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| John Coy |
The subtitle of Hoop Genius by John Coy, illustrated by Joe
Morse, succinctly describes the reason the game exists today: "How a
Desperate Teacher and a Rowdy Gym Class Invented Basketball." The young
men at the YMCA had already run off two teachers by the time James Naismith
arrived in December 1891. Naismith wanted to keep the guys from having
excessive physical contact while also giving them maximum exercise.
Naismith combined a popular game from his Canadian childhood
("Duck on a Rock"), which rewarded skills in accuracy, with a requirement
for speed, as the players ran up and down the court, defending their own basket
and attempting to shoot into the basket of their opponents. The simple
requirements of the game--two peach baskets and a ball--accounted for the speed
with which the game's popularity spread. The game's 13 rules fit neatly on two
double-spaced typed pages (reproduced on the book's endpapers).
Joe Morse's artwork connects past and present. He begins
with stylized artwork in a muted palette of burgundy and cornflower blue, which
includes period details but also conveys the immediacy and fast pace of the
game. The contemporary images of the game at the close of the picture book
connect back to that raw energy of those early unruly boys back in 1891.
As we draw down to the Final Four, we have a better
appreciation for how James Naismith helped channel the energy of those young
men (and a few young women, too) to bring us to the March Madness of today.
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