Basketball Before March Madness

Although the weather in Minnesota of late has been nice enough to convince us Spring actually might be coming, we must remain vigilant for a bit longer. Therefore, we will wait to post on the glories of Spring and turn our attention, like much of the nation, to basketball.

This uniform must be the height of basketball fashion. Look at those pants and shoes! This image is of Reva Foster in 1923.

And speaking of sports fashion, these pants seemed to have been popular just long enough for this team to win the championship in 1904. There are no other examples of them in the collection.

Action shots in basketball are some of the most fun. Here we see two players vying for the rebound in a tournament game of Bemidji vs. Virigina High Schools (both towns in Minnesota) in 1943.

The self-promoting caption here is hard to beat indeed. From Osseo High School, 1926.

Here we see a man teaching basketball to young men in wheelchairs in 1945.

Above is the team from Dominion Electric, photographed by Norton & Peel in 1933. One can find teams representing all aspects of life including school teams (both high school and college), professional, company teams, neighborhood, town, and church teams. See more examples in the Minnesota Historical Society's Collections Online!