HISTORIC
HAPPENINGS By Susan Hvistendahl
Max J. Exner: Basket Ball and Beyond Basket Ball. Yes, two separate words, so chosen because a janitor showed up with two peach baskets when James Naismith, instructor at the International Young Men’s Christian Association Training School in Springfield, Mass., asked for two boxes. They were used as goals for the new game he had invented to keep restless male students engaged in indoor exercise during the inclement New England winter. The baskets were attached to opposite gallery railings of the gym and on Dec. 21, 1891, the very first game of basket ball was played with a soccer ball tossed by two nine-men teams (no dribbling allowed). Naismith recalled, “Most of the fouls were called for running with the ball, though tackling the man with the ball was not uncommon.” The ball was fished out of the basket after each score. Among the participants in this first game was Naismith’s friend and roommate, Max J. Exner.
now darts to obstruct an opponent and again to protect the goal; running, dodging, squirming,” while “exercising her vocal organs to the best of her ability.” The writer concludes, “Are girls fit for the drawing room only? Can they participate in active games as boys can? Were you permitted to witness one of these games you would surely conclude that they can.” In recognition of Carleton women having been the first collegians to ever play “basket ball” in Minnesota, the Minnesota High School Girls Basketball 2014 All-Star Series will be held this year at Carleton’s West Gym on April 26. (See accompanying story by Mitchell Rennie.) The Northfield YMCA will also be honoring the Exner family legacy in the new Y Community Center which is due to open this fall. In addition, there is a display of the history of women’s basketball at the Northfield Historical Society through early June.
Max J. Exner played in the first ever “basket ball” game on Dec. 21, 1891, at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Mass., devised by his roommate James Naismith. Exner brought the game to Carleton College women during the winter of 1892-1893, making them the first collegians to play the new sport in Minnesota. Courtesy
While Max Exner’s role in promoting basketball is noteworthy, his entire life was one of accomplishment. Exner was born in the tiny village of Volkendorf in the Sudeten Mountains of old Austria on March 31, 1871. At the age of 11, he moved with his family to Boone, Iowa, where he was soon taught his father’s shoemaking trade. He showed an early interest in athletics by joining the German gymnastics club (Turnverein) in town. At the age of 16, he answered an ad for a brewer’s helper in Astoria, Oregon, worked for a time in a bakery, then moved to Seattle where he ended up leading a crew of men in the lumbering business.
Exner’s membership in the YMCA and participation on the association’s Exner moved to Northfield in the fall of gymnastics exhibition team out west 1892 to continue his studies and to join his sparked his desire to combine spiritual of Carleton College Archives; photo probably from athletically inclined older brother Franz at values with physical education and Springfield YMCA days, ca. 1892. Carleton College. Max Exner was also hired led to his enrollment in 1890 at the as the first “physical culture” instructor of men and women YMCA International Training School (now Springfield College) because of his two years of pre-med physical education work in in Massachusetts. His wife, Elizabeth Wells Exner, later wrote, Springfield. That first winter, Exner introduced the new game of “He came to know what he wanted to do with his life: give it in basket ball to his female students. The women at Carleton were Christian service to his fellowmen. He never deviated from that already accustomed to marching exercises and some work with course.” dumbbells, bar-bells, club swinging and the like. They took to At Carleton, Exner organized many sports and taught compulthis interactive game immediately, though they were forced to sory gymnastics, both light (marching and swinging of arms play in a lower gymnasium room of the Gridley Hall women’s and clubs) and heavy (tumbling, weight-lifting, rings, parallel dorm which was only 30 feet by 36 feet with poor ventilation. bars and side horses). His brother Franz, a gymnast who had The Algol yearbook covering 1892-1893 summed up the experi- initiated gymnastic classes prior to Max’s arrival, now aided ence: “…you should have seen the fun. See the ladies on the Max. Both brothers played on the fledgling “foot ball” team floor, attired in loose dresses permitting free action of the body which Max captained and coached. Max brought skills from and tennis slippers upon their feet. They are divided into two having played quarterback on the team in Springfield led by sides, standing at opposite sides of the gymnasium; their eyes Amos Alonzo Stagg. (Stagg became the legendary coach of sparkling with excitement, ready to dash at the ball when put renowned Univ. of Chicago teams, with a record which includes into play.” Each individual player “dashes to obtain the ball, an upset loss to a lightly regarded Carleton team in 1915.)
April 2014
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