YMHAs and athletic competition, by Arieh Sclar

In the 1910s, both the YMHA League and its member institutions banned Saturday play, which indicated that officials believed Jewish athletic culture could function adequately on a six-day athletic week.  Some young Jews found the official separation of Jewish athleticism from mainstream sport unsatisfactory.  In a July 1915 letter to physical director George Schoening, 92^nd Street YMHA President Felix Warburg explained that a few members had ingeniously “formed themselves into the so-called Manhattan Club, making it appear by using the cut of our building, that the same was their club-house.”  They did this in order to “play in competition on Saturdays, which the Board had ruled should not be permitted.”[1]

Writing on behalf of the Board of Directors, Warburg communicated their concerns regarding “the attitude of our young men toward athletics.”  Besides the Sabbath incident, which officials never fully confronted in either private meetings or public declarations, he spelled out two other matters that needed to be addressed, gambling and professionalism.  Competition could be a healthy activity for “our young men, handicapped as a good many of them are by generations of ancestors who have been forced to live in unhealthy surrounding and crowded districts.”  The YMHA needed to refocus its efforts toward fair play and sportsmanship since “the desire to excel and to win prizes has led us to give an undue importance to those young men who may turn out to be the winners.”  Placing blame squarely on themselves, YMHA directors and officials “feel that we may have been guilty of driving them forward in these ambitions, rather than warning them to improve their standing all around and thus causing them to specialize to a dangerous degree to the detriment to other boys, whom they have crowded out.”  Warburg appealed to Schoening to teach and develop “the ethics of sport…rather than the muscles alone.”[2]

The Bulletin’s 1907 call for champions had not foreseen that problems would arise.  It assumed competitive sport would be easily incorporated into American Jewish culture.  Aggressive behavior, whether associated with professionalism, gambling, or disregard of Jewish tradition, illustrated that YMHA members had learned ‘American’ values, but potentially at the expense of ‘Jewish’ values.  Individualism and the pursuit of financial success were not the values Association officials sought to teach its “young men.”  The YMHA’s desire to develop strong and modern American Jewish men meant that Saturday competition would not be tolerated.  Neither would disreputable behavior that transgressed middle class norms.

When confronted with the consequences of competitive sport, YMHA officials became determined to reign in their champions.  The hierarchical structure of the YMHA League encouraged specialization and competition, which meant officials confronted the ultimate paradigm of American sport, elite or mass participation.  Yet, Warburg’s reference to Jews’ ghetto existence indicated that an additional burden influenced his perspective.  The perceived absence of sport in Jewish culture meant that despite concerns regarding the YMHA’s developing athletic culture, neither Warburg nor other YMHA officials ever contemplated abolishing competitive sport.[3]

In 1917, the YMHA formed an official Athletic Committee to replace an informal committee that possessed no authority to control members’ actions since it focused solely on financial matters.[4]  Both directors and members governed the new Committee.  Indeed, the first official committee to include members, it sought to protect the YMHA’s growing reputation in mainstream sport.  New YMHA President Irving Lehman placed the responsibility for developing “clean” sports in the hands of the members.  At the committee’s opening meeting, Lehman stated: “This is an experiment.  If this experiment fails it hurts the kind of work in which you are especially interested…pick out the kind of men [Committee members] who are going to stand for straight, clean athletics.”[5]

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[1] Felix Warburg to George Schoening, July 26, 1915, Young Men’s Hebrew Association records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York.

[2] Ibid. Warburg’s concerns regarding gambling had been caused by betting at various events, but specifically at baseball games.  The league cancelled the baseball season.

[3] The incident appears to have resulted solely in a Bulletin article that praised YMHA athletes for not competing on the Sabbath. The article was written by a member of the Board of Directors, the Reverend Dr. Samuel Schulman. See “The Opportunities for the Jewish Character,” Y Bulletin, May 1916.   Athletes guilty of gambling and professionalism were briefly suspended.

[4] An example of praise awarded on the basketball team is found in the 1917 YMHA Annual Report, which proudly reported the 32-1 record of the team.  The following year, the Bulletin editor and physical director picked an All-YMHA team from ‘in-house’ teams.  The existence of this all-star team is the best indication of a shifting ideology toward basketball as honored players were chosen solely for ‘playing ability,’ and ‘points scored,’ with no mention of sportsmanship, moral value, or other Progressive ideals.  On the formation of the initial committee in 1913, see “Committee on Athletics,” Y Bulletin, April 1913.

[5] For Lehman’s speech, see “Athletic Committee Re-Organized,” Y Bulletin, April 1917. Felix Warburg resigned as YMHA president in April 1916.  The Athletic Committee was the first committee at the Association to contain members.

