COLUMN: Penn had a big part in creating basketball

Scott Miller, Commentary Naismith, whose name lives on in the award given to the nation's best men's player, invented the game and then became the physical education director at the University of Kansas. Upon inventing the game, Naismith adopted 13 rules, including provisions banning punching the ball, suspending players for a set amount of time upon committing a second foul, barring any movement when having the ball -- only allowing a pass or a shot at the goal, etc. In other words, basketball played by Naismith's terms would be virtually unrecognizable by today's standards. Penn was playing basketball in 1897, although Morgan's own testimony in 1928 states that it wasn't until 1902 that the University had any semblance of an organized team. In fact, Morgan played on the Red and Blue baseball and basketball squads on his "class teams." Still an undergraduate, Morgan established the Collegiate Basket Ball Rules Committee in 1905. This committee was renamed the National Basketball Rules Committee, the very same council governs men's and women's college basketball to this very day. Of the rules instituted by the group, the ones involving dribbling and double-dribbling were the most different from Naismith's original outline; they were rules that caused great debate. Before these rules were enacted, teams were required to pass the ball continuously, much like ultimate frisbee. Additionally, Morgan's committee established rules governing out of bounds, disqualification after five fouls and traveling. The rules committee was recognized by the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, and enforced by officials in the Eastern Intercollegiate League. According to Penn coach Lon Jourdet, the man who is credited with inventing the five-man system defense, basketball spread "like wildfire" and had "passed the shores and boundaries of the United States." With the spread of hoops' popularity came the greater need for a governing set of rules. So, when Guy Lowman of the University of Missouri was looking for input into the formation of rules for the Western Intercollegiate Basketball League, it was no surprise that he turned to Morgan. And sure enough, the WIBA adopted a set of rules exactly similar to the EIL's. Remaining secretary and secretary-treasurer but never assuming the presidency of the four-man committee -- which also included Yale's R.B. Hyatt, Columbia's Harry Fisher and Princeton's O.G. Vanderbilt -- Morgan expanded the committee for the 1910 season to a 10-man council, including one James Naismith. Also in 1910, Morgan unveiled the Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League, which would eventually become the Ivy League. Included in the EIBL teams were Cornell, Yale, Columbia, Penn and Princeton. The league tried to form in 1908, but Yale would not participate. In 1909, Princeton resolved its one season of poor athletic relations with Penn to pave the way for the league. Morgan's finishing touches to his Penn basketball influence can be summed up in two words: the Palestra. "While we were the pioneers," Edwin Abbott, who graduated in 1896, wrote in an edition of the 1928 Franklin Field magazine, "Morgan has been the real inspiration and dynamo of basketball at Pennsylvania, and the suggestion of the Palestra must ever be a lasting memorial to that sterling fellow who has done so much for the game and his alma mater."