El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-11-27
THE BASKET BALL GIRLS
Have a Lively Contest At Chopin
Hall.

con test at Chopin Hall Saturday even
Jug, aud their guests bad a good time
| watching the game. The score stood
AZ to II in favor of the girls with blue
ribbons-the regular team, but that i;
not saying that the girls with yellow
ribbons-the scrub team" as they call
ed themselves-did not do some very
good playing.
The winning was not so very easy, as
the victors had to scramble for every
point scored. The regular team, the
blue ribbon girls, were Louise Wilcox,
Julia Wilcox, Laura Mundy, Lucia
Hewitt, Hattie Small and Halle Irwin.
girls, were Gertrude Higgins, Ethel
| Catlin. Eva Kneeland, Alice Maple.
Tina Lindauer aud Olivette Paul.
The hall was we'll filed despite the
fact that there were other attractions
for that evening. Most of the guests
we're unaware of exactly what kind of
performance a basket ball contest
would be. They went partly out of
curiosity, partly out of friendli-
ness to the girls and partly for the
dance after the game, but at the first
toes of the ball and consequent tangle
of girls, everyone was deeply inter
ested.
Basket ball seems to be sort OF
feminine Interpretation of foot ball,
except that the ball is always tossed,
never kicked, and the tactics of the
game are not quite so complicated. Il
can be willy game, though If the girls
choose to have it SO, captains can make
it quite complicated in its guards and
the young men said of it: sob, we
boys can't play that game---it's too
rough. We tried it once, but too many
of US fellows got smashed noses and
black eyes--we had to quit it,"
But the girls play is quite gently
make it question of quickness and
motions and good tossing and never of
force. There was q tumble or two but
they we're light ones and the girls
down. The girls seem to try to keep
the game modest and ladylike and to
curb boisterousness and loud voices.
When they fused with the umpire
even, it was more by pouts and switch
ipgs of skirts than by anything more
definite. AS one player said: "If we
are rough it is not Intentionally sou
Only elk girls played on a side Sat-
ur day though full team Is nine. The
ball is bouncing, slippery, soft, elu-
sive, evsding, egg-shaped affair, that
is tossed among the girls by an in
dividusl who is not in the game
otherwise; he simply sets the ball q
rolling. Each side endesvors to send
the ball towards its goal where it's
captain rats to toss it up into the
basket. Besides the girl who tosses,
and an opponent girl who endeavOrs to
keep the ball from reaching the
tOsser.
AS soon as the tosser gets the ball
the whole game waits and watches her
toss. The net basket is high above
her head and she has to aim truly or
the ball will roll tsntalizingly along
the metal edge and off again. If she
gets the ball in, she scores point for
hears a little gasp from her own
team and a chuckle from the other.
Each side has girls near the OPP
ponents' goal and these try to divert
the ball from the goal to their own
side. They do their best to catch it
on the fly and toss it to their own goal
watchers, or to bat 1t in it's flight and
send it away from the opponents goal.
Saturday night the umpire had about
to dodge the ball and the flying girls,
and the guests were not spared.
Toques und derbies would be knocked
remorselessly when at some exciting
moment the ball was given a wild
throw. The guests were however too
much interested to mind.
The sport is certainly one that Is
good exercise. The girls have to be
quick, and 1.-the, to think fast and see
fast, and to have some accuracy of
throw. They have furthermore to
give their entire attention to the game
which makes it healthful mentally.
One of the faults of our day, is that we
can do two or a dozen things at once.
The basket ball girls have to concen-
trate their minds on that ball and get
ting it to their goal, and the habit &C
quired is profitable.
The game was played quite silently.
Occasionally there would be a little
ripple of laughing as the girls would
tangle themselves all up into a bunch,
only to discover as they untangled
themselves that the ball had calmly
rolled out from their midst and was
waiting at another side of the room for
the game to proceed; or there would be
an "Oh dear mel from a girl who had
wards the other goal and had missed
it. Once there was prolonged ''Ou-
ee-se-ee-ee" from girl who saw the
ball roll past her into an empty corner
and realized that she wolld be alone
with that ball for a second or SO and
the opportunity was hers but in anoth-
err minute nine girls would come pei |
NELL into the neigh borhood. She ex-
pressed all this in terrified, ecstatic |
shrilling that amused everybody i'm
The girls looked very pretty and
graceful in their blouses aud short
skirts, their hair loosened by the ex-
ercise, their eyes bright with en-
deavor, and their cheeks flushed from |
quick breathing. Julia Wilcox man
aged to do some marvellous catching.
She would jump and reach and catch a
ball that was ten feet above her, as
some one in the audience said. The |
ball seemed to make for her slim fin
gers and she never lost it. She tossed