Senda Berenson Abbott

1868-1954

American physical education teacher

Known as the mother of women's basketball, Senda Berenson Abbott, in 1893, recognized the potential of the sport for women. An advocate of physical education for women and a physical education teacher at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, she revised the rules the men played by. Her modifications to the rules were meant to shield her female students from overexertion and the competitive nature of team sports. The rules she created remained in use until the 1960s.

Need for Physical Education for Women

One of five children, Senda Valvrojenski was born March 19, 1868, in Biturmansk, Lithuania. Her parents, Albert, a seller of pots and pans, and Julie Mieliszanki, were Jewish immigrants who arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1875 when Senda was seven. In America, her family changed its name to Berenson.

A weak child, Berenson studied piano at the Boston Conservatory of Music and attended the Girls' Latin School in Boston. To improve her physical abilities, she enrolled in 1890 in the newly established women's teaching college, the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics. There, she studied physical education under Amy Morris Homans and the philanthropist Mary Hemenway. Hemenway had introduced Swedish gymnastics to Boston public schools in the 1880s. Soon Berenson developed strength and stamina.

In January, 1892, Berenson left the Boston Normal School for a position in Northampton, Massachusetts, at Smith College, becoming the first director of physical education at the all-women's institution. Not long after she arrived, she learned of a game called "basket ball" invented only one month earlier by James Naismith from the nearby International Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts. Berenson read Naismith's article about the game in the YMCA publication Physical Education. Intrigued that the game could have potential for her students, she visited Naismith to learn more.

Back at Smith College, Berenson organized a trial game with the women using the same rules as the men. In March 1893, one year after basketball was invented, Berenson held the first collegiate game of women's basketball featuring teams from her freshmen and sophomore classes. Men were prohibited from watching the women play.

Although she recognized that the game provided a vigorous activity for women, Victorian propriety at the time would not allow women to behave so energetic and competitively. Newspaper articles commented on the loud and wild behavior of the women. In those days, women did not play team sports or participate in activities that allowed physical contact.

Different Rules for Women

Berenson set out to modify the 13 rules the men played by to make the game less strenuous and more inclusive for all players, not just the most skilled. She advocated traits like cooperation and socialization over competition, and was opposed to women's intercollegiate games, preferring instead intramural athletics. Berenson's new rules concentrated on orderly play that prevented women from getting over excited.

To begin with, she allowed only six team members to play on the court at one time. She also divided the court into three sections from which players were assigned and remained throughout the game. This, she reasoned, prevented the women from overexerting themselves running all over the court and prevented exceptional players from dominating the game.

To eliminate physical contact, her rules disallowed players from grabbing the ball from another player's hands. Players could not dribble more than three times before passing or shooting the ball, nor could players hold the ball for more than three seconds. Balls had to be shot with only one hand, as using two hands was believed to flatten the chest and restrict breathing. Guarding was forbidden and falling down was a foul.

In John Sippel's article, "WNBA Notes Smith's Role in Women's Basketball," he wrote that Berenson modified the rules "to prevent a young lady from developing 'dangerous nervous tendencies and losing the grace and dignity and self-respect we would all have her foster.'" Sippel added, "Berenson was among those who recognized 'that if the game did not improve its reputation for womanliness, [women] might not be allowed to play it.'"

At Smith College, Berenson's interests expanded beyond basketball. She also introduced fencing and folk dancing into the school's physical education curriculum and brought remedial gymnastics to students with special physical needs. In 1901, she arranged for field hockey to debut at Smith and helped to organize Smith College's Gymnastics and Field Association. In her continuous search for new activities, she was the second American woman to attend the Royal Central Institute of Gymnastics in Stockholm, Sweden, where she studied advanced fencing.

Wrote the Definitive Rules Book

Very soon after women began playing basketball, schools throughout the country adopted the game for their women's physical education classes. Each school had developed its own style or modified the game to suit its students. In 1899, the American Association for the Advancement of Physical Education (AAAPE) formed the Women's Basketball Rules Committee to create official rules for women players based on Berenson's modifications.

Two years later, in 1901, the rules were first published by sporting goods company A.G. Spalding in the Women's Basketball Guide, which continued to edit and revise until 1917. Berenson's rules for women's basketball remained in use until the 1960s.

Also in 1901, Berenson wrote Line Basket Ball for Women, which provided not only rules for playing the game but Berenson's philosophy about the sport's psychological and physiological effects on women. Not long after, in 1905, Berenson organized the AAAPE's Basketball Committee for Women and chaired the organization until 1917. This committee later became known as the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport.

On June 15, 1911, Senda Berenson married Smith College English professor Herbert Vaughn Abbott. That same year she resigned from the college and spent the next decade as director of physical education at the private Mary A. Burnham School for girls in Northampton, Massachusetts. In 1921, she retired and traveled to Europe to study art and music. Her brother, Bernard Berenson, was an authority on Italian Renaissance art. After Herbert Abbott died in 1929, Berenson moved to Santa Barbara, California, where she lived with her sister until her death in 1954.

Berenson's Legacy

Berenson's legacy has not been forgotten. Since her death she has been honored for her valuable role in creating and promoting women's basketball. In 1984, she was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and International Women's Sports Hall of Fame for her many contributions to the game. In the same year, Berenson and women's basketball coach Margaret Wade were the first two women elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Chronology

The Women's Basketball Coaches Association in 1984 created the Jostens-Berenson Service Award to recognize those who are committed to women's basketball. The Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tennessee, inducted Berenson in 1999 and erected a lifelike animatronic figure of her. The WNBA honored her for her commitment "to providing women with the same opportunities that were available to men." Her alma mater Smith College dedicated the Berenson Dance Studio in her honor and maintains an archive of her writings.

Women's basketball has become one of the most popular team sports for women in the United States. Today more than 1,000 colleges sponsor women's basketball teams.

Although by today's standards, Senda Berenson needlessly restricted the roughness of play and competitive nature of basketball for women, she still must be credited for single-handedly introducing the sport to a segment of the population that might otherwise not have considered daring to participate in it. She inspired young women to be athletic at a time when they were told they should have been dainty. Berenson committed her life to training women in sport and earned her place in the history of women's athletics.

Awards and Accomplishments

SELECTED WRITINGS BY BERENSON:

Line Basket Ball for Women, New York: A. G. Spaulding, 1901.

FURTHER INFORMATION

books

Hickok, Ralph. Encyclopedia of North American Sports History. New York, NY: Facts on File, 1992

Sherrow, Victoria. Encyclopedia of Women & Sports. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1996

Sparhawk, Ruth M, et al. American Women in Sports 1887-1987. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1989

Woolum, Janet. Outstanding Women Athletes. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press, 1992

Other

International Sports Hall of Fame. http://www.internationalsports.com/sa_hof/hof_inductees.html (September 27, 2002).

"Senda Berenson Asserts the Value of Adapted Women's Basketball, 1901." Barnard College. http://www.barnard.columbia.edu/amstud/resources/women/berenson.htm (September 27, 2002).

"Senda Berenson; Papers, 1875-1996." Five College Archives Digital Access Project. http://clio.fivecolleges.edu/smith/berenson (September 27, 2002).

"WNBA Notes Smith's Role in Women's Basketball." Smith College. http://www.smith.edu/newssmith/NSFall97/WNBA.html (September 27, 2002).

Sketch by Lorraine Savage