Jews in early professional basketball, by Arieh Sclar

In 1913, the Reach Basketball Guide commented on the success of a group of Jewish players from the lower East Side without identifying them as Jews.  The Newburgh (NY) team received “a hard jolt when three of its best players jumped their contracts at the beginning of the season.”  To replace these players, the manager “was able to get the entire Clark House team together to represent Newburgh and they played grand ball.”  The guide made a seemingly minor mistake in its discussion of Newburgh’s new players.  Most of them had played at the University Settlement, not Clark House.  Though this illustrated bad reporting by the guide, it also indicated the significant step these players had to make into the world of professional basketball.[1]  They advanced into professional basketball at a time when it existed as a marginal and unstable sport.  In the process, they both helped construct a path from the street to college and professional basketball and transformed the professional game.

The Jewish players on Newburgh’s team had started formally to play professional basketball in the early 1910s.  Though many young Jews from the lower East Side played in professional games while in high school or college, they often did so under assumed names to keep their amateur status.  Among the most prominent and skilled players, former settlement and CCNY basketball players Barney Sedran and Harry Brill joined their friend Marty Friedman, who had not played in college, on an independent professional team in New York City called the Roosevelt Big Five.  The Jewish players also played in the newly formed Hudson River League, which had teams located in upstate New York towns such as Newburgh, Utica, and Kingston.[2]

In the 1910s, professional basketball existed as a chaotic sport.  The Hudson League existed alongside many other professional leagues that predominated in northeastern towns.  Teams often folded in the middle of a season.  Leagues struggled financially and occasionally disbanded after only a couple of seasons.  Players jumped from team to team for better pay and without fear of reprisal.  Sedran, Friedman, and the other Jewish players quickly adapted to the professional culture.  They too moved from team to team and league to league as players enjoyed a player-centered market system that allowed them to partially control their own labor.[3]

Jewish players adjusted to the tactics of the professional game.  In the 1900s and 1910s, professionals often played games in cages that made the game faster and rougher.  The ball remained in constant play with no out-of-bounds.  Players wore knee-pads and expected harsh treatment from opponents, fans, and sometimes even the referee.  The roughness and threat of violence influenced the style of play.  Barney Sedran remembered that two-handed set shots predominated.  “It was suicide to shoot for the basket with your feet off the ground because you’d be lucky to come down alive.”  While playing for a team in Carbondale, Pennsylvania, the 5’4” Sedran was being punched by an opponent.  His backcourt partner, Marty Friedman, the two became known as the ‘Heavenly Twins,’ remembered that he told “Barney to run at full speed past me and as the bully boy came alongside me I stepped in front of him and down he went.”  The move produced a near riot.[4]

Neither Friedman nor Sedran ever claimed the attack occurred because of anti-Semitism.  The early Jewish players experienced varying level of anti-Semitism during their careers.  Friedman claimed: “I ran into little anti-Semitism among the players,” although it occasionally emerged “in the Midwest among the fans.”  Ira Streusand’s experience differed: “I ran into anti-Semitism everywhere, from my first collegiate game until I retired from basketball.”[5]  Anti-Semitism did not restrict access to professional basketball for Friedman, Streusand, or other Jewish players, but the rough culture of the sport made it difficult to isolate incidents of anti-Semitism from the everyday occurrences of violence.

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[1] Hudson River Basket Ball League, Reach Official Basketball Guide 1912-13 (Philadelphia: A.J. Reach & Co., 1913).  A couple of the Jewish players in professional basketball did come from the Clark House, but most of the players – and the most recognized – had played at the University Settlement.

[2] Biographies of Marty Friedman and Barney Sedran in Postal, Silver, and Silver, Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports, 82-84, 92-94. Also see folders of Barney Sedran, Marty Friedman, and Nat Holman in the Edward and Gena Hickox Library at the Basketball Hall of Fame, Springfield, MA.  A Picture of the Roosevelt Big Five in Spalding’s Official Basket Ball Guide 1912-13 (New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1912).  Reach first mentioned the players, including Barney Sedran, Marty Friedman, William Cone (nee Cohen), Lou Sugarman, Ira Streusand, and others, in Hudson River League, Reach Official Basketball Guide 1910-11 (Philadelphia: A.J. Reach & Co., 1911). 

[3] On early professional basketball, see Peterson, Cages to Jump Shots, 46-68.

[4] Postal, Silver, and Silver, Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports, 83, 92-93.

[5] Ibid., 83, 96.

