunity to play professional baseball but nonetheless influenced the game through his invention of the batting cage. He went on to earn an MPE from the Young Men's Christian Training School, now known as Springfield College. On March 11, 1892, Stagg, still an instructor at the YMCA School, played in the first public game of basketball at the Springfield YMCA. A crowd of 200 watched as the student team beat the faculty, 5–1. Stagg scored the only basket for the losing side.
Read more about this topic: Amos Alonzo Stagg
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