Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1902-06-06
BUILDING UP VIGOROUS WOMEN.
Value of Basketball in the Culture of
Body and Brain.

Body and Brain.
"What sport this is! My, but basket
ball must be funw That is the invarla-
BILE comment of the stranger who
watches game of basketball between
girls, for the first time. She can see
one at almost any college she happens
to visit, from Massachusetts to Cali
fornia, where there are enough girls to
make up team, for basketball Is en-
joying an unprecedent popularity.
The general effect is always the same;
an audience with enthusiasm for the
teams divided on class lines, carrying
flowers, and flags, and banners singing
energetic songs, and cheering lusty
cheers; in the midst of it the hurrying,
shifting kaleidoscope of players, fight
ing for victory and the honor Of the
class.
1t is fun. That is one reason why the
game leaped into favor so quickly all
over the country. But any one Of the
whirling, twisting, running, painting
players who loses her sense of self,
time and space in the concentrated de-
termination to p, ssess that great, swift,
elusive ball and send it home, can tell
the visitor that fun is not all. 1t
means steady, hard work for long pre-
liminary months, bours of practice in
the gymnasium or on the field, before
ones strength and breath will last
through the rapid halves of a match
game. 1t means that the players give
up candy and sweets while they are
training, and so to bed early, when
they long to sit Up late for jolly par
ty, and do a great many other things
that they dent wish to do, because
they are on the team, and win they
must, and win they can't unless every
unit is in condition to do her level
best. But even the losers in a well
fought game do not grudge the pre-
paratory work, and to a member of the
winning team. listening to the toasts
at the supper afterward, thrilling with
the thought that she has helped to
win the victory for her class, past sac
rifces dwindle to mere nothing.
When the athletic director Of col
lege thinks of the benefits of basket
ball. however, the dramatic recognition
of merit which the match game gives,
college girls mind, seems to her the
least of it's blessings. She thinks of
the physical improvement in the play
ers, the brighter eyes and quicker circu-
lation, the endurance they show, the
coordination of muscles that playing
has taught them. the agility and deft-
ness with which they manage their
physical machinery. If she is n good
director she sees the mental gain as
well. behind all these things. Control
of the physical means well-behaved,
.obedient nervous system, as respon-
sive to the will of its owner as she her.
self to the signal Of her captain. Quick
playing, too, means quick thinking, an
instructive dash to meet the ball, q
lightning calculation and balancing of
results as one leaps to catch it and
sends it flying to waiting ally. 1t
must not go wrong. A slip might cost
the game. Brain and hand must act
MS one. Not q second may the mind
halt between two opinions. Self con-
troll and a judgment so automatically
correct are worth the price of many
strenuous half hours, and once attained
they are not confined to the crises Of a
basketball game.
But there is still another benefit of
the game, kind of sugar-coated psy
Geological discipline, which critics of
woman, rightly or wrongly, say that
she needs most of all for her own hap
piness and best development. The
effect of the discipline is apparent,
when each player finds a comrade al
ways at the exact spot where she can
Ielp her. and the ball goes from one
lily to another with clocklike regular
.ty. Magnificent team work" Is the
name the spectators give it. But more
,han this, it indicates that the players
have learned how to be part of the
whole. They are working for the team,
not for themselves. They are willing
to take the position Of cog, to sacrifice
the brilliant play and individual dis
.inction to win the game.-Alice *. Fal-
lows, in Good Housekeeping.