A champion model and basketball league, by Arieh Sclar

In April 1907, an editorial in the 92^nd Street YMHA’s Bulletin had elucidated what would become the dominant paradigm about Jewish athleticism during the first half of the twentieth century.  “The Jew as an Athlete” presented a familiar narrative: “Jews as a nation have never been actively identified with the manly sports, either in ancient or modern times.”  The Jews could be partially blamed for this absence.  “Had the manly sports been more indulged…the Jews might have been treated with greater respect by their enemies.”  In the United States, “more attention is being paid by the Jews to the harmonious development of the human form and as a result, we are gradually developing a number of promising Jewish athletes.”  The editorial praised the public school system for helping produce successful athletes, especially in the “game of basket-ball, [where] Jewish young men are acknowledged leaders.”  Sport needed to become more important to Jewish ‘peoplehood,’ but with one important caveat. “There is something in athletics which appeals to all manly men and if the Jews will pay more attention to it and through it develop a number of champions, it will do more to raise the status of the race in the eyes of the world than any other single achievement.”[1]

The editorial demanded change in the relationship between American Jewish culture and sport and constructed a new model of Jewish athleticism.  The Bulletin published the editorial the month before the Atlas Athletic Club left the YMHA and eight months before Eliot spoke before the Menorah Club.  It provided a model with which YMHA officials could respond to the Eliot controversy.  The absence of “manly sports” within Jewish culture had served as a barrier to Jewish integration.  Thus, individual Jews could benefit if Jewish culture moved closer to sport.  This model included a new concept of Jewish athleticism.  Mainstream society would accept Jews and provide a space for modern, and normal, manhood only if Jewish “champions” proved their worth in the athletic world.  The champion model encouraged the development of a communal athletic culture that served both an internal project of Jewish socialization and an external project of proving Jewish athleticism, and thus normality, to mainstream society.

In 1912, New York area YMHA’s formed the YMHA Athletic League.[2]  The league provided young Jews with competitive athletic opportunities, and the Bulletin explicitly connected the league’s public presence to an internal Jewish project.  Jews should socialize with, and play against, other Jews.  An article, “Jews in Athletics,” stated that the absence of a Jewish athletic club culture had forced Jews to join athletic clubs or even YMCA’s and their names became “linked with some Christian Association.”  As a result, the athlete “was not recognized as a Jew.  This league will have the tendency to bring these Jewish young men together.”[3]  YMHA officials also believed competitive sports were “splendid preparation for the duties and obligations of citizenship.”  The league’s initial mention in the Bulletin stated it had formed “to develop and encourage clean sport between the boys of the different Associations.”[4]

Commitment is needed for competitive structures to succeed.  Organized rules, governance, and scheduling meant the league supported elite specialization in sport over mass participation.  The league’s competitiveness encouraged member institutions to develop the hierarchical structures that would support an athletic club culture.  At the 92^nd Street YMHA, internal competitions and tournaments between house and club teams expanded the pool from which representative teams could draw talent.  Intra-association teams swelled from thirty in 1910 to more than fifty in 1915 and “representative” teams such as the Mohegans received attention in mainstream newspapers as they played against athletic clubs, public schools, YMCA’s, settlements, and even the occasional college team.[5]  All of this activity served the Association’s participation in the YMHA League, which limited participation to “only five regular players and a few substitutes [who] can represent us directly on the field.”  Members, however, could “represent us indirectly by their presence,” at games as attendance became a “duty” and “organized rooting” encouraged the team to victory.  At the end of the first season, the 92^nd Street YMHA captured the league title in front of “an average attendance of 150 visitors.”[6]

Soon after the formation of the league, YMHA basketball became a financial endeavor.  In 1914, the 92^nd Street YMHA’s Bulletin explained: “Athletics should be self-supporting.  We have the opportunity to make it so by attending the basketball games…every cent taken in at these games goes to encourage track and field sports and baseball, as well as basketball itself.”  During the 1910s, the physical department needed to fund itself in order to grow and survive, and basketball’s success allowed the YMHA to develop boxing, handball, and swimming programs.[7]  Athletic departments at other institutions also increased their commitment to competitive sport out of economic necessity.

The YMHA League provided a centralized location for Jewish athletes, their fans, and the media to find a Jewish presence in sport.  The success of the 92^nd Street YMHA basketball team led to expanded coverage in the Bulletin.  An “Athletic News” column reported on star players and representative teams as they competed against a vast array of amateur and college teams, succeeded in AAU tournaments, and won league championships.  The Bulletin also published articles such as “Clear the Floor for Basketball”, “Basketball and its Possibilities”, and “Play Fair,” that educated, informed, and entertained readers.[8]  Beginning in August 1912 and covering a number of months, the American Hebrew ran sporadic articles on the activities of the YMHA League, including swimming, cross-country, and basketball.[9]  The mainstream media also noticed the growth of Jewish basketball at the YMHA, thus confirming the notion that Jewish athletes would gain public recognition as Jews.

