[...]... to overlook the commercial underpinnings of amateur sport 8 In the first two decades of the twentieth century the prestige of the aau rested on its domination of the American Olympic Committee (aoc) When Baron Pierre de Coubertin masterminded the revival of the Olympic Games in 1896, track and field were the most prominent events Since the aau controlled amateur track and field competition in the United... for the spiritual development of young men in the nation’s ymcas In a classic example of the principle of unintended effects, he saw his game transformed into one of the nation’s major competitive sports, driven by the forces of the economic market place rather than the values of education In 1896, as Naismith and Gulick turned their attention to other challenges, they transferred the responsibility of. .. was also a pawn in the battle between the aau and the ncaa, founded in 1906, for control of amateur sports in the United States Founded in 1888, the aau initially was part of an effort to use sport as an instrument for promoting such values as teamwork and discipline At the heart of the amateur ethic was the belief that athletes engaged in competition for the sheer love of sport rather than for its... Most basketball fans born after 1960 would have no inkling that for the first sixty years of the twentieth century amateur basketball once competed with professional and college basketball for the attention of basketball junkies of earlier generations By amateur basketball, I mean the game governed by the Amateur Athletic Union (aau) , organized in 1888 to conduct athletic competitions and to monitor the. .. rather than for its financial rewards While the aau and ncaa preached the gospel of amateurism, it was riddled with contradictions Historians have amply documented the rise of professional college coaches in the 1890s, the lure of gate receipts, and the “under -the- table” payments to athletes that permeated collegiate and aau competition Nonetheless, the ideology of amateurism was very attractive, and American... was the capital of basketball The fans kept coming until the 1960s when television revenues and escalating salaries made it impossible for amateur teams to compete with the professional game There were several categories of teams that competed in the national tournament A handful of athletic clubs sent teams to the tournament, the most successful of which were the Kansas City Athletic Club and the. .. criticized the aau s management of the Olympic program, marking the beginning of a long bureaucratic struggle for control of the Olympic movement in the United States 9 When basketball became an Olympic sport in 1936, it immediately served as another source of tension between the two organizations In 1921, however, basketball had not yet established any traditions worthy of a fight Between 1897 and 1912 the aau. .. defeated the Buffalo Germans, who claimed the world championship by virtue of having won the basketball championship at the St Louis World’s Fair in 1904 One of the stars of the Kansas City team was Forrest “Phog” Allen, who by 1921 had just begun his long and distinguished career as the basketball coach of the University of Kansas Jayhawks The Blue Diamonds of kcac had also earned a third place finish in the. .. American teams: New York’s Renaissance Big Five (the Rens), and the Harlem Globetrotters, founded in Chicago Whether it was the aau, the colleges, or the professionals, changes in the rules and new styles of play made the game faster and more exciting By the end of 1936 basketball was about to enter a phase of its history that would eventually make it one of the world’s most popular games [First P [1],... until the 1960s before it won an aau championship Since the aau governed the tournament, teams had to observe the amateur code This meant that athletes could not play for pay or benefit in any way from their athletic fame If basketball players played professionally, they permanently lost their amateur status The programs developed by large corporations certainly blurred the distinction between amateur . PgVar ——— Normal Page * PgEnds: PageBreak [-3], (3) The Golden Age of Amateur Basketball The aau Tournament, 1921–1968 Adolph H. Grundman University of Nebraska. Gulick turned their attention to other challenges, they transferred the responsibility of governing amateur basketball to the aau. In1897 the aau conducted