Rules & Regulations When the Game Started

Rules & Regulations When the Game Started

The game of women’s basketball looks completely different today than it did when it first started. Wheelock paints a timeline of women’s basketball and shows the time and adaptations of the game. “Women's basketball began in the winter of 1892 at Smith College. Senda Berenson, an instructor at Smith, taught basketball to her students, hoping the activity would improve their physical health. She didn’t know that she would be starting a sport that would eventually develop into the most popular women’s sport.”2 In order to keep it "acceptable" for women to play, she taught modified rules. These included a court divided into three areas and nine players per team. Three players were assigned to each area (guard, center, forward) and could not cross the line into another area. The ball was moved from section to section by passing or dribbling. The players were limited to three dribbles and could hold the ball for more than three seconds. No snatching or batting the ball away from a player was allowed. A center jump was required after each score.1 Peach baskets and the soccer ball was the only equipment used on a ninety-four foot by fifty foot court. They played two fifteen minute halves with eleven referees.1

The first game was held in March of 1893 where Berenson's freshmen played the sophomore class in the gym. In 1922 they required that there must be a minimum of six and a maximum of nine players on each side. It wasn’t until 1938 that basketball became a two-court game with just six people on each team. During this time the game started to get more popular and women began to gain a little bit of power. It wasn’t until 1971 that the women’s game developed most of the same rules and regulations that the boys played with.The American Association for Health and Physical Education (1972) wrote the first rule book for women’s five on five basketball with only two to three referees. This means that every player on each team will have to run the full ninety-four feet, the game is no longer broken into “two courts”. This change was one of the biggest changes in making women’s basketball popular.    

1. A. (1972). official basketball rules for girls and women. pp. 1-48. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED080474.pdf

2. Wheelock. (2014). historical timeline - women's basketball hall of fame. Retrieved March 22, 2016, from http://www.wbhof.com/Timeline.html