In the 1910s, Spalding published two articles on YMHA basketball.  The 1913-14 guide explained that New York’s large Jewish population supported a competitive league that “popularized the game more than ever” at YMHA’s.[10]  Three years later, Spalding published an article entitled “Basket Ball in YMHA’s” which included Associations in a variety of locations, including Portland (Oregon), Kansas City, Louisville, Richmond (Virginia), New Orleans, Syracuse, and of course, New York.  The author, Harry Henshel of the 92nd Street YMHA, explained that YMHA basketball existed in “various stages of development” comparable to the “difficult struggles which our Christian [YMCA’s] friends suffered for many years.”  Due to a lack of financial support, a number of Associations struggled to complete “successful” seasons.[11]  Many YMHA’s had not “developed to the point where they have big enough gymnasiums to encourage basket ball of high caliber.”  Both Spalding articles singled out the 92^nd Street YMHA for having a “splendidly equipped building, including a fine gymnasium and basket ball court.”[12]

Henshel based his Spalding article on a questionnaire issued by the Council of Young Men’s Hebrew and Kindred Association (CYMHKA).  Formed in 1913, the organization intended to merge settlements and YMHA’s into a national Jewish Center movement.  Officials believed the Jewish community center (JCC) would overcome the fragmentation of Jewish communal life based on religious, ‘ethnic,’ and class differences by providing social, cultural, and religious programs that unified “all members of the community.”[13]  An official CYMHKA publication stated: “Athletics are absolutely necessary and a gymnasium is an essential feature of the YMHA.”  The Council primarily promoted outdoor sports over basketball, which as an indoor game, was “perhaps the least to be recommended.”  The Council’s attitude toward basketball notwithstanding, Henshel stated that basketball had become “the feature indoor sport in YMHA’s throughout the country.”[14]

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[1] “The Jew as an Athlete,” YMHA Bulletin, April 1907.

[2] The Athletic League was first proposed in April 1912.  See Minutes of the Board of Directors, April 3, 1912, Young Men’s Hebrew Association records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York. The YMHA Athletic League was mentioned in Gym Notes, Y Bulletin, October 1912.  The section declared, “Our YMHA is looked to as the Mecca of all similar institutions and it was up to us to lead this undertaking and only with our guidance and active support could the league be assured of success.”

[3] Mike Taub, “Jews in Athletics,” Y Bulletin, January 1913. The league encouraged a number of Jews to transfer to the YMHA from prominent athletic clubs.  The year after the formation of the league, the American Hebrew covered a controversy over a Jewish youth’s desire to join the 23^rd Street YMCA in New York City.  The youth objected to the YMCA’s policy to restrict the number of Jews to 5% of its membership.  The Hebrew denounced the youth’s desire to join the YMCA rather than the restrictive policy and stated: “a Jewish youth man should become a member of the YMHA if he desires club privileges.”  See “Jews and the YMCA,” American Hebrew, December 5, 1913.

[4] Young Men’s Hebrew Association, Fortieth Annual Report, 1913 (New York: 1914); re-printed in the Y Bulletin, March 1913.  The report’s budget contained an “Athletics” column, probably in reference to the league. Also see “Athletic League,” Y Bulletin, October 1912.

[5] On the number of inter-association teams in 1910 as well as information on the Mohegans, see “Gymnastic Notes,” Y Bulletin, December 1909.  On the number of teams in 1915, see “Athletic News,” Y Bulletin, December 1915.  The YMHA used the term ‘representative’ to describe any team that competed against outside teams.  Most of the ‘representative’ teams in the early 1900s were club teams that also competed in inter-association tournaments.  The most successful team was the Mohegans, led by Lazarus Joseph, a player and coach at YMHA.  Joseph played at NYU prior to joining the 92^nd Street YMHA  and was the grandson of Rabbi Jacob Joseph. The Mohegans and other “representative” teams occasionally traveled to New Jersey to compete.  In 1912, the Mohegans had a record of 25-1.

[6] Editorial, Y Bulletin, November 1912.  Though competitive sport was intended to provide a wholesome environment and not deride the opposition, “organized rooting” was seen as providing an advantage to the home team.  On the championship season, see “YMHA Athletics,” Y Bulletin, March 1913.  The team defeated YWHA teams from Yonkers, Brooklyn, Brownsville, Perth Amboy (NJ), Mt. Vernon, Bayonne (NJ), and even Philadelphia in a post-season contest.

[7] Basketball, Y Bulletin, December 1914.  The statement regarding self-sufficiency indicates the desire that athletics not take funding away from other programming, and thus ensure the relative autonomy of the athletic department.

[8] “Clear the Floor for Basketball,” Y Bulletin, December 1912; “Basketball and its Possibilities,” Y Bulletin, October 1913; “Play Fair,” Y Bulletin, March 1915; The ‘Athletic News’ column began in December 1913.

[9] See “YMHA Athletic Games,” American Hebrew, August 16, 1912; “The YMHA Athletic League,” American Hebrew, November 8, 1912.

