YMCA, U.S. Army Spread Development
It was the YMCA that had a major role in spreading basketball throughout the United States and Canada, and throughout the world. In 1893, Mel Rideout arranged the first European match in Paris, in Montmartre. At the same time, Bob Gailey went to Tientsin, China (1894), Duncan Patton to India, Genzabaro Ishikawa to Japan, and C. Hareek to Persia.
The First World War broke out in 1914, and the U.S. Army started fighting in Europe in 1917. During World War I, American Expeditionary Force brought basketball wherever they went. Together with the troops, there were hundreds of physical education teachers, who knew basketball quite well, and even James Naismith spent two years with YMCA in France, in that period. Not only did they bring basketball with them, but even the “modern” basketball, that is the game as it was played in the United States at that time.
Read more about this topic: History Of Basketball
Famous quotes containing the words army, spread and/or development:
“Roach, foulest of creatures,
who attacks with yellow teeth
and an army of cousins big as shoes ...”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Cap off
and then what? The brains as
helpless as oysters in a pint container,
the nerves like phone wires.
God, take care, take infinite care
with the tumor lest it spread like grease.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“America is a country that seems forever to be toddler or teenager, at those two stages of human development characterized by conflict between autonomy and security.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)