History Of Sport
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This article has been copied from wikipedia:history_of_sport.
History of sport is probably as old as the existence of people as purposive beings. Sport has been a useful way for people to increase their mastery of nature and the environment. The history of sport can teach us a great deal about social changes and about the nature of sport itself. Sport seems to involve basic human skills being developed and exercised for their own sake, in parallel with being exercised for their usefulness. Of course, as we go further back in history the dwindling evidence makes this more difficult to support.
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Pre-history
Captain Cook, when he first visited the Hawaiian Islands, in 1778, reported on the native people surfing. The native American Indians engaged in games and sports before the coming of Europeans, such as lacrosse type ball games, running, and other athletic activities. The ancient Mayan and Aztec civilisations played serious ballgames. The courts used at that time are still used today. It is reasonable to assume from these and other historical sources that sport has origins which lie in the beginnings of mankind itself.
Although surfing was banned shortly after the arrival of Cpt. Cook by Calvanist missionaries for racial issues, I don't see how this is pre-history. To me, Pre-history of sports would be around or before the olympic games. I think this section of prehistory should be deleted. In another paragraph, perhaps about early racial issues with sports, we could annex this information with other similair information.--Cberryman 09:20, 2 Nov 2005 (Pacific Standard Time)
Ancient history
Individual sports, such as wrestling and archery, have been practiced worldwide since ancient times. Sport has been increasingly organized and regulated from the time of the Ancient Olympics up to the present century. Some notable examples, including Kabaddi in India and various Mesoamerican ballgames. Activities necessary for food and survival became regulated activities done for pleasure or competition on an increasing scale, e.g. hunting, fishing, horticulture.
Modern history
Segregation was a defining element of sport for black Americans, affecting every level of competition ranging from industrial ball to sandlot sports to professional sports. Interracial sport was an intimate and forbidden arena for cross-racial interaction, and thus the integration of major professional sports was very symbolic.
Integration: Major Professional Sports in the United States
Baseball and football were the first major professional sports in the United States to integrate. The social impact of baseball's integration was much more profound than football's. In the 1940s, football did not have nearly the fan interest it has today. The more established sport during the segregation era, baseball had a fully formed set of African-American leagues. Still, football had the college level of play which had no counterpart in baseball, and here African-Americans were not always excluded. Many African Americans achieved notoriety in college ball, but they were never given a chance to play in the NFL. In the 1940s, the racial barriers began to crumble. World War II presented the obvious point that the nation was fighting to end the evils of racism as carried out by Hitler, and, for at least some Americans, the maintaining of racial segregation at home was too obvious and embarrassing a contradiction. Still, paradoxically, baseball and football maintained segregated teams during the war despite incredible manpower shortages.
The 1947-1948 baseball season opened with a new Brooklyn Dodger at second base: Jackie Robinson, the first African American in the major leagues. For the first time in the twentieth century, professional baseball, the national pastime, was integrated.
Since the late nineteenth century, pro baseball and other professional sports had barred black players. The only venues open to black professional athletes were the Harlem Globetrotters, the "clown princes" of basketball, and segregated black teams.
In 1946, when the football Rams moved from Cleveland to Los Angeles, they signed two black football stars from UCLA, Kenny Washington and Woody Strode. In 1950, the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball League signed Chuck Cooper and the New York Knicks signed Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton. In the wake of the defeat of the Nazis and their abhorrent racial policies, American professional sports were integrated.
Football
The Cleveland Browns of the old All-America Football Conference and the Los Angeles Rams of the NFL initially broke the racial barriers in 1946. Kenny Washington and Woody Strode signed with LA; Marion Motley and Bill Willis were signed by Cleveland. Both Willis and Motley are in the Hall of Fame. Other teams then began to integrate gradually. The Washington Redskins, Levy notes, were the last to integrate in 1962, and then only because of political pressure. The 1969 Kansas City Chiefs were the first to have a 50-50 racial mix. Washington was the worst team in the league while it resisted integration; the '69 Chiefs won the Super Bowl.
Baseball
The official integration of Major League baseball, which occurred when the Brooklyn Dodgers recruited Jackie Robinson in 1947, was a ground-breaking event. Such a move represented the ultimate affirmation of interracial play.
Basketball
In early December 1891, Luther Gulick, chairman of the physical education department at the School for Christian Workers (now Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts, instructed physical education teacher James Naismith to invent a new game to entertain the school's athletes during the winter season. With an ordinary soccer ball, Naismith assembled his class of 18 young men, appointed captains of two nine-player teams, and introduced them to the game of Basket Ball(then two words). The soccer ball and peach basket soon gave way to specialized equipment. The peach basket was later replaced by a metal rim with a net hanging below, and in 1906 people began opening the netting to let the ball fall through. The first basketballs were made from panels of leather stitched together with a rubber bladder inside. A cloth lining was added to the leather for support and uniformity. The molded basketball, introduced somewhere around 1942 was a significant advancement for the sport. The molded ball, a factory-made ball that had a constant size and shape, offered better reaction and durability, making play more consistent and the development of individual skills easier. In Naismith's original 13 rules, the ball could be batted in any direction with one or both hands, but it could not be dribbled because players could not move with the ball. Beginning in 1910 a player could dribble the ball, but could not shoot after dribbling. It was not until 1916, following heated debate, that players were allowed to shoot after dribbling.
Historically, basketball was a majorily white sport, until a shift in this trend about 20 years ago when we started seeing more African-American basketball players. Today, 80 percent of the players in the NBA are African-American.
Some historians – notably Bernard Lewis – claim that team sports are a primarily an invention of Western cultures. The traditional teams sports, according to these authors, springs from Europe, primarily England. This ignores some of the ancient games of cooperation from Central America and the Indian subcontinent. The Industrial Revolution and mass production brought increased leisure which allowed increases in spectator sports, less elitism in sports, and greater accessibility. With the advent of mass media and global communication, professionalism became prevalent in sports. This further sports popularity in general. Perhaps in a reaction to the demands of contemporary life, there have been developments in sport which are best described as post-modern: extreme ironing being a notable example. There is also a move towards adventure sports as a form of escaping or transcending the routines of life, examples being white water rafting, canyoning, BASE jumping, Parkour and more genteelly, orienteering.
Minority histories
The flood of immigration to the United States in that period was a boost for American industry, but most of the immigrants became the labor for industrialized factories. For many, sports were not just a respite but an escape, because class boundaries had not been strongly established in sports. To some of the wealthy, professional sport was a dirty business, but they may have found it pleasing because it kept the masses engaged, rather than enraged over their economic troubles. In addition, sports allowed immigrants to establish and retain cultural capital, a term often identified with education but one that can be applied to sports as well. Many of these immigrants could not even imagine a career as a professional athelete, but the children of these immigrants saw sports as a way to get out of their impoverished lifestyle.