[10] “YMHA Athletic League, 1912-13,” Spalding’s Official Basket Ball Guide 1913-14 (New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1913).  The YMHA League was not the first mention of a specific Jewish league, but it was the most extensive.  In the 1910-1911 Spalding Guide, under the section “Basket Ball in Detroit,” there was a brief mention of a four-team league in the local YMHA. No further mention of this specific league occurred. Spalding provided only a single article on the league compared to annual publication of various YMCA leagues. Also see “Local YMHA in the Lead,” New York Times, December 16, 1912 for a report on early results during the first year of the YMHA Basketball League.

[11] Harry Henshel, “Basket Ball in YMHA’s,” Spalding’s Official Basket Ball Guide 1916-17 (New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1916).  Despite these struggles, YMHA’s had decided to go down the path that YMCA’s had determined not to go.  YMCA’s continued to play basketball, but refused to become full-fledged athletic clubs.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Kaufman, Shul with a Pool, 63.

[14] Quote from Harry Glucksman, The Boys’ Club in the YMHA (Publications of the Council of YMH and Kindred Associations, 1915); Coleman Silbert, Clubs for Jewish Work (Publications of the Council of the YMH and Kindred Associations, 1915).  On the Council, see Rabinowitz, The Young Men’s Hebrew Association, 85-87.  Among the financial and ideological leaders of the Council were Louis Marshall, Judah Magnes, Julian Mack, and the 92^nd Street YMHA’s president, Felix Warburg.  Henshel, “Basket Ball in YMHA’s.”

CCNY beats Yale!, by Arieh Sclar

In the early years of the twentieth century, basketball thrived at small colleges.  For instance, one historian found that Oberlin College, located in Ohio, did not have the resources to build a ‘big-time’ football program, so it offered basketball as a way to provide athletic opportunities to students, attract loyalty and funds from alumni and fans, and build institutional prestige.[1]  For similar reasons, New York City colleges such as New York University (NYU), and the City College of New York (CCNY) established basketball programs in the mid-1900s.  Along with Columbia University, which focused on basketball after de-emphasizing football, these schools expanded the athletic opportunities of Jewish students.  Jews from the lower East Side competed for these schools as Samuel Melitzer starred at Columbia and Joe Girsdansky played for NYU.  CCNY’s vast Jewish student population and high number of Jewish players, however, led the school to symbolize Jewish athletic achievement in college basketball.[2] 

During the 1900s, Jewish players helped turn CCNY into an early basketball power.  The tuition-free CCNY primarily served a Jewish population and Jewish players from the University Settlement such as Barney Sedran, Ira Streusand, and Harry Brill led CCNY to a record of 9-2 in 1908.  During the 1909 season, Jews made up the entire team and served as manager, assistant manager, and coach.  The team finished 8-3 and its competitive success drew the notice of the New York press and Spalding guides.[3]  More importantly, a ‘Jewish’ team in college sports drew the attention of Jewish newspapers.  In December 1908, at the beginning of the basketball season, the American Hebrew claimed CCNY’s victories over Princeton and Yale, “stamps them as the premier college five.”[4]  Yet, even as CCNY became a prominent program due to its Jewish players, the school experienced problems associated with the basketball program.

In November 1907, the student newspaper The Campus had exclaimed that basketball could “advertise” the school “to the public outside of New York City.”  The paper equated the fame of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, known as the “Big Three,” to their prestige in the athletic world, and stated, “there can certainly be no harm in athletics flourishing in any college.”  Commentators had been denouncing the commercial and competitive pressures of ‘big time’ college sport since the 1890s, and The Campus ignored the recent ‘crisis’ of college football caused by brutal and violent play.  Instead, the newspaper claimed, “athletics have not been detrimental to the growth of any institution or impaired their high standard.”[5]

The Campus wanted basketball to be a positive force at the college.  The editor criticized students in December 1907 for “hissing” at opponents, which “violated the first laws of hospitality.”  The paper condemned similar behavior during a 33-23 loss to Columbia, but had little to say about CCNY’s overwhelming victory over Adelphi the following week by a score of 95-11.  Later that season, an editorial again asked fans to “be manly and display some courtesy toward visitors.”[6]  Controlling crowds upwards of 1,500 proved difficult.  So did attempts to limit basketball’s impact on other campus activities.  In March 1908, The Campus stated that athletics “are not everything.  Last Friday evening, with the game as a counterattraction, not a single one of the literary societies could muster a quorum and conditions very much the same as this have been the rules since the opening of the basketball season.”[7] 

As much as the basketball team’s success drew students away from other campus activities, a lack of success hurt the basketball program.  In 1910, CCNY remained a predominantly Jewish team, although without Sedran, Streusand or Brill.  The basketball team lost early and often, including to Navy, whose “coach told our [coach] Mr. Palmer that his team learned how to play the game from us.”  Such praise meant little to the students who, during the season, became “indifferent and failed to support the team.”  The lack of attendance proved financially costly because the school’s Athletic Association had provided “our basket-ball men with the best outfits that money could purchase.”  As a result, the team barely made a profit since “it was never dreamt that our student body could be so devoid of any semblance of college pride as to be interested in a team only so long as it is always the victor.”[8]

