Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-01-29
MORGAN AYERS BASKETBALL
RULES ARE AIDING THE GAME
He States That Keinath Is Wrong in Saying
Code Is About to Kill the
Indoor Pastime
BY RALPH MORGAN

!
/ T HAVE read with n great Ceal of inter-
i est excerpts published in New York
newspapers from an article by Charles
Keinath to the effect that basketball rule
makers were killing the game by the
oretical changes. In fact. Charley has
said the same sort OF thing to me many
times.
kcinath, | really think, was the great
est player of the college game-and that
is quite statement when one consId-
ers all of the very great college play
ers of the last II years There are
Fisher. Hurley, Welitzer, Ryan, Kiendi,
of Columbia; Gil Kinney, Hack Noyes,
VIII Hyatt and of this day Dutch
Arnold, of Yale; Vanderbilt, of Prince
berg, of Harvard, the Halsteads, of Cor
nell. to say nothing of Captain Brown,
of this years Cornell team, a star of
the first water: Schommcr and Pat Page.
of Chicago, and last, but not least, of
our own great players. Artie Kiefaber,
George Flint. Lew Walton, MattN PcarCC,
Harry and Eddie McNichOl. OF all of
these great players that he has seen
repeatedly in action, the writer would
rank Eenatn as the best. keinath
played with his head" all of the time.
When Pennsylvania had the ball Keinath
either had it himself or was in Il posi-
ton to get it and score, or relay it
to some one else in position to score.
When the other team had the ball. Kc
nuth Immediately became a guard. He
was the best defensive player have ever
seen. Up and down the court in every
game Kenath was always in close to
i'm 81 pf,
of the ball is the game, Keinath taught
the intercollegiate League many things
he taught MS the value of the foul
point by developing foul-throwng to its
high point of efficiency. He taught the
league the efficiency of the dribble lie
developed the dribble to such an extent
that it pretty nearly wrecked the game.
The Old League
The old intercollegiate League disbanded
after the season of l907-s. Harvard
dropped the game because 1t was too
rough. President Eliot had been a bitter
foe for several years. a foe of football,
he said in his reports to the Harvard
corporation that basketball was worse
rOughcr, more brutal.
The writer had been a member of the
Collegiate Basketball Rules Committee
since its formation in lEJ-when the col
legcs broke away from A. 4. A. rules.
The writer saw the light when the Inter-
collegiate League dishanded i'm 1908.
Harvard did drop basketball. 1t was on
the rocks at Cornell and Princeton, and
very shaky at Yale. We played two
seasons, l90S-9 and l9OJ-lO. without n
league, and the future looked blue The
Rules Committee was divided, Harry
Fisher, of COlumbia-a great player and
coach and dominating personality-stood
for the old order of things. Harry taught
his teams to hold on to their opponents
and made the game a close guarding one
of actual bodily contact 1t had to be
pretty iiagrant TO be called foul by
Harry Fisher. He says today the same
thing that Keinath says, namely that
the rule makers have killed the game.
Became Convinced
In the other camp of the Rules Com
mittee were DR.. Joseph Il, Raycroft then
of Chicago now at Princeton, and the
writer. Doctor RaycrOft convinced me
that the game was played differently in
the West-the Western conference has a
fine attitude toward college athletics gem
erally-and | was much impressed with
the style of play of Doctor Raycroft's
Chicago team. which Pennsylvania played
in 1908. So Doctor RaycToft and l formed
am alliance-without saying SOL do not
mean TO imply political collusion, | mean
we seemed to think alike on the needs
of the game and on the method of saw
ing IT,
And so we have studied the game from
its beginning, the tendencies that have
crept in and the remedies. We agreed
that bodily contact must be eliminated;
that there must be a curb on running
and on dribbling, so as to make guarding
without bodily contact possible Then
there must be a curb on fOuling-to stop
intentional fouling Five years ago we
made these fundamental changes that