Senda Berenson Abbott

Senda Berenson Abbott ( born Senda Valvrojenski; born March 19, 1868 in Butrimonys, Lithuania, † February 16, 1954 in Santa Barbara, California ) was an American sports teacher who became a pioneer of the women's basketball celebrity. Abbott was at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and employs where they modified the rules of basketball in 1893 for women. The first known basketball game between pure women's teams was organized by Abbott and March 21, 1893 directed at Smith College from her, a little more than a year after the invention of the Game by James Naismith. Alluding to Naismith person is spoken by Abbott as the " mother of women's basketball ." As the first woman she was admitted in 1985 next to Margaret Wade for her services to the sport in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Life

Abbott's parents moved with their five children from Lithuania to the United States to Boston about as Abbott was seven years old. The family took there the last name Berenson. Senda Berenson in 1890 enrolled at the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics in order to train for sports teacher. In 1892 it assumed a position as a senior physical education teacher at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She worked in this capacity until 1911, before she married the English professor Herbert Vaughan Abbott and gave up her job. Herbert Vaughan Abbott also taught at Smith College. He died in 1929. Five years later moved Senda Berenson Abbott to her sister in Santa Barbara, California.

Senda Berenson Abbott and basketball

About a month before Abbott's position at Smith College, a girls only school, James Naismith invented in nearby Springfield ( Massachusetts) play basketball. He led it there one for his students at the YMCA Training School. Abbott was reading about the game in a magazine and visited Naismith ado, to learn more about basketball and its suitability for their students. March 21, 1893 they finally organized a game between the initial and Zweitsemestlerinnen of Smith Colleges. Male spectators were excluded. Nevertheless, the first women's basketball made ​​headlines since this type of physical training at that time was considered unseemly for women. Abbott subsequently modified the rules of the game, including through the organization of the playing field in three fixed ranges that were assigned to each players and these were not allowed to leave.

In 1899, as amended by Abbott basketball rules for women first appeared in printed form. Between 1901 and 1907 she was an editor of a magazine for women's basketball, Basketball Guide for Women. After her dismissal at Smith College in 1911, Abbott remained until 1917 as editor of this magazine operates.