CCNY’s basketball fortunes returned in 1911 and students looked to avenge the previous season’s loss to Yale.  As the date of the rematch drew close, The Campus appealed for the students to organize more cheers in order to “help the players.”  It became important to beat Yale in order to “maintain the reputation which we have built up by the hardest kind of work.”[9]  CCNY’s 20-15 victory merited a three-page article in The Campus, which exclaimed: “the high standards of our curriculum could not have done, in years, what the glorious triumph of the varsity basketball team over Yale accomplished in one short evening.”[10]

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[1] Horger, “Play By The Rules,” 210-215.  ‘Big-time’ programs existed as an abstraction between the absolutes of professional and amateur sport.  ‘Student-athletes’ received no pay, but universities often earned large amounts of revenue from competitions.  On the history of college basketball, see Neil D. Isaacs, All The Moves: A History of College Basketball (New York: Harper and Row, 1984); Peter C. Bjarkman, Hoopla: A Century of College Basketball (Indianapolis: Masters Press, 1996).  On college sport, see Smith, Sports and Freedom.

[2] On early college basketball, see Isaacs, All The Moves, 39-45.  Columbia abolished football in the early 1900s and expanded the basketball program to compete with professional, non-college, and amateur teams.  New York provided the infrastructure and acceptance for Columbia basketball to thrive in the 1900s and 1910s as it dominated the Ivy League. 

[3] For information on the CCNY team, see Basketball, CCNY Microcosm, 1909.  The New York Times provided regular coverage of CCNY games during the late 1900s, although with only brief commentary on the game.  On CCNY in Spalding, see the guides in 1906, 1908, and 1909.

[4] “The Jewish Athlete,” American Hebrew, December 18, 1908.

[5] Editorial, The Campus, November 25, 1907. In 1907, CCNY moved from 23^rd Street to 137^th Street (its present location).  The new campus included expanded facilities, including a gymnasium.  That same year, the college hired Leonard Palmer as a “tutor in the department of Physical Instruction and Training at a salary of $600 per annum.”  In October, Palmer’s salary was increased to $800.  See Proceedings of the Board of Trustees of the College of the City of New York, February 25, 1907 and October 21, 1907.  On the football crisis of 1905, see Smith, Sports and Freedom, 191-208; Oriard, Reading Football, 164-165, 170-171. 

[6] Condemnation of fan behavior as well as Adelphi score in Editorial, The Campus, December 11, 1907.  Columbia score found in The Campus, December 4, 1907.  The second condemnation found in The Campus, January 8, 1908.

[7] Editorial, The Campus, March 18, 1908.  The same issue contained an article entitled “Basketball Statement,” which illustrated the team had produced net revenue of $440.14 for the season.  On the financial considerations involving basketball at CCNY in the 1900s and 1910s, see reports in the CCNY Microcosm: Official Annual of the College.

[8] “Basketball,” The Campus, February 9, 1910; “Athletics: The Last Straw,” The Campus, February 23, 1910.

[9] “Athletics: Soon,” The Campus, December 7, 1910.

[10] “Our Recent Victory,” The Campus, December 21, 1910. 

The 'basketball Jew' arrives, by Ari Sclar

In 1908, the American Hebrew published its first series of articles on Jewish athleticism.  The first article, “Activity of the Jews in Athletics,” celebrated the fact that teams from either the Clark House or University Settlement, “solely made up of Jewish boys, has held the basketball championship of the settlement league…ever since the league came into existence.”  The newspaper focused on basketball played on the lower East Side in an environment predominated by Jews, which led to the conclusion that, “it is a well established fact that in basketball, the Jew has no superior.”  More significantly, the newspaper attempted to examine the root of Jewish success.  This urban, frenetic and hurried sport, according to the Hebrew, “requires a good deal of quick thinking, lightning like rapidity of movement and endurance; it does not call for brutality and brute strength and that is why the Jews excel in it.”[1]

The Hebrew’s assertion of Jewish basketball superiority fit into the dominant writing about the sport’s required characteristics.  Early accounts of the sport noted that “basket-ball requires the most rapid kind of play,” which necessitated a certain kind of player.  The focus on passing placed a premium on quickness and speed.  A 1912 treatise explained that “agility and alertness are two of the fundamental and principle characteristics.”  In 1903, Spalding’s editor pronounced: “Basket ball is a game of skill and not of brute force.  I have seen a team weighing on an average fifteen pounds less than the other win a game by skill in passing the ball.”[2]  Even inventor James Naismith commented: “The first principle on which the game was based was that it should demand of, and develop in, the player of the highest type of physical and athletic development.  This type in the mind of the writer was the tall, agile, graceful, and expert athlete, rather than the massive muscular man on the one hand, or the cadaverous greyhound type on the other.”[3]  The stereotyped Jewish immigrant body did not fit Naismith’s ideal, but it was not negated as either the ‘cadaverous greyhound’ or the ‘massive muscular’ type.

