{"id":58177,"date":"2013-11-25T19:00:03","date_gmt":"2013-11-26T00:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=58177"},"modified":"2013-12-04T20:20:10","modified_gmt":"2013-12-05T01:20:10","slug":"when-jews-dominated-professional-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/11\/25\/when-jews-dominated-professional-basketball\/","title":{"rendered":"When Jews Dominated Professional Basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kids growing up in dense, urban environments often turn to basketball as their sport of choice. \u00a0This is partly because it fits, in a physical sense. \u00a0All things being equal, a basketball court takes up a lot less room than a football or soccer field. \u00a0For the economically disadvantaged, it’s also relatively cheap to play. \u00a0If you have a court available, you only need a pair of shoes and a ball. \u00a0For this reason, whatever population finds itself in this type of environment tends to take up basketball.<\/p>\n

That’s why the sport was dominated by Jews in the first half of the 1900s. \u00a0Just like many African-Americans today, at that time many immigrant Jewish families found themselves isolated in inner cities. \u00a0Basketball seemed like a way out. \u00a0\u201cIt was absolutely a way out of the ghetto,\u201d\u00a0explained<\/a>\u00a0retired ball player Dave Dabrow.\u00a0 Basketball scholarships were one of the few ways low income urban Jews could afford college.<\/p>\n

Jewish basketball team<\/a> (1921-22):<\/p>\n

\"CA.1031.firstbasket\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Today we refer to stereotypes about Black men to explain why they dominate basketball, but this is an after-the-fact justification. \u00a0At the time, very different characteristics — stereotypes associated with Jews — were used to explain why they dominated professional teams. Paul Gallico, sports editor of the NY Daily News<\/em> in the 1930s, explained<\/a> that \u201cthe game places a premium on an alert, scheming mind, flashy trickiness, artful dodging and general smart aleckness.” \u00a0All stereotypes about Jews.\u00a0 Moreover, he argued, Jews were rather short and so had \u201cGod-given better balance and speed.\u201d\u00a0 Yep.\u00a0 There was a time when we thought being short was an advantage in the sport of basketball.<\/p>\n

Never underestimate the power of institutions and how much things can change.<\/p>\n

New York Knicks<\/a> (1946-1947):<\/p>\n

\"1946<\/a>Cross-posted at Pacific Standard<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kids growing up in dense, urban environments often turn to basketball as their sport of choice. \u00a0This is partly because it fits, in a physical sense. \u00a0All things being equal, a basketball court takes up a lot less room than a football or soccer field. \u00a0For the economically disadvantaged, it’s also relatively cheap to play. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":58184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,253,8080,2125,8118,283,1760,3875,20063,341,293,108],"class_list":["post-58177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-history","tag-housingresidential-segregation","tag-immigrationcitizenship","tag-organizationsinstitutions","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity-blacksafricans","tag-raceethnicity-jews","tag-raceethnicity-prejudicediscrimination","tag-ruralurban","tag-social-construction","tag-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/11\/Screenshot_23.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58177"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59709,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58177\/revisions\/59709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}