The
YMHA experienced both success and problems during its first two basketball
seasons. By February 1901, a second YMHA
team had formed. The “first” team, made
up of the YMHA’s “brawniest members,” opened its second season in October 1901
with high hopes since, “during the Summer months, [the players] practiced the
rules of 1901 and are quite proficient in the game.” A “regular second team” opened its season with
a 44-5 victory over the Nordica Basketball Team in a “free and easy
fashion.” The YMHA also increased its admission
charge to ten cents in order to decrease
attendance.[1] The measure did not appear to have the
desired effect. At the end of 1901 and
YMHA officials banned basketball games with outside, or non-institutional,
teams. The institution’s 1902 annual report declared that “intense
rivalry and limited quarters” influenced the decision.[2]
The
basketball ban reflected the ideology of YMHA physical education, which limited
competitive opportunities. In January
1902, the Bulletin published an article entitled “Athletic
‘Specialists.’” The article explained
that members would “derive great benefit” from physical activities, but
denounced the “small minority [of members] who seem to think that the gymnasium
is a training ground for specialized work…we think that a young man ought to
join a gymnasium for the purpose of rounding himself out physically, and not
for the purpose of abnormally developing some particular muscle.”[3] Attempts
to minimize the importance of athletic specialization conflicted with some
members’ aspirations, especially those of the Atlas Athletic club, which had
changed its name from the YMHA Athletic Club in order to function “without
being interfered with by the YMHA.” The
club had been formed to encourage physical culture, but members primarily
focused on competitive sport in the early 1900s.[4] They found the YMHA generally unwilling to
cater to their desires. Officials
initially kept their distance from the competitive basketball world as they encouraged
mass education, not specialized athletics.
For
example, the YMHA did not immediately join the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU),
amateur basketball’s ruling body, after forming its original basketball
team. The AAU took over control of
basketball after YMCA leaders denounced basketball due to commercialism and
professionalism. Led by Luther Gulick,
the AAU Basketball Committee implemented a registration plan in the 1890s to
combat the influence of professionalism in basketball and forbad AAU teams from
playing even independent, or non-AAU, amateur teams.[5] The AAU realistically understood it could not
eliminate professional basketball, but sought to contain it from spreading into
‘pure’ amateur competition by banning non-registered players and teams from all
AAU competitions. During its initial
foray into basketball, therefore, YMHA basketball had been on the outside of
the official amateur structure.[6]
In
November 1903, the YMHA joined the AAU and resumed basketball games against
outside teams. Both developments brought
the YMHA closer to the commercial and competitive culture of mainstream amateur
sport. AAU membership meant emphasizing conformity
to the amateur ideal. It also introduced
new pressures. Competition necessitated
practice, representative teams, and a hierarchical athletic structure. An admission charge to all games accompanied
the resumption of outside competition. Unlike
the initial admission fee established in 1901 to control attendance, the new
admission charge served purely financial ends.
Officials requested that “since the money is to go toward the vacation
camp fund everybody ought to patronize them [basketball games].”[7]
Membership
in the AAU made competitive sport more visible at the YMHA. After the YMHA’s representative team went
winless in five games at the 1904 Metropolitan AAU championship, including a
57-10 loss, the Association hosted the tournament in 1905.[8] YMHA officials publicly explained that they
had offered the use of the gymnasium out of a “belief that all amateur sport
should be put on a high plane and kept free from professionalism.” More importantly, the tournament “attracted
several thousands [spectators]…many of whom had never heard of the
Association,” and generated almost $150 from tournament receipts. Officials also claimed that the AAU
tournament directly increased basketball’s popularity at the YMHA.[9]
[1] For
mention of the second team, see “Physical Department,” Y Bulletin (February 1901). On the “brawniest” members, the opening
victory and the admission charge, see “Physical Department,” Y Bulletin (October 1901). While an admission charge successfully decreased
attendance, it is unclear whom the YMHA was attempting to exclude. The Bulletin commented it was due to a
“large number of outsiders” at games.
