Foundations of Sports

John P.

Professor T

Class

28 October 2014

Essay

        We split up into groups in Professor T’s  class, she assigned us a topic and we had to get up in front of the class and talk about that topic.  One of the first topics discussed was the Age of Enlightenment. It described naturalism which is everything according to nature, nationalism which is a belief of one becoming attached to, one’s nation. Johann Baselow was a German teacher who established schools that used naturalistic values such as fencing, writing, running, and wrestling. Unified nations came off as threating, and banned all organized sports. The next topic was Sports in Great Britain. Cricket is very popular in Great Britain it is like baseball in the United States it has 11 players out on the field at a time.  They had 9-pin bowling, field hockey, and tennis, which used to be called lawn tennis. Soccer is also very popular there were 250 million players in 200 countries. The last one is table tennis, which most people know of as Ping-Pong it was played by the wealthy and upper class people.

        Collegiate sports for men and women started at Yale in 1852 when the first sports club was originated. The first college football game was against Princeton and Rutgers. In the early 1900’s there were poor college sports. In 1906 the NCAA started which stands for National Collegiate Athletic Association. The first women’s sports started in the late 1800’s, which were archery, croquet, and tennis. They also didn’t have to wear revealing clothes. German gymnastics was introduced to the U.S. in 1825. Mean and women were both required taking physical education classes in 1860. One group talked about the establishment of normal schools for physical education. Schools started establishing in the 1860’s. In 1885 the YMCA school was established it stands for Young Men’s Christian Association. But it is now fit for men, women, and children.

        There was an increase in youth and amateur sports after the civil war.  Growth of organized schools led to playground movement. They wanted to keep kids safe and off the streets so playgrounds were built.  The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) was formed in 1879, and it’s very popular in today’s society. They also formed the Highland Games, which included javelin throwing and tug of war. We have Highland Games every year here in Scotland County.  I found the Homeric and Spartans Era to be very interesting. Greek poet Homero wrote the odyssey.  People looked to Gods as someone who had strength, endurance, agility, and bravery. Sparta was the most dominant region at this time. Girls married at age 20 and boys became Spartans at age 7 and were war ready.  The Early Cultures went from 3100B.C.- 2650B.C. Alexander the Great captured Egypt from Persians in 332B.C. Egyptians did not have physical activity they just had spiritual rituals. In the early cultures Chinese sports included flying kites, playing chess, and Kung Fue which mean learned skill, or great achievement.