1911-12 Springfield Medway Collegians basketball team

1911-12 basketball team. Collegians. RPPC. Private Collection.

These players wore ‘plus fours’ over high socks. Two players are partially IDed as Felix and Harry, with their coach Evan (who doesn’t look too much older).

Aunt Cary -Please be sure to return this. C.W.H

This is our Medway Collegians. All home boys and graduate of our High School, Olive Branch, and they belong to the YMCA league in Springfield. Play every Wed. night – and we are proud of them.

To note, the game was invented in 1891 in Springfield, Massachusetts by James Naismith as a way to condition athletes in winter. The YMCA was key to popularizing this sport around the world. During WWI, the American Expeditionary Force brought basketball wherever it went. Together with the troops, there were hundreds of physical education teachers who knew and spread the game of basketball. Naismith spent two years with the YMCA in France in that period.

(There are 38 Springfield cities and towns in the United States. Was this picture taken in the birth city of basketball in Massachusetts? It would be kind of cool but it needs more research.)