Superintendent Mitchell wrote in his journal that the fee resulted in
“much less crowding and the classes were not depleted of their pupils.” See
William Mitchell Journal, February
6, 1901 , Young Men’s Hebrew Association records, 92nd Street New York Lawrence Levine, Highbrow, Lowbrow:
Cultural Hierarchy: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America
[2] Young
Men’s Hebrew Association, Twenty-Eighth
Annual Report, 1902 (New York:
1903). The Bulletin explained that the final game occurred on December 18, 1901 , because
competition with outside teams, “interfere too much with the regular work of
the gymnasium.” See Physical Department, YMHA
Bulletin, January 1902. Mitchell
made no reference of interference, but he noted that two YMHA players were
injured in the December 18th game and that during an October game,
one of the players “struck his head against the wall.” See William Mitchell
Journal, October 23, 1901 ,
Young Men’s Hebrew Association records, 92nd Street New York
[4] Soon
after the publication of “Athletic ‘Specialists,’” the YMHA suspended the Atlas
Athletic club. The following is derived from the Minutes of the Atlas Athletic
Club, William Mitchell Journal, the Y Bulletin, Minutes of the Board of
Directors and Minutes of the House Committee, Young Men’s Hebrew Association
records, 92nd Street Y Archives, New York. In February 1902, one of the club’s founding
members was suspended from the gymnasium.
In response, the club expelled the YMHA’s physical instructor, Charles
Jardine, as an honorary member. In April, Jardine appealed to the Board of
Directors for an assistant and suspended three more Atlas members for
“insubordination and mischief breeding in the Gymnasium.” At the club’s meeting
on May 5, 1902 ,
which was held at the home of the one of the members due to the suspension, it
was club decided: “Applicants for membership need not be member of YMHA
gymnasium.” Association officials demanded the club turn over their minute
book, but they refused and in response, the YMHA suspended the entire
club. After club representatives met
with YMHA President Percival Menken, the club returned to the Association
without further penalty. That summer,
Jardine resigned and was replaced by a professional physical director, George
Schoening. An examination of the Atlas
minute book indicated no reason for YMHA officials to demand its
appearance. No pages appear to have been
removed. In the midst of the
controversy, Atlas joined the AAU in April 1903, preceding the YMHA’s AAU
membership of November 1903. See Minutes of the Atlas Athletic Club, May 5, 1903 , Young Men’s
Hebrew Association records, 92nd
Street New York
[5] Some
commentators praised the ‘perfect’ plan, but it proved ineffective since
registration did not stop amateurs and professionals from playing against one
another. See Horger, “Play By The Rules,” 67-72; “AAU
Controls Basket Ball,” New York Times,
November 13, 1907 ;
Paret, “Basket Ball,” 225.
[6] For the
first mention of the YMHA’s membership in the AAU, see Harry Sperling,
“Gymnasium Notes,” Y Bulletin, November 1903. The YMHA would not have been considered a
renegade, but it is nonetheless surprising that YMHA officials did not
immediately conform to governing amateur rules in order to avoid any pretense
of controversy. Throughout the late 1890s and early 1900s, the AAU found itself
in the midst of controversies involving the registration policy. Problems were often intensified when a
non-registered team played a registered team, which made the registered team
ineligible for AAU membership. If that
team then played others, all the teams would be considered non-registered and
so on. For information and controversies regarding AAU sport, the use of
registration fees, and the AAU’s connection to commercial consumption, see
Horger, “Play By The Rules,”
76-79.
[8]
“Metropolitan Basket Ball Championships, Spalding’s
Official Basket Ball Guide, 1904-05 (New York: American Sports Publishing
Co., 1904); “Championship Basket Ball Games,” New York Times, April 14, 1904 . See
Gymnasium Notes, YMHA Bulletin, April 1904. An article in the 1906-07 Spalding Guide
on the 1905 AAU championship written by William Mitchell did not comment on the
importance of a Jewish institution hosting such a tournament. See William
Mitchell, “Metropolitan Junior Championships,” Spalding’s Official Basket Ball Guide, 1906-07 (New York: American
Sports Publishing Co., 1906).
[9] Quote on
professionalism from “The Recent Basketball Tournament,” Y Bulletin, May 1905. Comment on publicity from Young Men’s Hebrew
Association, Thirty-First Annual
Report, 1905 (New York: 1906).
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