Beginning of Organized Sports in America

Where it all began… The history of organized _______ in the United States begins with the New York ____________________ in the l840s. The Knickerbockers, a social club much like a modern country club, was composed of professional men (_________________________________). The group formed the first known baseball club; one writer stated, "This was the first time in American history that grown men put on costumes and played a child's game".

Collegiate Sports The history of collegiate sports in American life can be traced from ___________________________ engaged in perhaps the first team sport on the continent, lacrosse. The male students in colleges first played team games as extracurricular diversions from their studies and the rigid and confining rules of the mostly ______________ oriented schools. The sports were usually played as class competitions; and although less organized and controlled than today's sports, they were similar to modern intramural sports programs. The earliest sports that developed in the male colleges were student organized, governed, and controlled. Because only the _______________ people could afford to attend college, it was they who were _______________ to engage in sports.

Collegiate Sports Cont. And because only _____________ were allowed to attend institutions of higher education before the 1850s, sports for women developed later and with an entirely different purpose. Intercollegiate sports for men began in 1852 with a rowing contest between _________ and ________. That first contest was sponsored by a railroad company, and men's intercollegiate sports from that first encounter have been as much related to commercial enterprise as to educational endeavor. After that Yale versus Harvard rowing contest, a New York newspaper predicted that intercollegiate sports would “____________ ___________________________________."

Collegiate Sports Cont. The emergence of women's sports was quite different from that of men. Society was much less ________________ of the notion of women athletes. Whereas the highly skilled male athlete became a _______________, the highly skilled female was more often ridiculed or _____________. In the mid-nineteenth century, sports outside the collegiate world for upper-class girls and women consisted primarily of proper activities, such as ____________________________________. Women's sports were acceptable to society _______if they were considered social affairs, promoted health, were noncompetitive, and were not strenuous enough to require a special costume. The _______________, however, unleashed women from social restrictions in the late 1890s more than any sport. The bicycle demanded special attire to protect women's voluminous skirts from becoming entangled in wheel chains, and it also freed women to travel on their own without a ___________________to drive the carriage. The bicycle, although approved more for the working girl than the debutante, promoted the divided skirt, which was the precursor to shorts and long pants that eventually ____________ ______________________________________________________

Collegiate Sports Cont. Women's sports were born and raised through the matriarchal hands of women physical educators whose objective was to promote recreational sports for all girls while prohibiting highly competitive sport for any. The women leaders in physical education proclaimed through the 1960s that their goal was “____________________________ _________________________________."

Professional Sports The United States was formed on _________ ideas, and certainly sports in America reflect the greater society. ____________ to players has been used to distinguish amateurs from professionals in the United States. The earliest sign of professional sports in the United States was the baseball players of the mid-nineteenth century charging gate receipts to spectators and then dividing the money among them. ___________________________were the front runners in organized professional sports in the _________________________.

Professional Sports Boxing…Jack Johnson… ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________

Professional Sports Because ____________________ prohibited black and white players on the same team, African Americans formed their own baseball teams beginning in the 1880s. They barnstormed across the country, playing each other and occasionally having special games against the ___________________________.

Professional Sports Negro League baseball was successful by the ________________, and by the 1930s both _______________________________________ Leagues were formed. Most successful of the Negro League teams were the ____________________ and the ____________________ of western Pennsylvania. Although Negro League baseball never achieved the financial stability of white organized baseball, it produced some of the greatest players in history. Players such as ________________________________________ ________________________________________ had baseball skills that equaled the white players of Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, and Dizzy Dean.