The Hebrew took the dominant writing about basketball and applied it to the imagined category of the ‘Jew.’  The Hebrew proposed, possibly for the first time, that the Jewish body could serve as an advantage in athletic competition.  The Hebrew inverted the lack of physical size from a determinant of Jewish non-athleticism and weakness into an advantage in basketball.  Jewish vitality could be transformed into endurance and intellectual ability translated into mental acuteness in a rapid game that required instinctual quickness.  Yet, ascriptions of Jewish intelligence perpetuated the underpinnings of the stereotype.  The implication that Jews did not have “brute strength” meant Jewish masculine identity had not escaped perceptions of Jewish physical inferiority.  Jews succeeded because of quickness and thinking, not because of physical strength.

The Hebrew’s ‘basketball Jew’ possessed the immigrant body and an essential Jewishness.  Speed and the ability for fast play served as important characteristics, but the Jew also had the necessary mental makeup needed to succeed.  Thus, the Jew succeeded as, and because of being, a Jew.  The racial pride involved in celebrating this distinctiveness indicated that although Bushnell and others presented Jewish athleticism as a way to overcome ‘clannish’ tendencies, Jews did not have to change their racial or cultural identity to become American.  In fact, the underlying assumption of the Hebrew’s argument was that if Jews lost either their small body or their Jewish intellect, they would also lose their status as superior basketball players.  American Jews had found an activity that proved their willingness to participate in mainstream society without losing their positive racial identity.

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[1] “Activity of the Jews in Athletics,” American Hebrew, September 18, 1908. 

[2] Paret, “Basket Ball,” 227; “Basket Ball and Its Success,” New York Times, November 12, 1893. The press explained that playing positions were virtually interchangeable with the exception of center, which required an additional characteristic: height.  Guerdon N. Messer, How to Play Basket Ball: A Thesis on the Technique of the Game (New York: American Sports Publishing Co., 1912); “Order v. Chaos,” Spalding’s Official Basket Ball Guide 1902-03 (New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1903).

[3] Naismith, “Basket Ball,” 340.

Debating sports at the 92nd Street YMHA, by Ari Sclar

Eliot’s comments also received attention at the 92^nd Street YMHA, where a Bulletin editorial agreed that, “our Jewish young men are not sufficiently developed physically,” and claimed that the relatively few Jewish athletes served as “the best proof of this.”  The solution would be for “the Jewish philanthropist to remove the stigma by giving larger support than heretofore to institutions like the YMHA,” which was “engaged in the all-around development of young men.”[1]  Officials extended the YMHA’s commitment to competitive sport in the 1908 annual report. “We hope some day to see some of our own boys take a prominent part in athletic competition and thus disprove that our people do not give proper attention to our physical development.”  Finally, in October 1908, a Bulletin editorial stated: “Let us therefore from now on determine to win honors in the athletic world…the Association will do its share toward encouraging athletics in the building.”[2]

Institutional officials blamed the lack of athletes on the absence of communal support for institutions interested in “all-around development.”  The YMHA hoped to illustrate that it offered programs unavailable elsewhere in organized Jewish communal life, and thus deserved more attention, finances, and support.  Yet, only months before Eliot’s speech, the Atlas Athletic Club had decided to “sever its connection…as a subordinate society of your Association,” and established for itself an independent clubhouse in the Bronx.  Atlas president Henry Lang, who served on the AAU’s Metropolitan Basketball Committee during the mid-1900s, explained to the YMHA Board of Directors that, “the fostering of athletics, with the hope that some day might see Jewish athletes gain recognition and merit (as Jews have done in other fields of life) has been the goal we have been striving to attain.”  Lang lamented “the inability of the Association to specialize in the direction of and cater to athletics; at the same time, we have held together in the Association, hoping that some day the hand of fortune might shower on you to enable you to augment Jewish athletic prowess.”[3]  Despite Lang’s complaint regarding the YMHA’s “inability” to provide financial support for athletic specialization, “unwillingness” may have been a more fitting word.  Atlas’s hope for a YMHA athletic culture had produced no appeal to ‘philanthropists.’  Eliot’s comments, on the other hand, raised an immediate cry for help and appear to have been the necessary catalyst to produce a cultural change at the YMHA.

One must be careful in drawing too broad a conclusion regarding the 92^nd Street YMHA’s response to Eliot’s comments.  YMHA officials remained silent regarding Atlas’s departure, which allowed them to blame the broader community for Jewish physical deficiencies.  They could therefore justifiably demand more support in their (not Atlas’) fight to “remove the stigma.”[4]  Yet, the YMHA had supported, ideologically if not financially, Atlas’s desire to produce Jewish athletes.  At the formal opening of Atlas’s new clubhouse in the Bronx, YMHA Superintendent William Mitchell foreshadowed what would become the YMHA’s project only months later, but at the time, seemed to be the exclusive property of Atlas: “it is necessary that you stick to your resolution to do purely athletic work.”  Mitchell explained that even if Atlas did not develop champions, “your work will not have been in vain.  I am a great believer in young men, in young Jewish men, and in physical sport, as a builder of manhood and character.”[5]

Mitchell unified his concept of manhood with ‘character,’ which indicated the influence of the American Physical Education Association (APEA) on the YMHA gymnasium program.  Although physical educators had various levels of commitment toward sport, including some opposition to it, the APEA promoted a manhood of self-control that produced a symmetrical body and the harmonious development of the whole person.  Educators generally did not equate health with muscles or physical size, which provided the YMHA with an attractive model with which to build its physical education department.  Yet, the YMHA still had to conform to an external ideal and APEA manhood remained informed by the racial superiority, if not the physical size and strength, of the Anglo-Saxon male.  The APEA model also could not provide an adequate defense to counter charges of Jewish weakness.  When Charles Eliot spoke of Jewish physical inferiority, the YMHA decided that ‘all-around’ development would no longer be enough to produce masculine Jews.  Rather than forcing the Jewish man to live up to the physical ideal of muscular size and strength, the YMHA opened a dialogue with dominant conceptions of athleticism and became determined to ‘win honors in the athletic world.’[6]  The YMHA had sought to avoid any engagement with the stereotype of the non-athletic, weak Jew. 

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[1] “Are the Jews Really Inferior,” Y Bulletin, February 1908.

[2] Young Men’s Hebrew Association, Thirty-Fourth Annual Report, 1908 (New York: 1909).  The Report was re-published in the Y Bulletin, March 1908.  “Athletics in the YMHA,” YMHA Bulletin, October 1908.

[3] Henry Lang to the Board of Directors of the 92^nd Street YMHA, March 20, 1907, Young Men’s Hebrew Association records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York; According to information found in the Atlas minute book, the club was repeatedly denied use of the YMHA gymnasium for basketball practice.  In response, Atlas began practicing at other area gymnasiums and furthered their separation from the YMHA. Club members also consistently asked the Association to purchase or rent a running track, but were ignored or denied.  According to the Atlas Athletic Club minute book, the club began looking for a new ‘home’ in January 1905.  The Bulletin announced Atlas’ departure and focused on the lack of “outdoor training quarters” since the “Association did not cover this phase of athletics.”  See “Jewish Athletic Club,” Y Bulletin, May 1907. Lang’s name was listed as a member of the AAU Committee, “Basket Ball Leaders Purifying the Game,” New York Times, December 15, 1906.

[4] Additional funding in the late 1900s permitted the hiring of an “athletic coach,” though one official complained that, “too much stress was being placed on athletic work.”  See Minutes of Class Committee, March 19, 1910, Young Men’s Hebrew Association records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York.  Young adult males had an additional outlet in the late 1900s.  In 1906, the City Athletic Club was formed to “promote athletics and sociability.”  Though the vast majority of its members and leaders were Jewish, it was not considered an exclusively Jewish club.  On the City AC, see Riess, “Sports and the American Jew,” 10; “The City Athletic Club,” American Hebrew, November 20, 1908.

[5] For Mitchell’s speech, see “Jewish Athletic Club, Y Bulletin, May 1907. Lang remained a life-long YMHA member, which is likely why the Atlas records are located at the 92^nd Street Y Archives.   In the letter to the Board of Directors, Lang referred to the lack of a Jewish athletic tradition, but did not discuss the Jewish body.  He thus legitimized one aspect of the stereotype (non-athleticism), but would have likely argued against the other (physical weakness).

[6] On the APEA and physical educators, see Park, “Healthy, Moral, and Strong,” 148-154. See Mrozek, Sport and American Mentality, 36-41. On the football player as athletic ideal, see Oriard, Reading Football, 189-273 passim.  On Jewish discomfort with aspects of physical or athletic aggressiveness, see Eisen, “Jewish History and the Ideology of Modern Sport,” 512-514, 520-521.  Some physical educators like Luther Gulick worked closely with Progressive reformers while others had little interest or contact with reform efforts.  Debates over competitive sport generally revolved around the need for good management as a bulwark against it succumbing to unhealthy competitive or commercial pressures.  The APEA studied muscular activity, symmetry; anthropometry, and other ‘sciences.’  As a member of the APEA, YMHA physical education director George Schoening would have been keenly aware of the studies, debates, lectures, and symposiums occurring throughout the country.  Schoening first appeared in the membership role of the APEA in 1903, the year after becoming the YMHA physical education director.